DOJ Seizes Online Poker Site Domains

An anonymous reader writes "Federal authorities have seized Internet domain names used by three major poker companies. The indictment charges eleven defendants (PDF), including the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker, with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling offenses, according to Federal authorities in New York. The United States also filed a civil money laundering and in rem forfeiture complaint against the poker companies, their assets, and the assets of several payment processors for the poker companies."

Comments

Victimless "crime"

[jrj102]

I'm just glad to hear that all of the crimes against victims have been solved and the perpetrators brought to justice, giving the DOJ time to focus on victimless "crimes" like online poker.

At least I assume that's what happened.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm just glad to hear that all of the crimes against victims have been solved and the perpetrators brought to justice, giving the DOJ time to focus on victimless "crimes" like online poker.

At least I assume that's what happened.

I was under the same impression when they started cracking down on medical marijuana dispensaries and performing legwork for the RIAA and MPAA...

Re:Victimless "crime"

[i kan reed]

I agree with you that banning gambling is ridiculous moralizing that serves no purpose but to arbitrarily restrict the freedom of citizens. Especially in this case because the gamblers aren't even all U.S. residents. However, if these gambling establishments aren't regulated somehow, they tend to become, essentially, fraud engines. Either by the owners or enterprising players. And that level of laisez faire shouldn't really be allowed either. It's a false dilemma, but if I had to choose between no gambling and unregulated gambling, I'd likely choose the former.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[HungryHobo]

what are you on?

Re:Victimless "crime"

[Samalie]

I disagree.

I would rather have the freedom to choose whether or not I would risk my money in an unregulated gambling house than to be forced by the government to not gamble.

In either case, the result is the same...I wouldn't gamble. But I sill believe in the right to choose.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[jrj102]

Exactly.

I'm not against regulating online poker-- but I am against prohibition. The absence of regulation does not excuse the prohibition.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[SolemnDwarf]

It's a false dilemma, but if I had to choose between no gambling and unregulated gambling, I'd likely choose the former.

And I'd choose the latter.

Absolute bullshit. I find this kind of intervention ridiculous. It all comes down to money. They saw a thriving business that they couldn't get their claws into, so they shut it down.

As I read on /. the other day: "It's fun, therefore it's not allowed."

Re:Victimless "crime"

[WrongSizeGlass]

I'm just glad to hear that all of the crimes against victims have been solved and the perpetrators brought to justice, giving the DOJ time to focus on victimless "crimes" like online poker.

At least I assume that's what happened.

I could also be about the $3 Billion in civil penalties they are going after. From the link:

Prosecutors also filed civil charges against the poker companies and several individual "payment processors," seeking at least $3 billion in penalties.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[i kan reed]

Well, I can see the basic point of your argument. Either way though, the fault lies with (U.S. style) conservatives. Their fiscal wing is anti-regulation, making proper regulation hard, and their social wing is anti-gambling, making them ban it. Quite the obnoxious pairing.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[jrj102]

Who did they cheat, exactly? The only fraud they committed was incorrectly identifying the purpose of the dollars exchanged because the U.S. unreasonably (and illegally, I might add) restricts online poker.

There are no allegations of cheating the users, who desire the services these sites are providing.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[luis_a_espinal]

I'm just glad to hear that all of the crimes against victims have been solved and the perpetrators brought to justice, giving the DOJ time to focus on victimless "crimes" like online poker.

At least I assume that's what happened.

