BG Poker League

[shaddix]

omfg
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...l#post26055852

My pokerstars checks that I deposited into my bank weeks ago( and cleared), have been reversed. It's not likely anybody will get their money. Check your bank account if you recently deposited a pokertstars check.

[wyrmtung]

When I read the news, I thought of this thread. I wonder if the mass exodus will cause any of the companies to shut down. It's going to be like George Bailey trying to calm down the mob in "It's a Wonderful Life."

Would be interesting to know how much of their business is US business.

[dejet]

almost makes me happy that I could not play the last few months. Cashed out about 3 months back, saved myself a decent chunk of money....

Good luck to the rest of you. Odds are FT/PS accounts wont see their money.

[Saga]

I wrote a long, long ass article on this for a magazine class about four years ago as a sophomore in college, tons of information in it about the UIGEA and what the Poker Players' Alliance was/is doing to try and combat what's happening right now. Some of the information is probably dated but if you want to take a peek, it's spoilered below.

Spoiler: show

Inside a Harvard Law School lecture hall, thirty-four poker players from all over Boston gather to brainstorm ideas to combat Governor Deval Patrick’s Casino Expansion Bill. The bill would construct three new casinos throughout Massachusetts, generating an estimated $400 million dollars in licensing fees over a ten-year period, but a provision on the bill would serve to criminalize online gambling with a punishment of up to two years in prison.

The inside of the lecture hall was painted white and the seats were situated on three different levels wrapping around the semi-circular room. On the bottom level, seated at the podium in the center of the room was a dark-skinned, bald man wearing a navy blue polo and khaki pants. He introduces himself as Vin Narayan. A reporter at CNN for the past fifteen years, Narayan has followed all the significant pieces of antigambling legislation since their inception.

Standing next to Narayan is Charles Nesson, Weld Professor of Law at Harvard University. Nesson is in his mid-sixties, sporting a black turtleneck sweater and a pair of khakis. He’s looking around the room and smirking; perhaps at the seemingly rag-tag group of citizens crammed into this small auditorium in an effort to protest a bill serving to criminalize online gambling.

Everyone takes turns introducing themselves. Young and old, tall and short, hardened and softened; the room runs the whole gamut of poker players. Everyone in the room is faced with the same challenges in combating poker legislation that would be detrimental to their way of life.

Many real world poker players make their living playing online poker; Patrick’s Casino Expansion Bill would take away that ability from people. Some argue that there’s a quick fix: head out to the brick-and-mortar casinos and play there, but executive director of the Poker Players Alliance John Papas points out a flaw in that argument: “Some people can’t make it to the regular casinos,” Pappas says. Online poker clients provide a quick, convenient way to play poker from your living room and offer a potentially lower risk of emptying your wallet in a single night. “You can play at a rate that’s economical to you,” Pappas says. “You can spend ten to twenty dollars a week – the cost of a movie ticket. It makes it a more global game.” According to statistics gathered by MSN Money contributor Jennifer Mulrean, over two million people in the United States play poker online in any given month.

Texas Hold’em remains the most popular among online poker clients. In a study by Poker Pro Labs, 78 percent of online poker players play Texas Hold’em. Other variations on poker garner much less popularity, with only 17 percent engaging in Omaha/HI-LO, 3 percent in 7-Card Stud, and 2 percent in 5-Card Draw.

While Texas Hold’em is overwhelmingly more popular, many poker pros take advantage of all the variations available to them. Professional poker player and native Massachusetts resident Joe Miranda says, “It’s important to be knowledgeable about each kind of poker game. You can’t specialize in one specific area. Being one-dimensional like that is never to your advantage. You have to study Razz, you have to study seven card stud, you have to study eights or better. You need more than one way to make money. That’s true in any profession.”

However, with the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, making money playing online poker has become increasingly difficult and has hurt the U.S. economy and the poker industry. Passed in 2006, the UIGEA prohibits the exchange of funds between a financial institution and any Internet gambling site. “The UIGEA is an intrusion on free-flowing internet,” says Randall Castonguay, president of the Massachusetts PPA branch. “Playing poker is being placed in the same category as child pornography.”

