The Truth Behind Seized Poker Sites (the real reason)

The "real" reason I think most of us can agree on is being spread from unknown sources, but makes a lot more sense, rather than, "the government is just greedy".

The simple fact is, since the US wasn't allowing cash to be going in these online poker sites, they had to figure out ways around this. Well this created what some of the US government like to call a "cash black hole", untraceable amounts of money, in fear of true crimes/terrorismn--the DOJ did the best thing they could, rather than to, "let this unknown cash flow" continue to flow in and (mostly) out of the US.

Its also more reasonable to say that these online casinos didn't strike any sort of deal per say, but draw attention to these issues with online poker, pretty much tattle-telling in kid terms.

Nana, gotchu, shift 3 bil this way..

I can't disagree with you, because I don't have any factual basis to do that. My feeling is that the sites did a pretty good job of establishing safeguards against overt money laundering by the players. You can transfer as much money as you want out of the country, as long as you are not on a watch list and as long as you are not funding an offshore gambling account.

BS

If or when, I ever hit it big,I definitely will open up a swiss bank account and maybe one even in other countries where it would be safe.Not that I want to do anything illegal,but I would want part of my money to be safe.You never know when the feds might step in and take it these days.

LOL wut?!?

The US passed the SAFE Port Act http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act which at the last moment had the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (or UIGEA) added to it at the last minute. This "prohibits gambling businesses from knowingly accepting payments in connection with the participation of another person in a bet or wager that involves the use of the Internet and that is unlawful under any federal or state law." This means that it is illegal for banks and websites to handle or process any deposits, withdrawals or profits from all online gaming, including Poker.

Pokerstars along with others decided not to stop operating in the US but banks would now no longer do business with them, it's a federal offence. To get around this they began to launder money and commit fraud.

"Money laundering is the practice of disguising the origins of illegally-obtained money. Ultimately, it is the process by which the proceeds of crime are made to appear legitimate."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_laundering

"In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraud

They did this by committing the crime of operating a poker site (it's a crime whether you believe it should be or not) and processing the financial transactions that go with it. They can't deposit profits or deal with banks in any way so they send your cheque to John in Paraguay who then sends it to you. This is money laundering and fraud by definition. The US takes that shit seriously and they went after those responsible.

They also coerced banks to accept illegal profits, made false bank accounts to store their own illegal profits and due to these covert actions created a "massive financial black-hole" of missing and untraceable money.

"source specifically told him that the "black hole" was the main motivating factor behind the crackdown."

http://www.gambling911.com/gambling-...9D-042611.html


That's the entirety of it. Pokersites commited crimes, the registered owners and operators are being indicted for them, it's as simple as that.

Sums up the the law and crimes very well, and is the primary reason for the enforcement of the laws. But, I think that Independent is suggesting a reason or motive for the enforcement of the law. And, in part, I think he is correct. Probably unlikely the concern in this case was money being filtered to support terrorism. Money laundering by anyone for any reason has always been a priority of the FBI and DOJ.

As for the countless theories offered in other threads, most are highly unlikely, and mostly the result of some healthy venting.

Other contributing reasons for relentless effort by the FBI and DOJ:

The in your face blatant violation of federal laws. The FBI does not like being embarrassed and "they always get their man", right? (or was that the mounties?)

Fines and forfeitures, absolutely. When funding for Federal Agencies is getting more difficult (other than law enforcement) is doesn't hurt to get some revenue to offset a several 100 million$ budget.

And finally, law enforcement agencies generally love the high profile arrests. The benefits of the recognition are significant.

Although it is painful to accept and live with, imop the arrests were justified.

Black Friday was inevitable.

The UIGEA excludes games of skill. And it doesn't prohibit w/d. And it doesn't prohibit ALL online gaming. Lotteries, betting on horseracing, and certain fantasy sports betting and other activities are allowed.

The money deposited to poker sites is NOT proceeds of a crime. The money is the player's money, not the sites. Withdrawals by a player are also not illegally obtained. The UIGEA did not make playing poker illegal.

Quote:

Originally Posted by LuckyChippy "In criminal law, a fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual."

It is NOT a crime to operate a poker site. Those sites are licensed in the jurisdictions where they operate. The US cannot make a site that is legal in its own country illegal.

The "profits" were returns of players money and NOT illegal. Pro players claim their profits on their tax returns.

A "black hole" necessistated by a poorly written amendment attached to the Safe Port Act in the middle of the nite to a must pass bill by hypocrite Bill Frist to pander to the religious right because they couldn't get it passed by itself in the light of day.