Hmmm, so bank fraud and money laundering are victimless crimes? I would have never guessed.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[pixelpusher220]

The lameness of my analogies also nicely highlights the ridiculousness of applying location based laws to something that doesn't have 'location'; i.e. the web.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[RicktheBrick]

There is a new site called Quibids.com that disguises itself as a bidding site but is actually a gambling site. The site charges 60 cents a bid. It is so deceptive because if one goes to the site one sees things being bid for at less than 10 per cent of their retail value. One thinks at such a low price maybe I should bid on the product. Now suppose they have a $1,000 product and start the bidding at $1.00. Now most people bid only a penny more each bid therefore after the bidding for the product reaches $17.67 one can calculate that 1,667 people have bid on that product. Multiplying that by 60 cents a bid one can see that the site has received the $1,000 for the product so the product should be given to the lucky last bidder. It is all a sham since the honest thing to do would be to sell raffle tickets for the product and after the required amount of ticket were sold than have a computer choose which one of those people is lucky enough to get the product for free. I have gone to the site and I just feel the greedy part of me trying to get me to bid but the intelligent part tells me to stay completely off the site. I can see where others will get hooked on it and lose a lot of money.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[luis_a_espinal]

I disagree.

I would rather have the freedom to choose whether or not I would risk my money in an unregulated gambling house than to be forced by the government to not gamble.

In either case, the result is the same...I wouldn't gamble. But I sill believe in the right to choose.

Bro, read. Bank fraud and money laundering are among the charges. Not every act of prosecution is about is about attacking your right to choose. I know this is slashdot and people don't RTFA, but c'mon.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[presidenteloco]

The victim in the crime of online gambling is the government itself.

You see, online gambling amounts to essentially a taxation system. (Some people call it a tax on the stupid but I won't
be so judgemental.)

Problem (for the government): This highly lucrative taxation system is directing citizens funds to some organization
other than the government itself. Competition for the government. Hence, inherently bad (from gov's perspective.)

So to summarize:
A. Drugs are banned because they make people unruly (literally, hard to rule, uncooperative and unmotivated).
B. Gambling is banned because it is a tax that is not going to the government, but to (organized crime) organizations
that could get so much money and power they would compete with the government.
Alcohol was a tough call. At one point it was banned because of A. but it was too hard to stop, so it became
highly taxed and regulated instead. Probably the same thing will happen with gambling. I know lotteries and gambling
(regulated and highly taxed in my locale) are what pays for the MRI machines and medical research, not to mention amateur sport
and a whole host of other government services around here.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[geekoid]

Laundering money is not a victimless crime.
Committing fraud against their customers.

This isn't about gambling.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[geekoid]

That would be great if every man was an island, but we are not.

Unregulated gambling brings problems to people who don't gamble.
Plus, people who do gamblers have NO WAY to know if they are being cheated.

Your stance seems to come from a false belief that customers would have the knowledge to make a good decision.

For the record, on rare occasion I do gamble.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[Obfuscant]

Which in no way invalidates the posters point. It doesn't tell how little you actually know about politics.

Actually, it does a good job invalidating it. The DOJ is under the control of the President, not the house of representatives. The DOJ routinely ignores things that the President wants ignored, and pushes agendas that the President wants pushed.

If the DOJ is going after someone, it's because the President wants it. And the President is a liberal democrat.

If this was four years ago and the DOJ was doing this, you'd hear the screams from the liberals about how a conservative President was raping the law, even when the liberals were in charge of the legislative branch. So put the blame where it belongs.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[theshowmecanuck]

More to the point, the laws against online gambling were enacted by a republican president, and continued under a democrat. Meaning that blaming one side or the other here is a ridiculous.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

Christ this is ridiculous.

I live in a city that thrives off of gambling. The history of gambling and gaming is pretty much full of cheats, thugs, thieves and charlatans.

Unregulated gambling means you don't know if you're playing the online version of three card monte or instead a respectable poker game.

You anti-Government types all act like either history never happend, history is all rosy and perfect or that people getting screwed is something to be celebrated.

Fuck you.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[TexVex]

It is trivial to make a poker game that cheats.

Poker makes its money by raking a little money from each pot and charging vigorish on tournament fees. They don't care who wins or loses. They just want more people playing more hands per hour for larger stakes.

Also, these poker sites have the randomness of their games analyzed by reputable neutral third parties. And if you want to collect up a significant sample of random card draws from these games and do your own analysis to look for cheating, nothing is stopping you.