Prior to the UIGEA, online poker clients like PartyPoker, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker held tournaments to give away seats in that year’s World Series of Poker Main Event (a real-life poker tournament). These tournaments were called “satellites” and offered the winners of these tournaments the chance to go to the Main Event for considerably less money. Entering satellite tournaments usually costs around $300 to $500, while enrolling in the Main Event cost an even $10,000. With the passage of the UIGEA, all the online poker clients could not give out seats to the Main Event since the exchange of money for satellite tournaments constitutes an exchange of funds between a financial institution and a gambling site. The UIGEA’s effect on the poker industry was seen immediately. From 2006 to 2007, the World Series of Poker Main Event alone went from 8,733 participants to 6,358 participants. The player loss in 2007 marked the first year since 1992 that Main Event participation decreased. The 2,415-player deficit indicates the amount of tournament seats actually given away by online poker clients.

In addition to alienating poker players, the UIGEA prevents the United States from cashing in on a $12 billion industry. It isn’t just online poker contributing to that total, either; in fact, according to CNN correspondent and gambling legislation expert Vin Narayan, online poker is the smallest portion of online gambling that makes up that $12 billion. Online casinos and slots make up the largest portion of the online gambling industry, with sports betting as the second largest. The result is that online poker clients are moving offshore, creating a need for new online services called “e-wallets.” You transfer money into an e-wallet and then transfer money from the e-wallet to the offshore poker client for use. “There’s a huge loss of opportunity here. It’s slipping through our fingers,” Castonguay says. “Billions of dollars are going overseas.”

A month after the UIGEA was passed, online gambling websites watched as their stocks plummeted. PartyGaming.com, which owns PartyPoker, saw a 60 percent decrease in its stock, bottoming out at just $51.06 per share in December 2006. The industry has since recovered and the United States is beginning to feel the effects of its decision. “We already had treaties in place we were supposed to abide by,” Castonguay says. “We broke those treaties when we passed the UIGEA. The U.S. government is now forced to pay compensation to twelve different countries for forcing money overseas.”

In an effort to combat the UIGEA, the Poker Players Alliance has started lobbying on behalf of poker players across the country. The PPA is made up of over 950,000 American poker players. “Our goal is to function as one voice – to promote and defend the game,” Pappas says. “We operate mainly using grassroots, lobbying, and member-to-member advocacy.” Founded in 2006, the PPA has branches in all fifty states and continues to grow each year. The PPA also set a goal to regulate poker, allowing the U.S. to get in on the industry and poker players to play online without fear of being criminalized. “Under a regulated regime, you can’t hop on PokerStars and spend five hundred dollars in an hour,” Pappas says. “There’s an ability to set limits you can’t do in real casinos.” Castonguay agrees. “I’ve never seen a pit boss in a brick-and-mortar casino stop me from spending too much money. Online, there’s self-imposed limits. Under a government-regulated system, you’d be able to monitor spending,” he says. Most often, online poker players fail to report their expenses when it comes time for taxes. Castonguay proposes one solution: “a W2 form on the website that you’d be required to fill out before you can start gambling.”

In order to regulate online poker, poker must be viewed as a skill game, not a game of chance. The UIGEA prohibits gambling on games of chance, such as craps or roulette. While an element of chance is present, poker revolves almost entirely around skill. “Our job as poker players is to ground poker and wrench it free from this term ‘gambling’ that has this stranglehold on it. Poker is more than a game. It’s a way of thinking. You actually feel your brain working and dealing with all sorts of variables,” Nesson says. While chance may appear to play a large part in poker, the best hands don’t always necessarily win. A skilled player may be able to bluff his opponent and win a pot with the worst hand.

The challenges in defining poker as a skill game are twofold, Narayan believes. “The moral crusaders and the legislators are the people we need to convince right now. The first question is how do we throw the moral crusaders a bone?” he says. Narayan suggests: “Try and create a virtual monopoly here in Massachusetts. Want to gamble? You have to go to these specific casinos. This helps blunt the argument against compulsive gamblers – the ‘click the mouse, lose the house’ stereotype,” he says.

Within these two types of people, there exist three subtypes: those who think poker is gambling, those who think poker is skilled gambling, and those who think poker is a game of skill. “You guys already have the third group on your side. The second hurdle now, after the moral crusaders, is getting group number three to believe that this issue is within their political interest to take on,” Narayan says. “The opposition’s argument, the moral crusaders’ and legislators’ argument is that online gambling is an addiction. Ex-congressman Jim Leach, who headed up the UIGEA, spoke at Harvard a few weeks ago and made completely unsubstantiated statements, saying that ‘most people who play poker online will lose their house or their job. It’s 10 to 100 times more addictive than brick-and-mortar gambling.’ These are the kind of people we’re up against.”

