three largest online poker rooms indicted by FBI

[jsawe]

Merge years ago when it was Poker.com (now PDC Poker) and Carbon were the best sites for cashing. I'm not sure of their conditions now. Felt Stars and some of thew others require nothing to deposit but a copy of two identity documents to cash out. One rep. admitted this was purely to protect the site from fraud and had nothing to do with the security of the player. Anyone know what Bodog's cashing policy is - because it is on my sort list of new sites to play at.

This $250 US per week cashing restriction at AP/UB has me more troubled than their legal problems. It would only be implemented if they were having a run on their cash reserves (that is our money they are holding) and don't have enough to cover everyone. It is really disturbing because the majority of their players are from the US and, at the moment can't cash at all.

[kardmania]

Based on the business expertise of the DOJ the door was opened for AP to reward their employees and or their non US players with funds that they could judiciously redistribute from US account holders. Perhaps they felt that wealth redistribution would gain favor with the regime and leniency for management.

I hope this is pure conjecture and that AP is acting like a fiduciary. I wish someone could point why one could logically make these presumptions.

I will point out that today's WSOP satellite Round 2 went into the toilet. Last time I looked the game was running 7 hours 15 minutes and I still had decent number of chips. Unfortunately, I could not get to the table and got some file version error message. Now the lobby is down for this game as well as the Round 3 game. This is another bad signal for US players.

While I have been typing, the lobby for the Round 2 game disappeared.

I trust that the DOJ would be less interested in finding stolen money and imprisoning poker site officials for fraud and theft than protecting poker players from themselves.

[lunarphase]

http://theppa.org/takeaction/

fill out a brief form to send an e-mail to the president,senators,and congressman

for anyone uninformed it looks like we'll be getting our money back next week on ftp

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/us-player-faq

[islandtime2]

Read the below article link. If true then I sure wish someone had done this research and published it a few years ago and I doubt any of us would have been playing on UB/AP:

http://www.tampabay.com/news/busines...cle1166818.ece

Do you think Phil and Annie knew all that background before endorsing UB/AP? If they did all i can say to them is thanks for nothing.

So in light of this article the future for UB/AP looks very bleak and it seems more likely they will be just evaporating completely soon along with all of our monies.

I hope Lunar is luckier with FT. Assuming they do not have as many skeletons in the closest as UB/AP then at least it seems they have a decent shot at keeping their business running which should mean they eventually will get everyone paid back. If you are betting on UB/AP (like I did) it looks like we are drawing dead...

[kardmania]

Phil and Annie....... I must say that I am amused. They were both bad marketing tools and any dollars that they were paid were wasted.

[islandtime2]

Originally Posted by kardmania

Phil and Annie....... I must say that I am amused. They were both bad marketing tools and any dollars that they were paid were wasted.

Yea, well laugh at me then - I actually thought they believed in the product they were endorsing and they were part of what got me started playing on UB/AP instead of the other sites. But maybe they were fooled like the rest of us - dang it - wish I had withdrew my money when they left. Looking back since neither of them ended up signing with PS or FT can't help but wonder if maybe they had some inside knowledge what the DOJ was up to. I would like to know if they had left any significant money on any of the three sites - that would tell if they knew anything but kept it to themselves.

[islandtime2]

Just read this on Tony G's blog dated today:

PokerStars has paid most U.S. players by now and they are running poker around the clock as usual. That’s a very good sign for online poker.

On the player’s money being safe and coming back to them, I believe Absolute Poker is dead. PokerStars is 100% safe. Full Tilt Poker is 90% safe. That’s my opinion only and you shouldn’t take book on it. I hope that all online poker sites honor the player’s trust and investments of time and money by returning all funds as soon as possible.

http://blogs.pokernews.com/xTonyGx/s...ospitality.htm

[kardmania]

Originally Posted by islandtime2

Yea, well laugh at me then - I actually thought they believed in the product they were endorsing and they were part of what got me started playing on UB/AP instead of the other sites. But maybe they were fooled like the rest of us - dang it - wish I had withdrew my money when they left. Looking back since neither of them ended up signing with PS or FT can't help but wonder if maybe they had some inside knowledge what the DOJ was up to. I would like to know if they had left any significant money on any of the three sites - that would tell if they knew anything but kept it to themselves.

Would not laugh at you for signing up based on those two. I am shocked. I have to think that you are pulling my leg.

I would argue that the reason that they remained on the bench is that nobody was willing to pay them anything near what UB AP had been paying. Furthermore, my guess is that AP UB cut the allowance dollars that they had paid this dynamic duo and they felt insulted and the relationship was ended.

This all pure conjecture and if I am wrong please enlighten me.

This reminds me of the 500 piece Phil Hellmuth chips set that Sports Authority was selling years ago....12 gram typical Chinese made chips each slapped with a Hellmuth picture sticker front and back. Original price $250 with case and two cheap decks of cards. Marked down as follows $229, $199, $179, $149, $129, $99, $79, $69, $49, last price mark was $29.

These display boxes looked like a checkerboard and the stack never got lower.

I asked the store manager what they were going to do with the product. I was willing to go as high as $10/unit for a couple dozen as gag gifts.

He answered, I suppose when we get some dead time we can remove the stickers off and take them out of the Phil Helmuth box and then we can sell them for $50 easy. This was years ago when Phil was as famous as he is today with lower negatives.

[islandtime2]

Well, I just never understood the true Hellmuth haters. His record speaks for itself and his personality makes for great entertainment. His book was the first poker book I read and I actually got to sit at a table or two with him or Annie on UB over the years. Call me a noob but I got a kick out of it. Now msnbc is forcasting bankruptcy for UB/AP and doubts players will ever see there money:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42906061...s-us_business/

[kardmania]

Not sure if I am the only person feeling this way but it appears as if these transactions represent a fraud on all of the players and debt holders. If and when this gets brought back to the United States there will be a judge who will look at preference issues all over the board. This means that every pay out that has been made along with salary payments could legally be brought back into the estate.

Furthermore, it appears that criminal charges could be brought against the firm's management.

I actually enjoy the Hellmuth show, but I am easily amused.