4 ms·

WHOA, that's really big news for the poker industry. These are all very large, very big businesses (talking billions of dollars) in the US. Can anyone confirm i

by vnorby 16y ago

WHOA, that's really big news for the poker industry. These are all very large, very big businesses (talking billions of dollars) in the US. Can anyone confirm if their poker clients are still functioning properly?

iwwr 16y ago
Weren't they all banned in the US a few years ago? Illegal even for banks to process transactions to them.
- vnorby 16y ago
  Not technically. Technically, they were not allowed to process PAYMENTS in the US, so most of the poker site operators moved their payment processing internationally. If you made a deposit or a withdrawal to one of these services, you would be charged an international transaction fee. It's a gray legal area for sure, but one which they've operated in for many years without much trouble.
- slay2k 16y ago
  A number of sites completely withdrew from the US (Party, Pacific, etc), either out of fear or because of their particular company's corporate setups / locations. A few big ones remained operational for US players, the biggest being Stars and FullTilt, with the only change being refusal to accept credit cards as a deposit method. I'd venture to say millions of bank deposits have occurred since then within the US, and the legality of it all was never black and white, and certainly not enforced in any way.
- eli 16y ago
  Even if that's true, they're not illegal from, say, Ireland. Yet Irish citizens can't get to the site because the FBI took it. The US gets to seize assets anywhere in the world if they have some connection to an alleged US crime?
- Vivtek 16y ago
  Yeah, I remember having troubles with Moneybookers payment processing and Joker.com registrar payments, because my bank (which was Chase Fricking Manhattan and thus should know better) assumed that they must be gambling sites.
tybris 16y ago
I don't know about the client, but I imagine fulltiltpoker.co.uk will work just fine for the foreseeable future. There is no force in this universe that will keep the British from gambling... and if there is, they already have bets on it.
- socksy 16y ago
  At the moment it redirects to the .com — I can see them changing that in a hurry.
viraptor 16y ago
Pokerstars client does not use dns at startup at all. It uses one of the ips you can see in trace.ini. (not sure how it obtains those ones however) Wouldn't expect other clients to be worse. They're going to be ok.

by vnorby 16y ago

iwwr 16y ago

Weren't they all banned in the US a few years ago? Illegal even for banks to process transactions to them.

vnorby 16y ago
Not technically. Technically, they were not allowed to process PAYMENTS in the US, so most of the poker site operators moved their payment processing internationally. If you made a deposit or a withdrawal to one of these services, you would be charged an international transaction fee. It's a gray legal area for sure, but one which they've operated in for many years without much trouble.
slay2k 16y ago
A number of sites completely withdrew from the US (Party, Pacific, etc), either out of fear or because of their particular company's corporate setups / locations. A few big ones remained operational for US players, the biggest being Stars and FullTilt, with the only change being refusal to accept credit cards as a deposit method. I'd venture to say millions of bank deposits have occurred since then within the US, and the legality of it all was never black and white, and certainly not enforced in any way.
eli 16y ago
Even if that's true, they're not illegal from, say, Ireland. Yet Irish citizens can't get to the site because the FBI took it. The US gets to seize assets anywhere in the world if they have some connection to an alleged US crime?
Vivtek 16y ago
Yeah, I remember having troubles with Moneybookers payment processing and Joker.com registrar payments, because my bank (which was Chase Fricking Manhattan and thus should know better) assumed that they must be gambling sites.

tybris 16y ago

I don't know about the client, but I imagine fulltiltpoker.co.uk will work just fine for the foreseeable future. There is no force in this universe that will keep the British from gambling... and if there is, they already have bets on it.

socksy 16y ago
At the moment it redirects to the .com — I can see them changing that in a hurry.

viraptor 16y ago

Pokerstars client does not use dns at startup at all. It uses one of the ips you can see in trace.ini. (not sure how it obtains those ones however) Wouldn't expect other clients to be worse. They're going to be ok.