MJackson
Moderated User - posts must be approved
- Joined
- Jan 23, 2008
- Location
- Miami, I, I mean Montreal
Just out of curiosity is there anyone here who supports casinos/poker rooms "confiscating" non bonus related money from players?
I contend that confiscation or seizure of property is strictly a judicial matter and is never the right of a private company. I believe that this is proveable, at least in the United States by the argument that there is apparently no exception to the rule. Can anyone think of one instance in which a business is authorized to confiscate money from a customer without involving the police or without themselves facing serious criminal charges?
I could go on for 20 pages about all the reasons that this practice, especially by poker rooms, should be denounced and stopped. But I don't think any argument beyond the above is necessary.
Restated, no casino or poker room should engage in confiscation of money or other property because confiscation of money and property is a police/judicial action without exception.
There would be no problem at all if a casino thought there was a crime committed, turning over evidence to the authorities and having the money confiscated by them. But it never works that way.
I bring this up becuase it goes right to the core of two of the industry's most fundamental problems, trust and legitimacy.
Many poker rooms and casinos don't even do this sort of thing. But the ones that do more than make up for the abstainers by threatening the reputation of the entire industry, making it seem little better than an alley dice game to the people who matter most, new sign ups.
And of course there is the moral hazard of getting to keep any confiscated money, a non-negligible incentive.
Confiscation is a practice that should be eliminated. Casinos and poker rooms stealing players' cash on the whim of a manager, cash which they get to keep and from which the "decision is final" and no recourse exists, makes the entire business of online gambling look too much like the ugly caricature that fanatical prohibitionists sketch. And it doesn't have to be that way.
Casinos and poker rooms should be allowed to close accounts, they should be allowed to call the authorities and report crimes, they should be allowed to work with credit card companies and ewallets to right wrongs and replace or return any funds that may have been of fraudulent origin. But they should be denounced for keeping for themselves what clearly belong to others.
If you really know that money is from a fraudulent source and you keep it, at least in the US, you are guilty of exactly the same crime in exactly the same degree as the person who deposited the stolen/illegal/fraudulent money. This is not a serious argument for keeping someone else's money, whether it actually is stolen or not.
And as it so happens neither is any other. Non-bonus related confiscation should be universally denounced and stopped in the name of making this industry as legitimate as it's land based competitors.
I contend that confiscation or seizure of property is strictly a judicial matter and is never the right of a private company. I believe that this is proveable, at least in the United States by the argument that there is apparently no exception to the rule. Can anyone think of one instance in which a business is authorized to confiscate money from a customer without involving the police or without themselves facing serious criminal charges?
I could go on for 20 pages about all the reasons that this practice, especially by poker rooms, should be denounced and stopped. But I don't think any argument beyond the above is necessary.
Restated, no casino or poker room should engage in confiscation of money or other property because confiscation of money and property is a police/judicial action without exception.
There would be no problem at all if a casino thought there was a crime committed, turning over evidence to the authorities and having the money confiscated by them. But it never works that way.
I bring this up becuase it goes right to the core of two of the industry's most fundamental problems, trust and legitimacy.
Many poker rooms and casinos don't even do this sort of thing. But the ones that do more than make up for the abstainers by threatening the reputation of the entire industry, making it seem little better than an alley dice game to the people who matter most, new sign ups.
And of course there is the moral hazard of getting to keep any confiscated money, a non-negligible incentive.
Confiscation is a practice that should be eliminated. Casinos and poker rooms stealing players' cash on the whim of a manager, cash which they get to keep and from which the "decision is final" and no recourse exists, makes the entire business of online gambling look too much like the ugly caricature that fanatical prohibitionists sketch. And it doesn't have to be that way.
Casinos and poker rooms should be allowed to close accounts, they should be allowed to call the authorities and report crimes, they should be allowed to work with credit card companies and ewallets to right wrongs and replace or return any funds that may have been of fraudulent origin. But they should be denounced for keeping for themselves what clearly belong to others.
If you really know that money is from a fraudulent source and you keep it, at least in the US, you are guilty of exactly the same crime in exactly the same degree as the person who deposited the stolen/illegal/fraudulent money. This is not a serious argument for keeping someone else's money, whether it actually is stolen or not.
And as it so happens neither is any other. Non-bonus related confiscation should be universally denounced and stopped in the name of making this industry as legitimate as it's land based competitors.