Online poker player? The FBI has your money!

[shiznitz]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/04/three-largest-online-poker-sites-indicted-and-shut-down-by-fbi.html

The founders of the three largest online poker sites were indicted by the FBI on Friday in what could serve as a death blow to the thriving industry.

Eleven executives at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker were charged with bank fraud and money laundering in an indictment unsealed in a Manhattan court. Two of the executives were arrested on Friday morning in Utah and Nevada. Federal agents are searching for the others.

[trias_e]

So the owners of Full Tilt, Absolute Poker, and Poker Stars just get indicted for bank fraud, illegal gambling, and money laundering.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/15/us-gambling-idUSTRE73E6HW20110415

http://www.businessinsider.com/boy-genius-online-poker-scandal-2011-4

As someone who has played professionally for the last few years, this is both unsurprising and utterly mind-blowing.  Of course this sort of action was not something outside the realm of possibility.  The idea that that my money on these sites was at risk was always in the back of my mind, which is why I never had 'too much' on there.  Still, I had too much on there.  I should have never exceeded a certain cap, but I never set a strict amount, just sort of playing it by ear.

To instantly have your means of income for ~3 years unavailable to you, and to instantly have a reasonably large sum of money disappear is just...well, it's quite the paradigm shift.  At least I'm used to losing money, that's one benefit of being a poker player.  Also, I guess it's possible I might actually eventually get that money.  Doubtful, but possible.   It's the inability to play for a living that actually hurts more.  Guess it's time to start applying to pizza delivery joints.  

[Trippy]

Better (original) article on Tzvetkoff :

http://www.couriermail.com.au/ipad/web-kings-life-on-the-line/story-fn6ck45n-1226039907165

[Bunk]

I guess I'm glad the only one I had any cash at is Party Poker, which I'm pretty sure isn't American based.

[Trippy]

None of them are American based.

[Sand]

Why, when in the eyes of the US law you are an international criminal, would you set foot in the US?
Why are ANY of these exec's in the US? Id be living in a warm non-extradition country enjoying my billions.

[WayAbvPar]

This is just stunning. Hopefully this will get people to look at the issue and get it regulated once and for all. There is just way too much money in it to leave the US market completely unserviced.

[Fordel]

 Guess it's time to start applying to pizza delivery joints.  

There's always Vegas!

[Chimpy]

This is just stunning. Hopefully this will get people to look at the issue and get it regulated once and for all. There is just way too much money in it to leave the US market completely unserviced.

Pretty sure the government is working on passing some kind of legislation that will allow online gambling.

I was perusing a magazine about Indian affairs at work the other day and there was a lot of articles in there about how the Tribal Nations are looking at how they can take a slice of the market when it becomes legal.

[Merusk]

This is just stunning. Hopefully this will get people to look at the issue and get it regulated once and for all. There is just way too much money in it to leave the US market completely unserviced.

Once they figure out how to tax it, yes.  Nobody's figured it out yet, so it will remain banned.

It doesn't matter anyway, as the bot market can now beat average human players almost all the time and can even beat the best sometimes.  Online Poker is about to meet the MMO market's nightmare, but with higher stakes.

[trias_e]

Right now bots are only relevant in HU limit hold'em, a very specific form of poker.  Or perhaps really short stacked NL games. Bots are nowhere close to being able to beat deep stack NL games, which is what the vast majority of players play.

[Krakrok]

And Zynga Poker continues on...

[Ubvman]

And Zynga Poker continues on...

I am more partial to the poker in Puzzle Pirates. And I get to be a pirate! Arrrr!

[Sand]

This is just stunning. Hopefully this will get people to look at the issue and get it regulated once and for all. There is just way too much money in it to leave the US market completely unserviced.

Pretty sure the government is working on passing some kind of legislation that will allow online gambling.

I was perusing a magazine about Indian affairs at work the other day and there was a lot of articles in there about how the Tribal Nations are looking at how they can take a slice of the market when it becomes legal.

They already are getting a cut. The servers for most of the online gambling community are being run out of one small Indian tribe's server farm in Canada.

[NowhereMan]

Why, when in the eyes of the US law you are an international criminal, would you set foot in the US?
Why are ANY of these exec's in the US? Id be living in a warm non-extradition country enjoying my billions.

The US has extradited people who have never set foot in the US for crimes that they didn't technically commit in the US. Where you live isn't especially important if the US government decides it wants to lock you up.