Many legislators and moral crusaders often appeal to human emotion in an attempt to strike down online gambling. “They’ll tell you ‘don’t go down this path because ‘this’ is going to happen to you.’ We’re up against the basic emotional instincts of the American public,” Narayan says. “We have to convince enough legislators who are not pre-disposed to believing poker is a skill game that poker is a skill game.” Nesson stressed the urgency in reaching this goal, saying once something becomes law it becomes difficult to undo it. The sheer external force required to undo law becomes far too great. “The reason we poker players are willing to vote this provision down is because we understand the effect it would have on online poker,” Nesson says.

Another problem poker players face in convincing legislators that poker is a skill game are the high barriers of entry required to player poker. With poker, you have to be willing to lose money or to learn the game. “Poker is a game that introduces elements of uncertainty,” Nesson says. “Poker is a skill game that operates in an environment of chance. So there’s a complication involved in looking at game theory.”

“The casinos are behind this provision on this bill,” Narayan says. “They wrote it. But that’s just their self interest, that’s not their argument.” Casinos are largely afraid that online poker would cannibalize their profits. Most legislators don’t see a valid reason to move poker out of the casino environment. With the moral crusaders, they’re going to oppose the Casino Expansion Bill either way, with or without the provision. Narayan says the provision on the Casino Expansion Bill is purely for economic purposes, stating the sole purpose of Patrick’s proposal is to eliminate a $1.3 billion structural deficit and generating the most amount of money by monopolizing. “The state is saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to legalize gambling as much as we need to in order to get enough money.’ Online gambling would take away from state revenues,” he says.

Nesson’s view is that if we’re going to sell Massachuetts to the casinos, we’re going to sell it the best possible way we can. Nesson, along with Narayan, the PPA, and the Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society (GPSTS) at Harvard, developed a three-point plan to combat the provision on this bill. Nesson and colleagues first propose a loyal opposition plan, to be executed by Nesson and a team of students. This team would approach the AFL-CIO, a labor union organization, and present the issue from an educational standpoint. “Battling legislation is about pulling and pushing the right levels of power,” Nesson says. “We have to persuade unions that online poker as an educational tool is beneficial for them and their kids.”

Nesson also hopes to start a letter-writing campaign to politicians and legislators. Find a level of interest, extrapolate public stances on the issue and present it to the community. “Within one week of the Casino Expansion Bill announcement, two thousand letters were sent to Congress from the Poker Players Alliance,” Pappas says.

The last step is to hold forums, symposiums, and stage debates. “Gather academics to investigate this provision in regards to Massachusetts and in the bigger picture of the U.S.,” Nesson says. Whatever the outcome of his plan, Nesson remains clear about one thing: “We have to lift online poker out of the realm of gambling and skill and chance, and put it into other elements and realms that people have a better grasp of.”

Nesson’s and the GPSTS’ efforts paid off; The Casino Expasion Bill failed to pass as of Friday, March 21, 2008. Although one hurdle is cleared, there’s still another challenge left for poker players to overcome: defining poker as a skill game. Two pieces of legislation in Congress will be critical in accomplishing that game: the Skill Game Protection Act (SGPA) and the Internet Gambling Regulation and Enforcement Act (IGREA). Proposed by Democratic Florida Senator Robert Wexler, the SGPA asserts three main points: success is predominantly determined by a player’s skill, competition exists only among and between participants (in other words no “house advantage” exists), and competition is not against the person operating the game (such as the dealer).

The IGREA serves to regulate online gambling and puts forth requirements for licensing Internet gambling. If the IGREA is passed into law, people living in the United States could bet on the outcome of sports such as MLB baseball, NBA basketball, NFL football, boxing, rugby, and motocross.

The IGREA and the SGPA are two huge strides in the right direction, Nesson believes. “The most fundamental reason of law is you look for a meaning behind something,” Nesson says. “If the law has the people’s best interests at heart, then they’ll want to encourage games of skill and discourage games of chance. There’s a principle at stake in this legal bill. I find when I talk to people and ask then if it makes sense to criminalize poker online, no one has come out and said, ‘yes.’ They’ve given me reasons other people have come up with but never make their own.”

In all the fear mongering over gambling addiction and losing all your possessions, people rarely ever stop to think how far an addiction has to go for you just click a mouse and lose your house. When you refuse to set limits for yourself, it’s dangerous. Many poker players only hope the struggle to define poker as a game of skill is in its final throes.