It is in the best interest of the poker sites to provide a fair game, and towards that goal they do a great deal of cheat detection of their own. They catch people colluding. They also cooperate with governments in money laundering investigations.

The poker industry is aching for a court test of "is poker a game of skill, or gambling" in the courts. Maybe this will be a good opportunity for that, at least on the gambling-specific charges.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[Grygus]

Regardless, it signals a serious problem: either a man qualified to be the Secretary of the Treasury can't figure out our byzantine tax laws, or he purposefully committed fraud and therefore wasn't qualified. Neither outcome is at all desirable.

Re:Victimless "crime"

[ncgnu08]

Thank you. If we are going to pass blame around, which is not helpful to begin with, then let us acknowledge the online gambling bans were started by a Republican president. I find this lack of perspective just as funny, and useless, as the overlooking of which president actually created our massive deficits. Its like blaming the janitor for creating the mess he is cleaning up.

Side note: both parties are to blame. And actually, it is always worrying about blaming someone that hurts us so much. No one actually wants to together to clean up the mess. After all, if you do something, then you can be blamed for any outcome.

Hmm

[Antisyzygy]

I didn't realize online poker was illegal. However, the other things they were pulling is pretty bad.

Re:Hmm

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

As far as I can tell from TFA the "other things they were pulling" were workarounds to the fact that online gambling is illegal. ie, they lied to banks about the nature of their business, thus the charge of "fraud".

Re:Hmm

[Antisyzygy]

Yeah. I just didn't realize online gambling was illegal. Coming from Montana, there is a casino attached to almost every gas station, and then a bunch of bigger self-contained restaurant casinos. You could perhaps understand my naivety since its literally everywhere where I am from.

Re:Hmm

[NetShadow]

Online poker where the server is run outside the United States, does *not* appear to be illegal in the US. At least the wire act used to prosecute people sending money to sports books and the like does not appear to apply to poker specifically, nor has anyone in the US been successfully prosecuted for online poker. What *is* illegal as of the recent UIGEA act is for banks to provide you the ability to send your money to / receive money from these online gaming sites. Regardless of the facts, many state and federal officials persist in calling online poker illegal, despite it not apparently breaking any laws.

Re:Hmm

[MLease]

Well, that's why online gambling is illegal. The guys behind those casinos don't want the competition, and have paid their lackeys in Congress to keep them off the playing field.

-Mike

Re:Hmm

[Nick_13ro]

Its still fraud. Lying about the true nature of a financial transaction is fraud.

And pray, are you a cretin or just a government employed psychopath ? If the government leaves you no option but to be a criminal or close up an otherwise non-harmful (and funny enough, legal) business why do you support the government ? Not to mention they're just prosecuting something as fraud where there's no injured party. Or are you one of those idiots that support the law no matter how wrong and unjust ? And don't give me an answer like "I'm just stating the facts". If you care to emphasize such insanity without condemning it, you are in fact supporting it like the state owned slave that you are.

This Is Not About Censorship

[Anonymous Coward]

Why the fuck is this story listed under "Censorship"?? The internet domain seizure is but a small piece of a huge case the Feds are bringing, and it has nothing do with censorship at all.

Its all a part of charging these sites with bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses.

As usual Slashdot gets the story completely wrong.

Re:This Is Not About Censorship

[Charliemopps]

Amendment V to the United States Constitution

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifth_Amendment_to_the_Constitution_of_the_United_States

Explain to me how a Government body can seize your private property when you have not even been charged with a crime yet, much less convicted. In the case of these businesses, the seizure is likely costing them millions of dollars in revenue. Their guilt is obvious but if the government can shut down your entire business by simply filing an indictment, which is not even an accusation until a grand jury reviews it, that is without a doubt censorship.

What if the the justice department files an indictment against a major candidate for president for election fraud and shuts down his website in the middle of an election? What they can do to the unsavory, they can do to us all.

