Archived Updates for June 2007

Updated Friday June 29

8:01pm – Stephen Lawrence, one of the co-founders of Neteller pleaded guilty to one count of criminal conspiracy in a Manhattan courtroom today.  Lawrence told the judge this.

“I came to understand that providing payment services to online gambling Web sites serving customers in the United States was wrong.”

Lawrence received a $5 million dollar bail and left the courtroom choosing not to talk to reporters.  His sentencing will occur in October.  With his cooperation, according to one lawyer, Lawrence might potentially not see any jail time.  Lefebreve the other Neteller co-founder plead not guilty.

3:37pm – J. Todd from APCW.org released this weeks Perspectives Weekly Video.  One of the best ones yet and he even called up and talked to the FBI in this video.  Sure was a lot of silence when J. Todd questioned the FBI about the article they just published saying it was illegal to gamble online.

2:00pm – Harvard Medical School faculty from the Division on Addictions did a study on gambling addictions which was released this week.  In the study, out of 40,000 people, only .04% showed signs of possible gambling problems.  Another Bill Frist myth exposed.

1:30pm – Stay up to date with Neteller.  Why?  Because if not they will take your money forever.  In the latest FAQ page for US customers, Neteller says that once they begin allowing customers to withdraw money you will have 180 days to do so.  One day after that and you forfeit your money to Neteller.  Neteller “expects” to allow customers to begin withdrawing money by July 13th.

1:31am – From the looks of it the domain name Poker.com may finally change hands.  For awhile there nobody knew if or to whom it sold.  Rumors were it sold for $22-$27million.  The reason I say so is because Full Tilt Poker is now plastered all over the site.  Either Carbon Poker wasn’t attracting any players or it’s getting ready to change hands.

Amazingly enough Poker.com can still be played at as long as you go through an affiliate review site.  If you just typed in Poker.com depending on if your cookies were clear or not, you would end up at the review site and not the Poker.com download site.  Confused yet?

Updated Thursday June 28

2:03pm - Neteller released a press release today stating that due to ongoing investigation by the US authorities they have not been able to finalize their accounts so they will continue to be suspended from trading.

Updated Wednesday June 27

1:29pm – A court date is expected to be set late next week for the injunction being sought by iMEGA against the UIGEA.  Edward from IMEGA confirmed this but they are still waiting on the US government.

2:09am – Moneygram was removed from the cashier at Pokerstars.com.  There is something called Cash Transfer Express on the skew now.  Seems to be the exact same thing as Moneygram!  Also, I noticed Western Union was back up in the cashier window in its place.  As one site removes Moneygram another place adds it,  Absolutepoker.com.  All above lists were updated to reflect the changes.

Updated Tuesday June 26

12:13pm – Australia and Macau said this morning they will also seek compensation from the United States regarding the WTO gambling ruling.  This has gotten huge with over 7 claims being made for “compensation” so far.  According to Jay Cohen from Wsex.com the next step is, “The US has 3 months to negotiate with them or go into arbitration.”

It seems the whole world wants money over this issue.  The following countries have either asked for compensation or filed complaints over the issue. (Antigua, EU, Japan, India, Costa Rica, Macau, Canada, and Austraila)

If you’re not familiar with the WTO ruling it said that the US had to allow overseas countries access to the US online horse racing and lottery market.  They refused to do so and withdrew their agreement regarding gambling and now everyone wants compensation.

12:30am – I just noticed that the countdown we were doing for the UIGEA regulations to set in using the 270 grace period was slightly off.  We had July 14th as the date but instead it is July 10th which now leaves only 16 days left.  With all the stuff surrounding the UIGEA it would seem very likely that the deadline is not going to be met.  There is just too much controversy, lawsuits, and stalling going on.  With that said they’ll probably release them today. 

Updated Monday June 25

4:20am – It’s been a slow news weekend.  How about this one.  I was reading a poker thread where a micro-limit player at Bodog.com was credited $1.3 million dollars by accident.  He had $1000ish in his account and when he checked his account balance after sitting at a $50 table he had just over $1.3 mill.  Ok, now listen to this.  He told customer support that there must have been some sort of mistake, and yes, they did accidenty credit his account, but gave him a $10 reward for being honest.  He has screen shots of his cashier so it looks perfectly legit.  What would you have done? 

