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Insta-Amy

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I’m sure I’ll be stumbling across more and more must-click items throughout the week … the latest is Amy Calistri’s well-written take on what all came together to create the current online poker clusterfuck.


Posted by DanM on October 4, 2006 at 5:22 am

3 Comments to “Insta-Amy”


  1. Russ Scott/luckydogpoker     Says:
    October 6th, 2006 at 1:40 am

    Thanks, Dan, for steering us to Amy’s comments — and for all of the links you’re posting to coverage of this story!

    This whole mess is beyond belief. Had there been a legit debate and review, then a legit vote, and the bill still passed, then at least the democratic process would have been served. I could have accepted that.

    Remember out in Vegas what the WSOP head honcho said after I asked him what impact an online poker bill would have on the number of entrants? He answered: “I don’t know.” Nothing more. It was a stupid answer, but now I can see that his words matched the shoulder-shrugging attitude of poker’s heavyweights as Leach, Goodlatte et al kept pushing their misguided agenda. (I’m guessing 3,500 or fewer in next year’s Main Event.)

    So what’s our best move now? Wire money to a London bank to open an account? How many U.S. players have closed their online accounts, I wonder? I’m staying put so far.

    Keep up the good work.

    – Russ Scott


  2. Mol     Says:
    October 6th, 2006 at 5:40 pm

    As someone in another thread asked, if you have money at say Party right now, do you pull it out? Will it be harder to withdraw after the prez signs this thing?


  3. Bob     Says:
    October 7th, 2006 at 9:20 am

    An nice little write-up on the bill is on ESPN:

    http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=2611872

    The article talks to law professors, who believe, like the rest of us, that the bill is a piece of crap (sorry to throw out those technical legal terms there).

    The online gambling people that the Feds have gone after so far are the sports betting sites, as only that form of gambling is defined in the Wire Act of 1961, and this bill doesn’t expand that list.

    And, what I found surprising, is that checks are exempt from the prohibited transfer mechanisms.

    So, as I read it, the bill does this:

    1- States that US banks/financial institutions cannot transfer money to firms which participate in “illegal internet gambling”. (and of course that gets a big F OFF from non-US banks)

    2- Transferring funds by check is exempt from the prohibition.

    3- The bill does NOT define what constitutes “illegal internet gambling”, and no provision of the bill makes any particular act of online gambling illegal (since it doesn’t expand the list from the Wire Act of 1961).

    So…

    1- Non-sports gambling sites aren’t breaking the law.

    2- My participating in non-sports gambling sites isn’t breaking the law.

    3- Being a financial middleman (NetTeller, etc.) isn’t breaking the law (which, as ESPN pointed out, only came into being when direct credit-card transactions were prohibited).

    4- Sending funds to an account with a middleman, or to the site itself by check or electronic check isn’t breaking the law.

    Summary - I can gamble to my little heart’s content online, as long as it does not involve sports betting, and just fund NetTeller, etc., by check (or electronic check, like I pay my bills).

    Like the article pointed out, they adapted when direct credit-card transactions were stopped, and they will adapt again. It’s the “sky is falling” mentality that will hurt in the short-term.

    This is most likely why Harrah’s, et al, weren’t visibly involved. The bill is, to para-phrase an old programming term, “vapor-law”.

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