Nobody has addressed why this happened and everyone on here just states it all revolves around money.The Gov't clearly stated in the UIGEA that people in the U.S. can no longer gamble on the internet. This was why MG closed its doors to the U.S. etc.. Most poker sites went ahead and closed their doors doors to the U.S. as well. Most notably Partypoker which lost tons of business by doing this. Lucky for them they would rather stay out of jail than make money off people from the U.S. Full Tilt and the other sites blatantly said F*** the U.S. Gov't, we want to make money and poker is a "SKILL" game, whereby they went ahead and allowed U.S. customers to deposit and play arguing poker is a game of skill and not gambling. I think this is a strange argument because nobody can control the outcome of what is to come. Sure you can get pocket aces and know you have the best hand, but this does not mean you will win. There is also different amounts of luck on the various games of poker that can be played, and the limits people choose to play. I would love to see someone try to argue 1 cent 2 cent poker is a game of skill when seated against a table full of monkeys or bots. there was actually a monkey that was trained to play poker, and could play a pretty decent game, but this does not change the variance associated and luck of the draw in the game. If there was no luck in poker, it would be an extremely boring game and nobody would even play. The excitement people get when sweating the river card, is what has made poker become such a great game, and got tons of viewers to watch on T.V. I can atest to level of luck associated in poker because I played professionally for many years and made hundreds of thousands playing poker in live games and tournaments. I can not even begin to tell you how many times I had a 97-98 percent chance to win a hand and lost. Sure, in the longrun you can argue that you will win if you play correctly, and I do agree with that. However, it is not just a skill game and there lies the problem. It is a luck and skill game!! obviously skill plays more importantly in the equation than does luck.
Getting back to the poker sites, you use to be able to use your bank debit card to play and than they stopped allowing that and decided it was too risky. This too was what pokerstars did etc.. Than they moved to echeck and some other online processors to allow U.S. customers to play. This can be looked at in 2 viewpoints. The first being that these sites love all of us from the U.S. so much, that they have our best interests in mind, and just want us to be able to play america's favorite past-time in the comfort of our own homes. The second viewpoint is that they simply wanted to make money and the majority of poker players are from the U.S. Don't get me wrong, I love poker and think it should be legal to play online and I think these sites took a shot in the dark hoping that they would get their point across.
Nonetheless these sites did indeed break the law by allowing people to deposit and play, by accepting deposits claiming ti be something they were not. The fact they had to call themselves a golf company to get the deposit to go through, shows they new what they were doing was indeed against the law and nonetheless still did it. It can be argued that they did it for US.. the players in the U.S. And if that is the actual reason they did it, then I respect what they did, but it still shouldn't have been done.
There are at least 20 more sites I know of that allow people to buy in and play by accepting payments and claiming they are a computer company, pet store, bowling alley etc.. All of these sites are wonderful to play at and it is shame this has happened. But this still does not change the fact, that all these sites are fraudently tricking banks into allowing us to deposit.
Just for the record I would like to state that I love pokerstars and also full tilt poker. I have many friends that have made a living playing at these sites and it is horrible this has happened. I too use to play poker online all the time until the UIGEA came about. The minute that happened I probably played at most 10 times and only bought in for about $10.00 per deposit. I use to play the 100-200 limit games on stars and won tons of money before the UIGEA went into place.
The bottom line is that if you live in the U.S. you have to play at your own risk, and anything can happen at any time. It does not just revolve around our Gov't being greedy. They are trying to protect people in the U.S. from these companies. Do I think these sites should be excluded from the U.S.?? NO WAY.. I think all the sites should be legal including MG etc... I think this whole thing has blown out of proportion and I also think all these poker sites may have screwed us in the longrun by trying to find loopholes for U.S. players to play, instead of letting time be the dictator of what would.
With all of this in mind, i have to say I salute 3dice casino for there stringent honest casino. They were the first casino that told me the reasons they do not allow U.S. customers to use a visa card, and stated they would NEVER call themselves a pet shop, just to allow U.S. customers to buy in and play. Thank you 3dice casino for being 100% trustworthy and not putting yourselves in the situation that about 20 more casinos I can think of are about to go through. One last thing, if you live in the U.S. and play on bodog or any betonsoft site.. get your money out immediately. All bet on soft sites and also bodog claim to be something they are not in order to allow U.S. customers to buy-in. For what it is worth, i hope my post has opened everyone's eyes and gave people another vantage point besides just flaming theGov't.
