Black Friday- 5 years later

dj11

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I'm almost surprised there was no fanfare.

5 years ago we were all in a tizzy to put it mildly. I soon got depressed.

We survived, well, some of us did anyway. I attribute a lot of the credit for helping us survive to CC. Have gone cold turkey several times in my life from a variety of constructs of my own devise, I was not prepared, nor willing to go cold turkey from OLP. CC was several thing to a lot of us then.

It was a place to vent, and boy was there a lot of venting going on!

Over the early months, we were scrambling to find any real money poker gaming. At that time every other site beside PS or FT was a little operation. OK, Party was pretty big, but they had pulled out of the US long ago, so really they didn't factor into our equation.

At the time, Merge was almost viable, but so discombobulated that while money in was no problem, money out was. Even thru their dis-discombobulation (WTF???) that really hasn't changed much. They had the games we needed at a schedule that served us pretty well.

bodog was changing, as was Cake, and all the associated skin.... the whole OLP landscape was in shambles.

A very large portion of the US OLP player pool just gave up. Based on published numbers (from the DOJ and Stars) and a recent guesstimate of current OLP player counts saying that 90%+ of the old players gave up is probably no stretch at all. Add in an improving economy, and that number wasn't the economic catastrophe it might have been if BF had happened 3 or 4 years earlier.

It is my opinion that the US players who persevered were the better players, capable of carrying on a tradition of US domination on a global stage. Problem being that we really no longer had that OLP global stage.

I like reading comments from non-US players hoping for a return of the US players like we are the missing fish in their ponds.

Does it look like we will ever return to those heady days? No.

I can not think of any other human activity that is as unregulated yet restrictive as OLP. Almost every other product in the world can be purchased online, across borders, with little hassle. Hell, buying military weapons across borders is probably easier!
 
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jsh169

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No infact regulation will likely end up being worse than the Bovada's, WPN's and Merge's. One not every state will ever regulate due to being conservative and two some of the larger states may just want to do intrastate keeping the revenue to themselves.
 
Carl Trooper

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I really think we need CA and NY to step up. Get those big states to combine with the already combined player pool and we will be heading in the right direction.

I wasn't as big into cards back then but still played. But I remember seeing ads for poker on tv. That was the best. I loved the days when home games were huge and everyone played :(
 
dj11

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I really think we need CA and NY to step up. Get those big states to combine with the already combined player pool and we will be heading in the right direction.

I wasn't as big into cards back then but still played. But I remember seeing ads for poker on tv. That was the best. I loved the days when home games were huge and everyone played :(

Being an election year, I'm not sure anyone has the balls to step up.:(

I can't help but think that the Great Recession had a lot to do with the rise of OLP. I was in home improvements during the years leading up to the Great Recession, and that recession actually started earlier than the 2007-2008 dates we often hear about. I was noticing a slowdown from about late 2005. 2006 was slim. Most of my 2007 calendar was empty. I had been overbooked from 2002-2005.

When the recession started co-insides with when OLP took off. There were a lot of peeps out of work, and some of them found poker. It thrived during the recession.

Then BF hit, but at the same time, the economy was improving.

I can't shake the notion that those 2 things are related. Now the economy is robust, and I wonder if that is somehow affecting things.:confused:
 
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jsh169

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I really think we need CA and NY to step up. Get those big states to combine with the already combined player pool and we will be heading in the right direction.

I wasn't as big into cards back then but still played. But I remember seeing ads for poker on tv. That was the best. I loved the days when home games were huge and everyone played :(

I wouldn't be surprised at all if both states kept games intrastate. You guys just realize how you want things personally, but both of these would hurt financial gains of states of these size, why share the pie when you can have it all?
 
dj11

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I wouldn't be surprised at all if both states kept games intrastate. You guys just realize how you want things personally, but both of these would hurt financial gains of states of these size, why share the pie when you can have it all?

There is a flaw in your thinking here.

Let's say that Nevada had made the decision that OLP was a product, equivalent as a product to Pictures of Las Vegas. And Nevada only wanted to assure the quality of the products (and collect taxes on the production and sale of the product). They could have decided to make the product available to anyone, in the whole wide world.

If it is all, and only, about the money, then why would Nevada ring fence the state as far as OLP goes? There is no US law that I have heard about that prohibits Nevada from offering their products across state lines. Individual states might have laws about OLP. But if Nevada tore down that OLP fence, it would then be up to other states to respond. And I believe a lot of them (the states) would do nothing at all about it.

You might respond that NV did it to maintain control. Perhaps control about players ages. But that is the sites responsibility, and they are pretty good about that now. Certainly better than the state would be.