[pohibaba]

I think it's important to realize that in this case the sites aren't really getting busted for spreading "illegal" poker games. They are getting busted for doing some very illegal shit like money laundering, bank frauding, and bribery. I hope this doesn't affect the future legalization of online poker, but I ain't feeling all that bad for these crooks.

[shaddix]

I'm gonna read SSH a few more times and move to biloxi I think. Any of you guys live in biloxi/ac/vegas/etc, does playing cards for a living suck or is it awesome?

Question 2: What shocked you the most about your first live casino game compared to online? I have only played in a live casino once and it was only a 1/2 limit game(florida ._.).

Yeah I know I should be posting/reading on 2+2 but wanted to see if anyone here had any insight first.

[Boyiee]

I'm gonna read SSH a few more times and move to biloxi I think. Any of you guys live in biloxi/ac/vegas/etc, does playing cards for a living suck or is it awesome?

Question 2: What shocked you the most about your first live casino game compared to online? I have only played in a live casino once and it was only a 1/2 limit game(florida ._.).

Yeah I know I should be posting/reading on 2+2 but wanted to see if anyone here had any insight first.

1) it's absolutely terrible, 80+ hours a week typically. I was going to AC about 3 times a week playing mostly 2/5NL and even at that level there are just too many suckers. Limit is much better if you are trying to build a decent bankroll.

2) I played live before online. The thing that I guess shocked me any is how loose people can be with their money. Most people will sit down with 3-10 buy ins of 300-500$ on them. They have the money to throw away and they will push you off hands.

It is not a good living, and very few people are actually at the skill level to do it. Most regulars are either retired old people (locals) with lots of cash, dealers playing in between work so they know their shit, and people with other jobs and a lot of money.

tl;dr not a good idea, you probably aren't good enough to actually bring in an income off of it. Just play low stakes limit online for 100 hours a week of like .5/.10cent blinds and try to establish a bank roll. That level is typically the skill level you will run into at casinos.

I have only played in a live casino once and it was only a 1/2 limit game(florida ._.).

I don't understand the face with this statement, you probably shouldn't have been playing anything else. Become a dealer if you want to play for a living, they do that a lot in between even though dealing is like the worst job you could possible have. Read a lot of books.

[shaddix]

1) it's absolutely terrible, 80+ hours a week typically. I was going to AC about 3 times a week playing mostly 2/5NL and even at that level there are just too many suckers. Limit is much better if you are trying to build a decent bankroll.

2) I played live before online. The thing that I guess shocked me any is how loose people can be with their money. Most people will sit down with 3-10 buy ins of 300-500$ on them. They have the money to throw away and they will push you off hands.

It is not a good living, and very few people are actually at the skill level to do it. Most regulars are either retired old people (locals) with lots of cash, dealers playing in between work so they know their shit, and people with other jobs and a lot of money.

tl;dr not a good idea, you probably aren't good enough to actually bring in an income off of it. Just play low stakes limit online for 100 hours a week of like .5/.10cent blinds and try to establish a bank roll. That level is typically the skill level you will run into at casinos.



I don't understand the face with this statement, you probably shouldn't have been playing anything else. Become a dealer if you want to play for a living, they do that a lot in between even though dealing is like the worst job you could possible have.

I left out some pertinent details. But you still answered my questions thoroughly, thank you. Back in 2006 I was a winning player on party poker up to 3/6 limit games. At the time my understanding was 3/6 online was closer to 10/20 or 15/30 live hence the ._. face about playing 1/2 live(I got bored and just started raising every street lol). I learned to play on limit and will probably keep playing limit if I do start playing exclusively live. I do not know how online games rate in difficulty compared to live nowdays except for what you've just told me about the 5c/10c games.

Besides all that, 80hrs/week does not sound fun and I had not considered the dealer thing before. Though you're saying it's the worst job I could possibly have lol. I've been working temp tech jobs and stuff recently and got paid decently for them but tired of constantly being hired/let go so was considering the poker thing.

[kisada]

dealers actually make really good money in tips when you get up to the higher rooms. the problem is dealing with the people who are gonna blame you for everything. plus a dealer friend of mine told me it took him 2-3 years to get to the upper limit room.

playing live poker for a living has its pros and cons. the problem is it's soooooooooo slow, you need to be playing at a high enough stake to be making any kind of decent money. i'd say 90% of my play is online (well, it was lol), and the other 10% is live just because i get bored of clicking buttons. but eventually i remember all the shit i hate about live play (14 hour days, annoying and smelly people, slow play) and i'd always go back to online.


i don't have any choice now though so it looks like i'm gonna have to get go live for the time being, which is gonna suck.

