DOJ Agree to PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker Player Cashouts

[scrawnybob]

Hi all

some good news of sorts for US players worrying about seized funds an agreement has been announced to facilitate cashouts for US players on PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker

not sure what is happening with UB / Absolute but they might have played around a bit too much over the siezure allowing US players to continue to play - who knows at the moment but I think will let them sweat for a couple more days before sorting out a similar one way opening

News ... DOJ Agrees Cashout of US Poker Players Funds

I will post up more info and thoughts in the poker blog at some point on Friday 22nd

cheers scrawnybob

[BillysGirl907]

Granted I don't have much on my FTP account but it still sucks to know I can't get to my own money. I don't understand how PS is able to allow withdrawals but FTP won't. Their stance of "we can't track the money the government seized" just isn't flying with me.

[Alnoble]

I think you will find the answer in Bob's blog. PS are based in the Isle of Man which has it's advantages for Tax purposes but also has some very strict and sensible finance and gambling laws. Their statement explains this.

[Dan Abnormal]

Here an article in Miami Newspaper, They cover some new stuff and most stuff you know but one thing f'd up is look at how the lawmaker of FLorida consider online poker the equivalent of online crack, its a pretty good read, and the comment are good especially the reply about medicare fraud and teh governor we have in florida

Odds aren’t looking good for online poker players - Nation - MiamiHerald.com

[scrawnybob]

hi all

here is a bit of an update on the US poker situation and also some thoughts

Not So Black Friday for US Poker

cheers SB

[Dan Abnormal]

There's a great podcast up on anteup.com its an hr 1/2 podcast on black friday a week after it happened and they into great detail with where all this could possible be heading and then they have someone that knows about the dude who got busted (on bobs blog), from APril 2010 is when he got busted and feel he made the deal with the DOJ the day after his arrest since bail was first denied and the next day he was given bail. It was said he stole like 30M from FT and 15M from UB and it seems all the sites had something in getting this dude arrested. REally interesting podcast

[scrawnybob]

hi all

yep the guy squealed pretty quick - no suprise really facing a lifetime of charges etc

stupidly I had heard that it was one of the poker rooms that tipped the feds off that he was landing in the US and where etc

really dumbass move IMHO

ok the guy fleeced you for some cash - but its going to cost a hell of alot more to get the DoJ off their backs and they're out of the US market for a good while too

my take on where things are going is at the bottom of the "Not So Black Friday for US Poker" blog post (Ive also added a couple of other things at the bottom to clarify too

cheers SB

[Peteyweestro]

It's sorta funny that after all the dust has settled and Bodog, Merge & Cake are getting more players i have still not heard 1 person or forum mention the Everleaf network as an option.They have alot of rooms and very few players, even before Black Friday they would have like 1000 max playing no one in the sit n go's and barely any tournies so i wonder why they don't make themselves known as now seems like the time to advertise

[scrawnybob]

hi

I think the answer for Everleafs ongoing lack of traction is one all of the smaller networks need to think about

instead of working together to get new customers to the network basically they end up fighting over the same few "valuable" customers among the same network by trying to offer the high raking winning players the best possible deals means they spend what little margin there is on those players and not on getting new ones and affiliates end up doing the same thing instead of again concentrating on what they're job should be which is to encourage new players to take up our enjoyable hobby and provide information on the whole of poker not just offers and special deals

there is something like a 100+ sites on everleaf with something like max 700 players on peak daily ... given there isnt one obvious leading room thats a very thin spead of players for each business - which to me doesnt give me much sense of security and long term viability

thats maybe just me being cautious but I could live with average software and lower traffc IF that was from a core of 3-4 businesses pulling in all the traffic etc

I would just stick with Bodog as first choice and Carbon as these businesses are either individual sites or on the flagship and biggest sites on a network.

I know alot of affiliates will take the opportunity of the seizures to start recommending any old less known sites on US friendly networks just to get new signups from the homeless PS, FT and AP players but thats not how I roll

cheers SB