Finland To Ban Online Poker

First, Germany bans online poker now it looks like Finland is going to follow suit. It looks like countries are really starting to crack down on this. Hopefully the U.S keeps it legal for at least a little bit longer.

i really dont understand this crap now
if u ban online gaming,it is only fa1r that they close down every damn casino in the country

it is just annoying now how these politicians just want to stop online poker, the only reason i see them doing this is that the dont make enough revenue in the form of taxs

But you do understand!

A smart government figures that their economy is losing money everyday because people are sending their money to these offshore, unregulated, untaxed, poker sites, instead of doing something productive to the economy like buying goods, services, entertainment/gambling from businesses which ARE regulated and taxed by the country.

I think it's finally time to do away with unregulated online gaming before any sites can get a lot smarter and make their stealing more difficult to detect. Absolute Poker has been scamming its users for millions of dollars over the last 3 years, so please don't assume that the players can regulate it themselves. If we hadn't been fortunate enough to catch the breakthrough evidence, this would still be going on for many more years. And I don't doubt any possibility that any other site can be capable of cheating if they can easily get away with it.

There is very little chance of a ban standing for long in either Germany or Finland. Both are members of the European Union and the EU is strongly opposed to protectionist measures which interfere with free trade between member states.

The United Kingdom pretty much has the model which could and should become the norm. Gaming is licensed and regulated and poker sites are run by highly respectable corporations such as Virgin (first example that comes to mind). Virgin own an airline, a retail chain, a rail network, a TV network and all manner of other major businesses as well as the poker site.

Surely that must be the way to go. If online poker is run by reputable companies, quoted on the Stock Market and taxed and regulated, it becomes very difficult for politicians or anyone else to table a valid objection to our hobby. It`s very difficult to see why America (and Germany, Finland, etc.)doesn`t follow that route.

I think I would rather do away with run amok unregulated governments!!!!!

There's an idea, maybe the poker companies should regulate the governments, instead of the other way around. Governments end up "misplacing" money all the time, when absolute messed up it paid all the people involved along with a fine. All in favor of having pokerstars regulate the US federal government

how about a poker player revolution
like the french revelution we will remove the leader{in this case everyone who is against poker}
after we take everyone against poker out , poker will rule the world
muhuhahahahahhahahaha

^sounds more like the Russian revolution... and we all know how that turned out..

Don't believe all the bs that Absolute spoon feeds to everyone, they obviously are trying to cover it up and make it look like they are the victims along with the poker players. They have known for years the cheating was going on, which means the top people in the company were behind it since the very beginning. Now I can see why governments are a necessary evil... someones gotta protect the sheep from getting eaten by the wolves.

You mean someone's gotta protect the money that the sheep willingly gave to the wolves, trusting them to keep their half of the bargain. If you don't trust the poker companies, don't send them money. I for one trust pokerstars more than the US government. I'd rather have pokerstars setting the rules than the federal government. Other than absolute (where they paid all the people who lost anything because of it plus the fine) where has there been a dishonest poker company?

OK you two..this might be the single best idea I've heard in years!

I demand the same amendment to pay back my losses in the stock market!!!!!

I hate to break this too you..the United States Govt believes Online Poker is illegal. No smaller an entity than the US Department of Justice has repeated it many times, both in speches and interviews with Major Media

It's a general metaphor for naive people who get taken advantage by fraudulent people/companies, often through their own will. It can easily be applied to any situation, wether it's investing in a criminal business, getting scammed by a shady salesman, or buying a fake/harmful product.

Right... I also wouldn't mind having to depend on an unregulated, unaudited, offshore company to protect my rights and freedoms. I haven't made a deposit into any poker site in a few months since the scandal. If I deposit any money anytime soon, it'll be just pocket change, 10$ or maybe 20$ a month. I wouldn't feel safe depositing any type of real bankroll anymore.
I always knew it was possible the poker sites can easily take our money, but I didn't expect a big company like Absolute Poker to be so Absolutely stupid and careless, or too fast in their greed that they would make it so obvious they were cheating people out of their money in high profile tournaments/cash games, and then hand us the proof to convince us they were.