Re:This Is Not About Censorship

[ZombieBraintrust]

You don't actually own domain names. You don't buy a domain names. You register them. The US government controls the registration or .com names. They can kick you off of a domain name the same way Slashdot can ban your account. Your rites are based of the contract you signed when you registered the domain.

Re:This Is Not About Censorship

[Charliemopps]

Why was it necessary for them to replace the offending website with their own message? This is no different than if the government charged you with a crime, confiscated your house and then painted on the outside of your door "THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO ENEMIES OF THE STATE"

If you don't think it's a threat, read it for yourself: http://absolutepoker.com/
That right there is a message from your federal government, to all of us.

Saving The World

[cosm]

Yes! Go Department of Justice! The world is now safe! Keep nannying us please! I can't control my gambling habit, so you doing it for me solves the problem! Oh, things like state-run-lotteries, white-collar gambling on stock market derivatives and other ill-formulated market bundles, that is all well and good. But those evil-online-poker sites, they are causing the downfall of the US! Just like the millions spent on the Barry Bonds trial! All the victims of gambling and steroid use in baseball now can see that justice be served! The file-shares, go get them too! Litigate Litigate Litigate! You are the bastion of liberty in the free-world, 'O DoJ, I salute your valiant efforts at keeping us all safe.

Fucking Assholes.

Re:Saving The World

[gpuk]

How so? A lot of his points seem valid to me.

I particularly liked: "white-collar gambling on stock market derivatives" - the SEC has done a fucking piss poor job of regulating Wall Street over the last decade or so, laying the path for Madoff and friends to take some of the biggest gambles and pull off some of the largest frauds in corporate history. If that's government regulation at work, I'll take my chances with the self-regulation of the online poker world.

Re:Fed up

[IgnoramusMaximus]

These government assholes can go fsck themselves. America is screwed. Free country my ass.

Particularly obnoxious here is the stench of utter corruption and duplicity when it comes to US government and gambling: you see gambling is eeeevil ..... unless its the US or State governments who run the casinos, or their anointed cronies, in which case its just an innocent, family past-time ...

Re:Fed up

[Antisyzygy]

These online sites had no regulation. They could have just stacked the deck with a computer algorithm every time, or had house players cooperating with eachother at the table. My brother use to play these sites and he said many times there would be teams of players that all knew eachothers cards. It makes it a lot easier to find out what the other opponents have and bet accordingly with unfair advantage. They presumably split the winnings.

Re:Fed up

[geek]

So don't play? It's not rocket science.

lobbying and online poker

[BigHungryJoe]

The online poker industry is young yet and has not had time to establish a strong lobby in Washington, DC. Once they do, it will become a respectable, job-creating industry run by innovators that make this economy strong... and these sorts of stories will disappear.

GOATSE

[MikeB0Lton]

goatse troll warning...

The 2011 WSOP, live from Leninworth Penitentary!

[Anonymous Coward]

Daniel Negreanu just went all in with 2 cartons of Marlboros, a carton of Camels, 4 packs of 305's and his bitch, Mike Matusow.

Punching, not poking

[mangu]

I thought that a victimless crime was when you punch people in the dark, not when you poke them.

Re:Fed up

[Antisyzygy]

Its still fraud. Whether or not online gambling should be legal, they still lied to banks, and created shell companies to launder illegally obtained money. No doubt they knew this day would come someday and have secret accounts overseas. I don't feel sorry for them.

Re:Fed up

[the eric conspiracy]

One of the companies. AbsolutePoker.com involved was caught in a very serious cheating scandal.

Washington D.C. Legalizes Gambling

[lothos]

http://www.gambling911.com/gambling-news/online-gambling-becomes-legalized-united-states-thanks-washington-dc-041211.html

"Washington, D.C., with its under 1 million population, has become the first jurisdiction in the United States to legalize online gambling.

The District of Columbia is looking to raise millions of dollars from a multi-billion dollar industry that, until now, has operated exclusively offshore from the United States. That apparently is about to change."