[shaddix]

Where do you play kisada?

[kisada]

los angeles

[Boyiee]

What do you mean you have no choice now? If you are in the US you should have been playing on Merge networks to begin with and not FT or Stars. Go to 2+2 and post in the RPM forum or rakeback forum and get set up with rakeback and then download RPM poker.

I play online now after getting sick of the 10+ hour days and 90mile round trip to atlantic city. You can establish a bankroll via limit and do ok. You will probably want to stay away from NL though, I lost a grand last weekend losing with pocket Kings 5x... Not to AA every time either. Figured I'd swap over to NL for fun cause I was getting bored, lol. Reraise like 3 times and you almost always win the pot, except when you have Kings.

[Gryffes]

Hope you're kidding, merge is a tiny network and shady as fuck.

[Boyiee]

If you are a US player you should not have been playing on anything else. Shady? Best customer service of any client.

I think the FBI shutting down stars and tilt is enough to prove my point but if you really need more go read 2+2. You'll be swarmed with recommendations. Think they are the only ones left with double or nothings too.

[pohibaba]

If I were you guys, I wouldn't deposit on any site that accepts American players unless you're willing to never see it again. The DoJ has now proven that it is impossible for online sites to accept money from American players without breaking the law and putting money on the sites is putting it at risk of getting seized at any moment. I'm personally not putting any significant money onto a poker site until legislation passes to make it legal. I'm lucky that I cashed out a few months ago and so I didn't have a significant portion of my net worth on the site, but a lot of people weren't that lucky. I'm not willing to make that mistake.

[Celeras]

Is that FBI shit the reason why the pokerstars Big Game timeslot(fox, 2am EST) is now filled with infomercials? It says its supposed to be on, but its not. I liked that show

[Thoronas]

Is that FBI shit the reason why the pokerstars Big Game timeslot(fox, 2am EST) is now filled with infomercials? It says its supposed to be on, but its not. I liked that show

Yeah ESPN has pulled all their poker shows and commercials due to this.

Also American players will be getting their money back.
http://blogs.forbes.com/nathanvardi/...ir-money-back/

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan may have declared war against the world’s biggest online poker companies, but the two sides are working together to return funds belonging to U.S. players.

Under an agreement announced today, the government will allow PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to use their web sites to facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. players’ funds held in accounts with the companies. The five-page domain-name use agreements with PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker will also let the poker companies continue to use their domain names to offer for-money online poker games to players outside the U.S. In return the world’s two biggest online poker companies have agreed not to facilitate for-money poker games for U.S. players and to let an independent monitor verify their compliance with the deal.

Last week Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan, shut down the online poker industry in America by seizing five Internet domain names, including pokerstars.com and fulltiltpoker.com, used by the three main companies facilitating online poker games in the U.S. In addition, a federal judge issued a restraining order against 76 bank accounts in 14 countries utilized by those online poker firms and their payment processors. The crackdown included the unsealing of an indictment against 11 individuals, including Isai Scheinberg and Raymond Bitar, the founders of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, which accused them of operating illegal gambling businesses and conspiring to commit bank fraud.

“No individual player accounts were ever frozen or restrained, and each implicated poker company has at all times been free to reimburse any player’s deposited funds,” Bharara said in a statement. “This office expects the companies to return the money that U.S. players entrusted to them, and we will work with the poker companies to facilitate the return of funds to players.”

The deals, which were struck between the feds and the online poker firms yesterday, will likely bring relief to U.S. online poker players who feared they would lose or be unable to access money they had deposited with PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker. The agreements permit PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker to facilitate withdrawals of U.S. players’ funds by utilizing their usual domain names. Both companies are obligated under the agreements to place banner messages provided by federal prosecutors on their U.S. facing web sites once they regain access to them. The two companies will be allowed to place instructions on their web sites that will explain how funds can be retrieved, but the domain names will remain seized by U.S. government lawyers.

[wyrmtung]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/poker...ory?id=6614429

PokerStars claimed that they repaid all of their customers. It looks like Full Tilt is being slow at repaying customers. Phil Ivey is taking a stand and boycotting the WSOP over it.

[Ollieyk]

Really, really interesting listen if you're interested in this whole situation:

http://www.quadjacks.com/2011/06/01/...s-poker-radio/

http://www.quadjacks.com/2011/06/01/...s-poker-radio/

Really makes out Full Tilt to be a rediculously shady business. Using players money to fund advertising campaigns etc...