Control over problem gambling? The sites will have the stats for determining who is or is not having problems.

The Interstate Commerce Commission (https://www.google.com/search?q=interstate+commerce+commission&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8) made a play to get involved, as they said they see this as interstate commerce.

Really nobody seems willing to get their hands dirty with what most of us know is a clean form of commerce!

If, again, it was all about the money, Stars and or PP would have bought the industry long ago.

There is something else going on, and we the general public are unaware of what that is.
 
korneel

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I didn't play five years ago.
Was it that bad?
 
Aceplayer55

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I got fully reimbursed by FT.
 
smallfrie

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I was so wrong on what would happen in the aftermath. I thought federal regulation would happen in short order under the practical and political cover of consumer protection. I am not going to guess what will happen in the future but it would be nice to see congress take some responsibility and act on a federal level to insure a safe regulated environment for U.S. players to play. Leaving it to the states has been a recipe small guarantee tournaments and a poor player pools in general in states that have adopted poker regulation. Not to mention players in those states are now denied access to the best offshore network. I will keep playing live at least I am in a state with a robust live market.
 
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RobertCooperIII

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Black Friday for me was hard because I would play religiously 8 to 10 hours a day and seemed like the quality of play on sites varied from site to site but not to the extreme it does now. I used to play Full Tilt more because of the steps and how the tourneys were setup. I hope one day that it gets back to how it was compared to how it is now.
 
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freestocks

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I never trusted the big sites like pokerstars in the U.S. They had ads on TV for the .net and the real money was on the .com.

I got checks from the merge sites within months of apr 2011.

Quicktender and Ewalletxpress said they were like FDIC...c'mon

Then they were smashed like Netteller was in 2006, when party poker left the U.S.

Poker will survive here I hope.
 
XXPXXP

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my idea is .
Yes, if US players will return ..but returns to what player's pool?
world or US or local state?
 
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I'm not sure I fully comprehend you, there is a big difference of liquidity in population alone between a state like Nevada (3million) in comparison to California (39 million). California needs money badly as well.
 
lcid86

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I hope they find a way to legalize and regulate the game. I hate not knowing if I will get a check, if it will cash, if the site will stay in business, and if I'm playing in a fair game. There's a lot of money out there if our government would ignore the casino lobbyists and treat it like a lottery.
 
dj11

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I'm not sure I fully comprehend you, there is a big difference of liquidity in population alone between a state like Nevada (3million) in comparison to California (39 million). California needs money badly as well.

Unfortunately, it is unlikely Ca will do any damn thing.

IF Nevada was to just change their law to allow anyone from anywhere to join and play at their legal sites two things would happen fast-

1-Their sites would be flooded with new players instantly.
2- Many other states who have been on the fences would make the decision, one way or another.

There is no specific law prohibiting Nevada from doing that, or New Jersey, or Delaware from changing their law to allow a player pool as large as can be.

UEGIA would still exist. But something makes me think that a legal workaround would work better than bitcoins. And those accommodations would be fairly quick to follow.

There are laws that have been passed with intents to prohibit similar things about gambling, but if one of these States were to do such a thing those laws would finally get the testing they have needed since they were enacted and forgotten about.

But those are merely pipe dreams...
 
RogueRivered

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Having ACR / WPN possibly complicit in cheating new and low-stakes MTT players isn't going to help.
 
BigJamo

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I didnt realise it had been that long until I saw this thread.
I really hope all the players from the USA can get back on poker stars really soon.
I miss them too.
 
dj11

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On the bright side, everyone then was talking about the 5 year limit on any Bad Actor clauses regarding regulation and legislation.

OK, not really any bright side to it.:cool:
 
RogueRivered

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I have not heard anything about this. Evidence please?

Yes, I have lots of evidence. I've been trying to get the word out any way I can think of. dakota-xx is getting really annoyed with me. Lol.

She asked me not to publish the list of the bot players, but I made a spreadsheet of 25 of them (out of well over 100) that play 24-hours a day on ACR. I have told ACR about it, yet they do nothing.

I will PM my evidence to you and anyone else that wants to take a look.

Thanks.
 
Edu4594

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I imagine the desperation of people who had enough money in the PK or FT, and the people who lived at the time of poker.
 
O

onemorechance

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I can't believe it's been five years. Non-US but that day was the craziest ****ing thing. I remember seeing the initial stories and the web domains being seized by the DoJ but assuming (as I think a lot of us did) that it was just another scary moment in a long line of them

Then iirc I think Stars was the first to go "Naw that's it, we're not letting US players on the site", followed by the rest. Then over the next couple of days seeing the number of American players just drop and drop until eventually the sites updated til they were gone...
 
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