"Players are really loyal in this industry," Ifrah said. "You really have to ask yourself what is the incentive a player is going to have to leave a trusted site with global competition to play in a site that's untested and kind of unknown and doesn't offer you the same level of play."

Looks to me like they just want to get rid of the competition.

Re:Fed up

[Samalie]

"My brother knew a guy". Really?

[citation needed]

I play regularly with real money on one of the sites. I have seen the improbable happen. There have even been a couple of scandals which all but killed a couple of cardrooms (and said scandals were not comitted by the "house"). There are ways to collude via software...there are ways to collude via telephone. But all the reputable cardrooms all work their asses off to prevent this, because they make a shitton of money off the rake, and they don't want their users jumping ship to another cardroom.

These rooms ARE regulated...just not by the almighty US Government.

Or to better phrase...the US Government isn't getting a cut, so they're shutting them down.

And seriously, how in the FUCK does the US Government have the right to sieze domain names OUTSIDE of the fucking USA? Pigfuckers have now tied up $500 of MY money that is in a site, and its NOT fucking illegal for me to play (I'm in Canada). Seriously, USA...go fuck yourself.

Re:Fed up

[geek]

You would be hard pressed to find anything in life "fair" let alone something as inherently corrupt as "gambling" By all means though, continue beating the drum and giving your money away to people for no reason at all. If you think Vegas or any casino is "fair" you clearly don't know what gambling is.

This is ridiculous

[gpuk]

This domain seizure trend is getting out of hand. If the FBI, ICE and DOJ keep this up, it's going to finish with the UN administering the root servers.

I'm a paying, European customer of Full Tilt Poker... I hope this domain seizure doesn't interfere with FTPs non-US operations. What jurisdiction do they have to decide whether or not I can exercise my legal right to engage in an online card game for money?

I noticed that the forums are still up: http://pokerforums.fulltiltpoker.com/

Re:Fed up

[Antisyzygy]

If some private certifying organization were to replace the government in that role then sure. However a lot of states use a "Gaming Commission" as a way to enforce gambling laws because its a part of tax revenue. They also serve the purpose of making gambling fair (within set tolerances). Whats wrong with using government to make sure that casinos are fair if your state does a lot of gambling and gets tax revenue from it? Its not nannyism, its paying your government for a service you want them to provide and bringing in more money to the state from gambling tourists. Las Vegas and Nevada did quite well for a long time doing this.

Illegal Gambling! Duh!

[XiaoMing]

The statement on the site warns that taking part in an illegal gambling business is a federal crime. “It is also a federal crime to knowingly accept, in connection with the participation of another person in unlawful Internet gambling, credit, electronic fund transfers, or checks," the warning said.

Yeah! Don't these idiots know that this type of risky gambling behavior is only allowed for people's life savings and investments, and only to be done so by giant financial corporations who knowingly deceive the general public?!

According to the indictment, the offshore poker companies continued to operate in the U.S. despite...

And these guys are OFFSHORE and operating in our beloved US?!?! What kind of blatant hypocrisy is this. I miss the good old days of [right now] when home-grown companies like GE funnel the money they've earned to off-shore accounts and pay zero dollars in taxes on the money they made off of the American people with full support from the government. Who do these hypocritical poker bastards think they are!

Re:Fed up

[Antisyzygy]

I just got through saying I don't gamble, so I agree that "I should just not gamble". I have a better understanding of odds than most people and it simply isn't worth it. That being said, my dad makes a lot of money playing REAL poker. Ive seen him come home with thousands of dollars at a time every saturday when I was a kid. Texas hold'em at the table is lucrative if you can read people well and also have an understanding of probability. He used to run a poker table and made a lot of money that way as well. At one point he went into business with a corrupt piece of shit that was doing some illegal gambling on the side and the Montana Gaming Commission busted them with handguns and handcuffed him and my father. The reason I know my dad wasnt involved is because hes a very honest man. It wasn't a misdemeanor or a felony, but they penalized him by not allowing a him to have a license to run a table for 5 years.