Updated Friday June 22

8:03am – Here is this weeks Perspective Weekly video (www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_3qzazR1Bk) from J. Todd at APCW.  It recaps some of the WTO issues and Partygaming’s potential buy-out news.  Good to listen to if you promote Party Poker and are an affiliate….you could get screwed over again.

Updated Wednesday June 20

5:09pm – Costa Rica is now joining the list of countries seeking compensation from the United States after they failed to comply with WTO rulings regarding online gambling.  Costa Rica is said to be one of the hardest hit countries with the recent UIGEA ban on internet gambling in the US.

10:44pm – Withdraw fees have changed at Bodog.com for US players.  They will now allow for 1 withdraw per month using any method with no fees incurred.  After that they will charge $20 per withdraw.  They have also issued “no fee” WSOP qualifiers for the upcoming Main Event in Vegas.

8:58am – I don’t know whether to call this good news or bad news anymore since this WTO stuff is now starting to hurt the US economy.  Antigua announced today that they will be seeking $3.4 billion dollars per year from the United States due to their non-compliance with the decision by the World Trade Organization ruling the ban on internet gambling was illegal.  As per our post yesterday, the European Union will likely follow suit and seek some sort of compensation from the United States on similar grounds.  If little Antigua wants $3.4 billion I can’t imagine what the European Union will demand.

Updated Tuesday June 19

6:11pm – The European Union (EU) told the United States today that they will be seeking compensation for the ban the US placed on internet gambling.  The ban on internet gambling in the US violates World Trade Organization agreements.  Europe will seek committments to open up trade in other sectors to compensate for losses equivalent to the gaming revenue losses.  Antigua and Barbuda are two others seeking compensations.  Not complying with the WTO gaming decision will now certainly cost non-related US companies millions of dollars unless agreements are met.

4:34pm – According to eGamingReview, PartyGaming could possibly get bought out.  Partygaming has definately been feudally doing everything in their power to boost share prices from selling advertising for .net (free money players) to charging affiliates who used “incentive marketing” to pay back affiliate monies rendered.  This is a following quote regarding a possible buy-out.

“PartyGaming’s recent discussions with the US authorities could pave the way to the company being snapped up by a US gaming or internet giant according to an analyst note.

The buy note from Deutsche Bank suggests that at present share price levels, Party could be an “easily palatable bolt-on” if given the “all-clear” by the Department of Justice.  They could be nabbed by ebay, Google, MGM or other gaming and internet giants.”

Updated Monday June 18

4:39pm – So it was a pretty slow last few days with not much happening regarding online gambling in the US.  I decided to try and get some clarification on the Florida legislation which is going to allow for increased stakes at Florida poker rooms.  If you were following the Bill it technically said Florida would be allowed to have No Limit Holdem games of any amount as long as you could buy-in for less than $100.  But, it was pretty apparent it meant to say, “You can’t buy-in for more than $100.”

I ended up calling the Florida legislative office to see what the procedure was for when Cardrooms try to test the wording of the Bill and offer games of NL where you could buy in for more than $100.  The support lead me to an “analysis” of the Bill which basically interprets what was meant to be said and what is said.  In this analysis there is a quote that says “Allows the game of no bet Limit Texas Holdem with a maximum allowed buy-in of $100.”

Updated Friday June 15

1:35pm – After analyzing some of the peak player volumes at Poker Stars, Full Tilt, Ongame Network, and Party Poker we came up with these percentages.  We compared a 3 day “peak” average volume for the middle of May compared to the past few days of this month.

