Russian ISPs Block Gambling Sites, Including Poker Stars

naruto_miu

naruto_miu

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Wonder how this will really affect game play at Stars now?
 
Debi

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This is bad news - so many Russian players will be affected.
 
kidkvno1

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This is bad news...
Reportedly players were still able to use PokerStars and Full Tilt, but fears abound that the Russian feds will move in and lock down poker room software access shortly.
 
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torosanti012

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I'm confused. Full Tilt is owned by pokerstars right. So the Russians closed the door on Pokerstars and other sites, but then why did they not do the same for Full Tilt, I checked 5 minutes ago and saw a few players from Russia still playing. Perhaps Putin took a bad beat on stars and tilted so much that he closed stars down for the whole country? haha no but seriously if anyone knows the reason I would really like to hear it. I'm very intrigued by this.

My bad, I didn't see the post before mine, so players from Russia are still playing on stars as well? This is pretty big new to the online poker world as a large amount of the players are from Russia!
 
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hashtag

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Wow this sucks. Player pool on Stars will obviously be reduced. I'm about to play some cash games now, wonder will the number of tables be much smaller.
 
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onlinenat

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realistically I see it affecting a very small portion of online poker players... I mean check the live circuits their are not many Russian pros. I see this affecting the micro and low stakes games more than any

Anyone remember the time frame it took from DOJ taking control of websites to US players being unable to play? I was online when DOJ seized them playing at full tilt, and I remember I played all Friday night and I think the rest of weekend before account was locked

Maybe Russians are unable to go to the websites, but if you have the client installed their is little they can do as long as sites don't lock accounts... Most people think that when BF occurred the government took over sites and caused us not to be able to play, but they couldn't stop us from logging into clients and playing just stopped anyone from getting into websites... From the looks of the article Stars has no interest in stopping Russian players from playing which will mean Russian government would be hard pressed to stop players without some how stopping the players physically ( which I wouldn't put past Putin at this point)

because as of now Russian players playing on stars is no different then US players playing on Merge or WPN networks. Both are by law greyish illegal, but they can't really stop it without putting a major amount of effort into it....

IN MY HUMBLE OPINION
 
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steveiam

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Still plenty of Russians on Pokerstars..
 
the lab man

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realistically I see it affecting a very small portion of online poker players... I mean check the live circuits their are not many Russian pros. I see this affecting the micro and low stakes games more than any

You have no idea ,its huge and there are many successful Russian pros and grinders
 
the lab man

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Still thousands of Russians playing at Stars
 
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onlinenat

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You have no idea ,its huge and there are many successful Russian pros and grinders
I'm sure their are many Russian poker players... I should of clarified more before posting. Can you think of any big pros who still reside in Russia? I'm sure just like anywhere else Russia has its share of Poker stars members, but how many are regs that will people will notice gone? Stars has such a huge player pool I doubt it will cause any significant effect on them, and that's if they even stop allowing Russians to play (which I don't believe will happen)

In my humble opinion
 
mapt02h

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I think Russia is one of the biggest countries in terms of players playing on Stars and FTP...
 
Poker Orifice

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I'm sure their are many Russian poker players... I should of clarified more before posting. Can you think of any big pros who still reside in Russia? I'm sure just like anywhere else Russia has its share of Poker stars members, but how many are regs that will people will notice gone? Stars has such a huge player pool I doubt it will cause any significant effect on them, and that's if they even stop allowing Russians to play (which I don't believe will happen)

In my humble opinion

Lots!

Currently Russia stands in 4th spot for Online Tournament play rankings.
 

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OzExorcist

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I'm sure their are many Russian poker players... I should of clarified more before posting. Can you think of any big pros who still reside in Russia? I'm sure just like anywhere else Russia has its share of Poker stars members, but how many are regs that will people will notice gone? Stars has such a huge player pool I doubt it will cause any significant effect on them, and that's if they even stop allowing Russians to play (which I don't believe will happen)

The point is it's not the absence of big pros that most of us will notice day to day - in fact, those big pros are the ones most likely to find a way around this (as many of the big US pros did in the wake of Black Friday). Instead, it's the absence of the thousands and thousands of casual players who contribute to volume on the sites that we as regular players will notice.
 
hashtag

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Yea saw a bunch of them on tonight. Pokerstars location is based on what you set when you sign up, not where you are in the world so I don't know if these are Russians outside Russia.
 
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onlinenat

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Lots!

Currently Russia stands in 4th spot for Online Tournament play rankings.

I stand very corrected. Thank you for the information. I don't see stars locking out Russian accounts, but as just seen I could very easily be wrong.
 
Tammy

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Stars doesn't want to lock them out, the Russian government does.
 
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onlinenat

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Stars doesn't want to lock them out, the Russian government does.

If I'm not mistaken they can't do it can they? I mean unless stars has Russian domains or bases?
 
OzExorcist

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IIRC, Stars has been pretty accommodating in the past when governments actually come out ask them point blank to stop offering their services to their citizens. Time will tell whether they adopt the same attitude towards Russia I guess.
 
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onlinenat

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due to the current sanctions against the Russian gov I believe visa and mastercard has quit allowing them service so I can see where things would be starting to get tricky lol I wonder if the current global Ukraine situation has anything to do with this
 
JaxA

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Wow, Russia seems to be getting worse and worse. I wonder if/when there will be revolution/war. Not like Russia is the only one...
 
H

HollyMichelle13

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Russians can't play online poker?

Crimea river!
 
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vic75

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Usually when i play the 100 K free rolls on Poker Stars half the players on my table are Russian nice too see canada at the top of PLB Rankings ;) :D :D
 
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