Re:Fed up

[gknoy]

It's entirely possible to imagine a fair gambling establishment, or of playing with a group of players where no one was cheating. The fact that many WOULD cheat doesn't mean that it's impossible not to.

Many gambling games (slots, etc) are stacked in the house's favor, yes. Poker, though, is a game of skill (with some random factors) between players, where the house takes a cut of the pot. A fair gambling establishment would ensure that no player was cheating the other players, and that the dealer was not favoring anyone. It would be like having professional Magic the Gathering leagues that play for big money: fairness is both possible and desired, but some people will always want to try to cheat. Good establishments will try to minimize that.

Online poker may not be illegal, sending money is

[NetShadow]

Online poker where the server is run outside the United States, may not be illegal in the US. At least the wire act used to prosecute people sending money to sports books and the like does not appear to apply to poker specifically, nor has anyone in the US been successfully prosecuted for online poker.

What *is* illegal as of the recent UIGEA act is for banks to provide you the ability to send your money to / receive money from these online gaming sites. Regardless of the facts, many state and federal officials persist in calling online poker illegal, despite it not apparently breaking any laws.

See this quote:

The indictment sets up a complicated global legal battle between the Department of Justice and the online poker entrepreneurs who have long argued that their operations in the U.S. do not violate U.S. law. Indeed, in recent days, one of the nation’s most prominent casino billionaires, Steve Wynn, announced a strategic relationship with PokerStars and said “in the United States of America the Justice Department has an opinion but several states have ruled and courts have agreed that poker is a game of skill, it’s not gambling. PokerStars rests their argument on that.”

Re:Does anyone have a link to the indictment itsel

[AEton]

OK, I did some digging in PACER, where it looks like the documents have probably been filed but are probably still sealed.

The relevant case is in the Southern District of New York (https://ecf.nysd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/ShowIndex.pl - anyone can sign up for a PACER account, they're free but you pay 8 cents per page, and if you charge less than $10 in a quarter it's free).

They're using an existing case, 1:10-cr-00336-LAK, which is all about the arrest and indictment of a gambling payment processor dude a year ago in April 2010.

See http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/arrests-follow-internet-high-flyers-release/story-e6frg6nf-1226039942478 for more on the dude.

So the timeline is:
1) Gambling dude is arrested in 2010 and charged with some gambling-related crimes. See his indictment at http://tech.mit.edu/~mherdeg/10-cr-00336-lak-1.pdf
2) Some time recently, he is (according to an Australian newspaper) secretly released from prison and prosecutors have not said whether he's still being charged
3) These 11 people are all being charged with 9 new crimes (documents not yet available, but apparently they'll be stored in this place / as part of this case number)

There have been a bunch of sealed documents added to the case recently; maybe they include the complaint and indictment that the press release talks about. You can see the history I got from PACER at http://tech.mit.edu/~mherdeg/10-cr-00336-entries.txt.

Re:people on medication for parkinson's disease

[JustOK]

i bet they'll find a cure soon.

Re:Fed up

[Antisyzygy]

Texas Hold 'Em is perfectly winnable with skill. Sure, the rake takes away some money from the table, but think of it as "renting" your chair and paying for the gambling license and operating costs. If you walked into a casino where the dealers were doing tricks with decks so that a house player was winning all your money, then the game is no longer fair. Sports regulates the use of performance enhancing drugs, why should it be different with poker? Maybe it doesn't have to be the government that regulates it, but it has to be impartial for fairness. I don't gamble either way so it doesn't matter to me.

Re:Fed up

[SuricouRaven]

Noted. Should I ever plan to defraud a poker site, I will make sure to run my pokerbot software on a seperate, isolated computer.

Re:Fed up

[geekoid]

Much in life is fair.

Gambling regulation is about the gambler getting the odds he is told.