At the end of the day, the sites will probably make a deal unfortunately, and we will never see exactly which of the myriad of charges would have ultimately stuck. IMO probably only the miscoding of transactions, a victimless crime and hardly worth $3B.

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
~ Mahatma Gandhi

...unless they get a court to find that poker is illegal online gambling, right?

Not likely, I just read an article in the Casino Chronicle, a bi-weekly pamphlet on whats going on with casino's around the country (i.e. legislation, property, revenue, current events) and it stated "A bill authorizing the Nevada Gaming Comission to adopt regulations and to grant licenses to casinos to be ready to offer online poker if congress passes a bill approving such action won approval from the senate judiciary committee last week."
Which is a good start to my argument that I posted on my other thread.

please terrorism??? lol... it is nothing to do with anything but one thing: TAX DOLLARS.

billions of US dollars not being taxed, simple.

Right now... the online gaming industry, as far as the US market is concerned and ultimately the global market, is in a period of fast change.

ALL of the major land based casinos are internet ready. If not, they are finalising their agreements and putting elements in place to be ready for when the government announces its plans to legalise online gambling.

This current purge is just a measn to wipe the slate clean so that everyone comes in on a level playing field.

Finally, someone that knows whats going on

Given Obama/DOJ's "selective" enforcement of existing law...
I think this crackdown was direct payback to the US land-based casinos
that saved Harrah Reid's butt in the midterm elections.

The major players previously opposed to online gambling were the Indian tribes, the American Gaming Association (AGA), the NFL, and the religious right.

Now that the major competition has been effectively wiped out for U.S. players, magically the AGA is no longer opposed because the bills or soon to be bills will give the market exclusively to them.

Quote from a "save the children" crowd: "But states maintain the power to decriminalize most any form of gambling they choose, including Internet gambling. The problem then becomes how to keep children and teens of the gambling sites. And how does one state isolate itself from other states’ gamblers? And what kind of extra expenses will be brought upon taxpayers to oversee, investigate, watch and operate such massive gambling? And do the citizens of any state really want thousands of online casinos piped into their homes?
But does Internet gambling represent Pandora’s Box for families? Yes, it does. And states need to keep the lid on Internet gambling closed tightly and locked."


"Thousands of online casinos piped into their homes" - these people are hopeless. Don't they know they have many many thousands of porn sites piped into their home? And what are the "children" going to play with, play money? And how do we isolate ourselves from other states gamblers? Really? How do you do it now? My state's citizens GO to other states to gamble.

What about this . The government allows " Day trading " which IMHO is a form of gambling.. Lets get serious. The only freaking reason they are doing this is because they are greedy as hell and could not get their fingers into the pot to get their share of money. I am sure that will change. I hate the DOJ for this reason alone... instead of seizing everyones enjoyment and funds why not just pass a damn bill which allows taxes and what not to be part of the agreement.
In short what I see is this .. two guy one huge and one small
The small guy is having a conversation about a problem between the two and instead of coming up with some sore of agreement the bigger guy just gets mad and punches the smaller guy so the smaller guy takes his toys ( funds ) elsewhere and now the bigger guy as dumb as he is gets NO part of it.......

Please quote in the UIGEA where it excludes games of skill, because I didn't see it when I read it.


This part is questionable. The DoJ only seized bank accounts belonging to sites. Pokerstars had segregated accounts not in the names of the owners, so the DoJ could not freeze that money. FTP/AP did not and had player funds seized. You are also right that playing poker is not illegal and no one with any brain thinks it is. However there is argument whether sites servicing players from the US is illegal and the DoJ currently takes the stance that it is. There is speculation that the feds could use the UIGEA to say that if servicing someone, say in New York, is against state law there that the UIGEA allows the federal government to enforce it.

Correct but they can make it illegal to service people from the US.

The DoJ claims they did not seize any player funds. They are technically correct.

They will 100% lose the bank fraud charge and it's not out of the realm of possibility that they would lose the UIGEA charges as well. The only chance they have is illegal gambling since I believe they are going with the wire act for that and poker generally has been ruled to not be covered by it. Either way they're going to end up settling most likely and probably paying a lot of money to the feds.

I remember hearing that one of the original reasons for removing the internet sites was that the states wanted to creat their own individual gambling sites for the state's populace.

I hate this idea, states like mine that have a low amount of serious players will have a much smaller player pool to get to. This would mean worse service, worse tournaments, worse payouts worse everything.

No matter what, its going to take time to get anything into place again for players, and during this time I'm just losing money from the inability to play. Reid is just an evil, greedy, Vegas politician with the ear of strong politicians.