[schild]

And Zynga Poker continues on...

I don't even get the implication here. There's no gambling to Zynga Poker, so I can only assume this qualifies as "haters gonna hate."

[Krakrok]

And Zynga Poker continues on...

I don't even get the implication here. There's no gambling to Zynga Poker, so I can only assume this qualifies as "haters gonna hate."

http://techcrunch.com/2009/07/27/is-zynga-a-target-for-state-attorneys-general/

Now, back to the competitor who leaked us the brief. The person called the meeting under the condition of anonymity, so I can’t divulge who it was. But the source argued they commissioned the brief because they too had thought of building poker applications, having watched Zynga’s success and wanted to see if there would be legal implications down the line. The findings were enough to scare them away from it.

[schild]

/shrug, you just linked me to a two year old absolutely obsolete article that holds no relevance.

Edit: Before you jump back in on this, my only point is that if nothing happened two years ago, certainly nothing is going to happen now. So saying they're continuing to operate simply drips of butthurt venom and doesn't actually hold any water in the conversation this thread is about. I should've just replied to your original post with "U Jelly?" but I didn't. That may have been my mistake.

[Krakrok]

How is it obsolete? Whatever legal shit they made up to write it hasn't changed since the article was written.

Edit: Those poker sites operated for a long time before getting whacked as well. Same with Linden Labs casinos.

The main difference between virtual poker and real poker is one you can pull money out and the other you can't. In the Linden Labs situation you could pull money out. In the original article I linked the main claim was the gray market let you pull money out and/or the chips had value and could be gifted.

Same with the obscenity task force. Sometimes the feds care and sometimes they don't.

They care about real poker sites at the moment and not porn.

[schild]

 

[Paelos]

Can you even win anything from Zynga poker? Do they give away prizes? Do you turn chips in for prizes? I'm unsure as to what the point of the game would be other than fun.

[Rendakor]

It's clear that the FBI hates fun.

[Khaldun]

It's definitely annoying. I don't make any money from PokerStars, but playing small stakes with a small amount of money (I've had $50-75 there for years) is the way you get a good game. Play money poker anywhere online is just not very fun. I don't really care for playing in the local brick-and-mortar casinos here--we have a grubby, unpleasant Harrah's nearby with some serious colluders (the dealers are totally undertrained for dealing with collusion and a lot of other shit, including in some cases having to have winning hands pointed out and explained to them) and I don't really feel like going to AC or Vegas all that often. I wonder if some kind of deal can get worked out where the brick-and-mortar operators are given licenses or a big cut to run online poker, given how many people clearly prefer it.

[Merusk]

The public wailing and gnashing of teeth from people who were playing for a living in what was, at best, a grey area has been most amusing for me at least.

[trias_e]

http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/20/technology/online_poker_players_accounts/?section=money_latest

Thank God.  It's one thing to not feel sympathy for those engaged in online poker losing their source of income because of the operators existing in a legal grey area, and I would likely agree if I weren't one of them:  However, the players actions were not in a ''grey area'.  The act of playing online poker is legal as long as you're not in Washington state.  So a forfeiture of player funds (not full tilt/pokerstars funds) would have been pretty fucking lame.

[WayAbvPar]

Barney Frank made a very good point about this whole mess (he has been trying to get it legalized for a couple of years now at least). Why is the DoJ going after these relatively small fish instead of the assholes on Wall Street who took down the entire economy?

[HaemishM]

Those Wall Street assholes pay taxes. Ok, well they file tax returns at least. 

[WayAbvPar]

This is great.

Want evidence of illegal activity?  One time, I went all-in with pocket aces only to be called by an unsuited ace-eight.  Even your most novice of player knows I have a 92.1% chance of winning that hand.  Somehow, my opponent flopped two 8s and I drew dead the rest of the way.  Now that was criminal.

If you need any more details of my bad beats, I have nearly all of them memorized and would be happy to tell you about them for hours on end after as few as two beers.

 

[shiznitz]

Barney Frank made a very good point about this whole mess (he has been trying to get it legalized for a couple of years now at least). Why is the DoJ going after these relatively small fish instead of the assholes on Wall Street who took down the entire economy?

Barney Frank is in bed up to his duodenum with Wall Street.

[KallDrexx]

According to ArsTechnica, they have reopened their servers to allow you to withdraw your money