You really trust their word and think they paid back everyone the losses? All the millions that have been milked over the years from the helpless players, some of which probably quit the site long ago? I highly doubt they went through the trouble of selling off their houses/cars, just to "make things right", or else they would have never been stealing in the first place. It saddens me to see some people think Absolute Poker is an innocent, legit poker company that got hacked by some employees. It saddens me even more that people are still playing on the site.
Absolute Poker has tried repeatedly to deny ANY possibility of cheating/superaccount using from the beginning, until someone got a hold of the breakthrough evidence and everyone could finally see the concrete proof, basically shoving the evidence in Absolute's face and making them admit they were guilty / there was cheating was going on. Every poker site might not be like Absolute Poker, just like every business in America isn't an Enron, but anytime you have no regulations, no audits from some governmental type authority, there is always a possibility someone is stealing wether they have been caught yet or not. Why not cheat and steal from the "sheep"? If you can get away with it, and not fear any punishment from any higher authority, why not just take the easy money? As long as you don't do it too fast, arouse any suspicions, or make it Absolute'ly obvious and give people the evidence, you would be just fine and dandy.

The nearest I live to a brick and mortar casino is 1 1/2 hours, which is not a fun drive for me. I just hope we can get some regulated/audited poker sites.

And you trust the politicians to protect your rights and freedoms? Do we have to get in how bad of a trust that is given recent and even not-so-recent events?

You are lacking facts sir. Firstly Absolute did not perform the scamming. Secondly it was at the high limits so it wasn't a ton of unsuspecting people out of their money. Poker sites keep records, they knew who was playing against potripper and the other "super" accounts. And you think they needed to sell their cars to pay back that money? You obviously don't understand how much they make in rake.

I don't play there at all, didn't like the interface beore the scandal. First off this only happened at high limit tables (I think 3/6 - 5/10) so most internet players aren't even playing at those tables. Secondly as was mentioned before there will be more people watching for crap like that on their site, and they are now subject to random audits. I believe I heard they did suffer a massive decrease in traffic though.

They were not guilty of anything but negligence and poor security. They paid everyone who suffered from it so if anything they hurt themselves by waiting so long to admit that there was cheating.
Yep, but why do you seem to think that government regulation would help? Enron was "government regulated". They just lied on all their paperwork. I don't see anything that would improve with government regulation. Just more tax dollars being thrown away.

They have a higher authority, their customers. The customers are paying them lots of money to play at their site. If they did anything wrong, they lose a lot of that income. When someone's paying you with a part of their paycheck every week, do you one week mug them and take the entire paycheck? Sure it's worth it in the short term, but I doubt he's going to give you anything after that.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: I trust pokerstars more than I trust our federal government. Our federal government has messed up countless times, from the budgets that have multi-billion dollar mistakes (where'd the money go?) to weapons all of a sudden "missing" from our records, there's no punishment if they mess up. We can't stop paying them with tax dollars. I tried contacting my Senators and representative. I got a form letter response from one Senator, and nothing from my other Senator and representative. My follow up basically asking if I could get an actual answer instead of a form letter that didn't answer the question to the Senator did not get an answer either. I email pokerstars and usually within an hour I have an answer.

Finland are apparently attempting to circumvent this by introducing a law that essentially forces poker sites to refund any money its Finnish customers lose.

Obviously, should that happen the sites will then be forced to ban Finnish players.

I wonder how the Finland government is going to enforce this if the poker sites are in foreign countries. If they ask those sites to refund losses, they have to ask winning players to give back their winnings as well.

If it ever got onto the statute book, I`d guess it would have the same effect as UIGEA has. Operators who are quoted companies and governed by market rules or who have significant assets in Finland would be forced to ban Finnish players. The rest would ignore it.

