November 2009 US Updates

For continued updates on recent events our US poker sites reference has new information.

November 27

2:41pm – The Federal Reserve Board officially released a statement today announcing the 6 month delay. Apparently Barney Frank wasn’t too happy about the “leak” of this news the other day. Oh well. The press release says they are allowing the extension, for lack of better words, to clarify the cluster fuck language in the UIGEA.

November 26

3:50pm – Its interesting to see how partygaming’s stock faired today (quite badly). While it seems stocks around the world didn’t do so well it’s intriguing that this postponment would cause such a drop, if indeed the news did. My theory is this. With another 6 months of “delay” that means Pokerstars, Full Tilt and the likes that accept US players will continue to impair Party Poker’s ability to grow. Party Gaming has stated multiple times that with sites being able to accept US players, they suffer greatly from this and it stunts their growth. So while the news may be good long term, investors are looking at the short term. I own no gaming stocks nor am I an investor but find this interesting.

Anyways I find it very amusing that this 6 month delay seems to have been brought upon by Kentucky. Guess they’re not too happy about Mastercard overblocking betting on horses which is legal per the UIGEA. Kentucky does have something to do with horses right?

November 25

4:16pm – So much for no news breaking over Thanksgiving, some bombs were dropped today. The UIGEA has been postponed by 6 months. This would mean regulations wouldn’t have to go into affect until July 1. This news is coming from a PPA board member and twoplustwo poster Rich Muny (The Engineer). As I was writing this I wanted to report on news that a hearing about the delay bill and legalization bill was going to be heard on December 3. It made no sense to have a hearing on a delay bill 2 days after the bill went into affect but this seems to clarify things. Because all this news was literally just announced, here are a couple news articles that may be of help if you want to read more. Side note: I imagine Partygaming and 888 Holdings will see a nice stock price rise tomorrow as trading ended in the UK by the time of this announcement. It just adds more hope to US legalization.

4:00am – Nothing is going to happen for the next few days because of Thanksgiving Holiday. I’m going to take a couple days off. Have a happy Thanksgiving, unless you’re a slimey Congressman, then I hope you drop your turkey on the floor.

November 23

11:01am – I went through the forums and news sites and surprisingly, nothing to report on. No deposit or withdraw problems at any major site to report which so far is great news! 7 days left. Nobody is really talking about the UIGEA at all, not even the PPA.

November 18

10:51pm – We are finally getting some well informed POSITIVE responses via television broadcasts. Today CNBC had a short 3 minute clip about the possibility of legalizing online gambling. Both commentators knew what they were talking about and so did the CNBC reporter. Also, in a thread discussing this over at 2+2, Rich Muny a PPA rep said that they are still working very hard on the delay bill. Here is the clip.

9:34pm – For some reason Ultimate Bet is renaming their poker site to UB.com. To me this is very strange. Its an obvious attempt to rebrand their site after the cheating scandal that happened a couple years ago, but any new player signing up at UB probably isn’t aware of the cheating that went on, and the seasoned players know it’s the same site so….I personally see no point. UB.com just doesn’t suit a poker site name if you ask me. Not when there is so much branding already behind Ultimate Bet.

12 days left!

November 17

2:11pm – Not really legal related, but I found it interesting that Pokerstars is getting into mobile phone poker with its acquisition of Cecure Gaming. Playing poker for money on a phone….I just never understood it.

3:53am – Just did a random deposit method check at the main sites. I noticed Absolutepoker/Ultimatebet still haven’t gotten echecks to work. Basically they are lying to their customers and saying that the “max deposit limit” has been reached instead of saying the real problem …Also their Amex credit cards are down. Everything else seems normal at FTP and Stars.

3:31am – EGR Magazine published an article saying that legalized online poker in Florida (not the entire US) would yield $90 million in tax revenues per year. Being one that lives in the state of Florida, I would preferably like to see the stakes rise at brick and mortar poker rooms. Currently the max buy-in is $100 at a time. If interstate online poker ever was legalized, I could easily see them putting caps on stakes and daily wagers.

November 15

11:58pm – It appears the WSOP made official announcements that it plans to officially launch their gaming sites this week. This became apparent when they redirected worldseriesofpoker.com to wsop.com. Also if you read the very bottom of the page you see they are going to name the new poker site, WSOP. Only 15 days left until the UIGEA goes into “full” affect.

November 10

7:11pm – At the end of the month, Goldencasino will no longer accept new US players. This is apparently the decision of the owner of the casino. Golden Casino has been subject to multiple investigations by the US government including part of a large monetary seizure back in September.

3:16am – As reported a few weeks ago, Full Tilt Poker had disabled echecks for deposits and withdraws for most players. I can verify that this option is now back available and is also still available at Poker Stars where they saw no recent interruption. Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet still have echecks missing from the cashier.

3:08am – The Merge Gaming and PicClub dispute has finally been released to the public as to exactly what happened. For the most part the rumors of what I was hearing prior to the release were accurate. Basically it involved a whale/large chargebacks/ and fees incurred. The dispute seperated both companies from doing business together and they continue to point fingers at each other.

November 3

8:37pm – Gary Kaplan, the ex-founder of Betonsports was sentenced today by a United States judge. His sentence, 4 years in prison and $43 million. Ouch!

2:54pm – The demise of echecks is contiuing. We can confirm that echecks are not working for many players at Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet along with Full Tilt Poker as reported earlier. The option has disappeared from the cashier que. The only site to still have fully functional echecks to deposit and withdraw is Pokerstars.com. In fact they just made a news announcement in the software when you open it up saying the deposit requirement is only $10 for echecks now.

November 2

11:02am – Remember Firepay, probably not it was so long ago I thought I was reading old news. They were a popular 3rd party ewallet like Neteller that ceased transactions because of the UIGEA. Anyway, they finally agreed to come to terms with the UIGEA and forfeit the $19.2 million the DOJ wanted for non-prosecution of illegal activities.