A casino is fair. The tell you the odds, they tell you the payout. With that information the consumer can then make an informed decision. That is fair.

Online poker: Not a Zero Sum game.

[Usagi_yo]

It's unfortunate and I have some sympathy with those that were able to beat the online game without cheating and who made their living and have now had their account balances confiscated. However lets face reality, that probably represents 3% or less of online poker players. Meaning that a good estimate is that 97% of online poker players simply lost. Losers complain, some I daresay, may even think they've been cheated, people who think they've been cheated most certainly complain. Looks like those complaints have been heard.

PokerStars - still in business, apparently

[UttBuggly]

I am a fairly skilled poker player (have a positive bankroll) and play on PStars and Full Tilt, and have for years.

At least at this moment, MY accounts are still live and my money is still there. Didn't try to withdraw any, so that may be the litmus test.

But, I can still buy into a cash game or tourney, so I not sure what the DOJ has done that is having any actual effect on the sites doing business as usual.

Governments like that kind of business

[billstewart]

Governments actually like that kind of business. First the sucker earns some money doing real work, and pays income tax on it. Then the sucker loses some of that money to the gambling house (which pays business taxes) and some more money to the other players (who may also be suckers or may be sharks.) The winners pay income tax on their net winnings, if any, and the suckers don't get to deduct gambling losses (except to offset any winnings), so the government gets to take more money off the top.

When I was a kid, gambling was illegal because it was immoral and stupid, unless it was bingo sponsored by a religious or civic charity such as a volunteer fire company, or involved horses with driven by jockeys riding behind them in carts, not (gasp!) actually sitting on top of the horse. Eventually the state I grew up in started a state lottery, so gambling was now illegal because it was competing with the state's efforts to scam the stupid and immoral. When I lived in New Jersey, the state lottery system was required to put up posters explaining where the lottery money went (X% to the ticket sellers, Y% to the winners, Z% to the lottery bureaucracy, etc.) About 30-35% went to the state prison system, and some of it went to the school system (but obviously not to teaching math.)

Jon Kyl of Arizona was a big gambling-law pusher

[billstewart]

Senator Kyl, a right-winger from Arizona, was one of the big pushers of Federal laws against online gambling. He didn't want it left to the states, and didn't want Americans to be able to gamble at non-US gambling houses. It's always nice to know how strongly Republicans believe in small government that stays out of people's personal lives and leaves decisions to the states when they don't need to be Federal.

Re:Online poker may not be illegal, sending money

[SecurityGuy]

Played perfectly, it's a game of chance. Played imperfectly, it's a game of here-take-all-my-money.

It's gambling.

Steve's going to need some king-hell lawyers to get around an argument so simple I can slam-dunk it on the Internet.

You did no such thing. You merely spouted nonsense about "played perfectly". The only way to play perfectly is to precisely know your opponents strategy. If your opponent is remotely good, their strategy is constantly adapting to what they think YOUR strategy is. The only way to KNOW your opponents strategy is to play them over a very long series (50,000 or so hands, I'd say) AND be sure they're not changing it. Just think about it. YOU just played 50,000 hands, studied their strategy, and are about to alter YOUR strategy in order to beat them. Why do you presume they're not doing the same? They are. Start again.

Any serious player will know poker is a game of skill in the long run. Period. Poker is very much one of those games you learn in minutes and master in decades, if ever.

Re:Online poker: Not a Zero Sum game.

[SecurityGuy]

Actually, estimates are that about 20-25% of online players are winning players. There are sites that track all online play at some of the major sites, so data like this isn't that hard to come by. Pokertableratings.com and sharkscope.com, for example.

If that sounds low, consider a lot of people play with money they don't care about (me) and that those numbers are monstrously larger than the percentage of undeniably legal, US run lotteries where far less than 1% of players are winners over time. Consider also that the 75% who lose have the opportunity to learn to play better and not lose. The 99+% of lottery players have no such opportunity.