Personally I think that the poker community should band together and start their own non profit poker site offshore (maybe an old abandoned oil rig in international waters with high speed satellite internet,) you could minimize rake, no government oversight or taxes, and have proven reputable players in charge with extensive oversight from the legitimate poker community. Don't know all of the legalities or cost involved with such an endeavor but I know I would love such a site.

I believe there was a plan to do something very like Alexei`s suggestion on Sealand.

Principality of Sealand - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Last I heard, the place had been wrecked in a fire and all plans were on hold.

Heh, Sealand pwns. Well it seems like it's doable

how on earth do you ban someone from doing something on your PC.

Sorry not possible.

If I lived in germany, finland etc and OL poker was banned and I wanted to play - I would, easily.

Id like to see them elaborate on how they could stop a person from playing.

It wouldn't be that hard, force the ISPs to block gambling sites, force the credit card companies to not fund gambling sites, seize funds coming from gambling sites, monitor network traffic and aggressively pursue violators. That'd make it difficult and dangerous enough to make it unfeasible for the vast majority of players. Not that I support such Draconian measures but it's certainly possible.

The thing is censoring of the internet is a very touchy subject... how could you block gambling sites when even child pornography sites aren't blocked? Something that strong would cause huge public outrage.

QUOTE - By late Sunday, PocketFives was reporting that the "culprit" was indeed a person "second in charge" at Absolute, which goes against previous statements that this individual was either a "tech geek who knew the software intimately" or a "consultant". Unfortunately since the person in command of AP was also the thief he obviously issued numerous steadfast denials of any wrong doing. Basically he was investigating himself. Their sources are also saying what most already believed to be true, that it was Scott Tom who was observing tables using the super-user account while AJ Green played as Potripper.

[T]he scam has been going on for three years and the actual amount that was skimmed from online poker players is estimated at close to $7 million, not the 700k amount that was previously reported.

quoted by Gambling 911.com END QUOTE

I guess for some people, it's much easier to listen to Absolute poker and believe their every word than to actually take a few minutes and research some third party poker evidence and opinions. They obviously don't make enough in rake to overcome their greediness to not steal, and just run a legitimate business. If they could get away with it for 3 years, there is obviously little control or oversight the players have on the site.

Why do you think Enron isn't in business anymore? Do you think we just let scammers and fraudulent people continue to go about their lives and steal from more people? It's called class action lawsuits, jailtime, and seizures of stolen money/property.

Absolute has gone back to normal operation, because the people will just not care, be oblivious to what really happened, or they will quickly forget about the incident and continue playing at Absolute. Sad really, but thats just how human nature is.

When a site is out of jurisdiction of the country and it's laws, you can't do anything about it. If there are any child pornography sites operating in the United States, they would most likely be shut down, and anyone caught of owning such material would also be prosecuted under the law. I have read several articles of Computer technicians finding child porn on people's computers, and reporting them to the police.

And how would you even come to know about these sites that aren't blocked.... ... <_<.... >_>...

I was once involved in such a case. The It company I worked for at the time found such material on a customer`s PC and reported it.

The Police were very clever in the way they handled it. Two officers (in plain clothes) borrowed one of our company vehicles and delivered the computer back to him, posing as our delivery men.

They asked him to check the computer and sign for it. As soon as he had done so, they produced their ID and said, "Ok, since you confirm that this is your computer, we would like to hear your explanation of the indecent material on your hard drive, on account of we are Police Officers."

Ding.


Its because you cant regulate the internet, exactly as you say.

Its simply near-impossible.

It would cost millions to hire people to do this though. Hence why i say near-impossible, realistically it wouldnt happen.

Overall -EV for their gov't

I wonder if Americans could play on the Finnish site

It works that way already. It just happens that the Poker companies here in Washington State are owned by Indian Casinos who don't like online gambling.

I can understand not liking online gambling, but online poker is a whole other story. So anyone have an extra $10+ mill or so to buy an island in international waters and set up a poker site?