• Poker Stars suffered the biggest decline of -17% but still holds the most “peak” player volumes at ~13,419 for the past few days
• Full Tilt is the second largest US accepted site with no major change in player volumes from mid May to mid June.  Their current average is 7833 for the past few days.
• Party Poker, the largest non-US accepted site is continually growing but things have leveled off this past most showing a 1% decline in peak player volume.  Their peak volumes are in the 9450 range for the past few days.
• The Ongame Network (Pokerroom.com) is another non-US accepted site expanding greatly into other markets.  While they only grew 2.5% from mid May to June their overall volumes have increased significantly since the UIGEA decline.  Current peak volume averages are 6700

As we move into WSOP air time on ESPN I expect to see Fulltiltpoker.com gain the most new players because of their large “poker pro” team and #1 rankings for “online poker” in google.  I also expect non-US accepted sites to see an increase in player volumes do to their ability to freely advertise at the WSOP, while sites still accepting players from the US can not.  Once again, Party Poker will continue to grow.  Thanks goes out to pokersitescout for letting us analyze your poker room tracking stats.

1:08pm – Yusill from the New York District DOJ press office said there has been no updates regarding the Neteller co-founders at this time.  I think she’s getting tired of me calling. 

12:56pm – A new APCW Perspectives Weekly video was released today.  I would give a recap but the darn thing doesn’t want to load on my computer.  Maybe you’ll have better luck.  Also, I will be calling the press office at the DOJ to get any updates on Neteller.  And lastly, I’m going to analyze some player volume stats from pokersitescout to see where all the action has been lately.  After that, I’m going to win some money on the golf course at TPC Sawgrass. 

2:29am – So I was doing my daily forum checks to see what’s happening and I noticed something kind of strange.  On a bunch of forums I noticed threads saying, Full tilt down, Ultimatebet down, Bodog down, Poker Stars down……all in the same day.  I wish I was more of a techy person to give an explanation as to why all these sites went down on the same day but I’m not.  Anyone care to email me in their conspiracy theories?  I’ve already received a couple…..

12:41am – The raised stakes in Florida has officially become law.  It was passed without the Governor’s signature two days ago and will take affect in two weeks.  Besides that no major changes with any online legislation or regulations being released.  Exactly 30 days left until the 270 UIGEA regulation deadline is up. 

Updated Wednesday June 13

11:37pm – A company called Pindebit was launched and is now in use by Poker.com

6:13pm – IMEGA, the new group that placed a lawsuit against Attorney General Gonzalez in order to stop the implementation of the UIGEA finally released their website.  It can now be viewed at imega.org.  The website is still basic but I have high hopes for this organization because I believe they have some big monetary backers to keep the landscape the way it currently is……maybe even more so than “legal” regulation of online gambling or Barney Franks HR 2046 Bill.

11:51am – A few days ago we posted the youtube review of the online gambling debate with the FSC and Barney Frank.  The Financial Services website finally posted the official video in its entirety ( financialserv.edgeboss.net/wmedia/financialserv/hearing060807.wvx ).  I had missed out on Bachus’ speech whom was the first to speak in favor of the UIGEA.  He speaks of all these studies on how bad and addictive internet gambling is but fails to say anything about land based gambling.  He then bashes Barney Frank for wanting to support companies offshore, but fails to see that if Barney Frank’s Bill HR 2046 passed that would not be the case.  I’m glad they finally got this video up for everyone to see.  I think it will have a big impact in favor for us.

Updated Tuesday June 12

7:17pm – GoldenPalace and related casinos to the CasinoBlasters program have stopped accepting players from Canada effective today.

Updated Monday June 11

1:36pm – Full Contact Poker is closing up shop and transferring all their players to
Pokerstars.com.  Daniel Negreanu will become part of “Team PokerStars” but will continue blogging at Full Contact Poker.

Updated Saturday June 9

2:59am – Ok, I finally found a video clip that recaps the debate on regulation of online gambling held yesterday.  It is an 8 minute summary of the 2 hour debate.  This is another video clip released yesterday of Jim McDermott introducing his proposed Bill to tax online gambling in the US.  Lots of stuff going on right now and it’s good to see people are starting to listen.

Updated Friday June 8

11:47pm - The video on CSPAN still does not work for the online gambling debate this morning.  I’ve reconfigured my Real Player and all that jazz……no luck.  It seems like everyone is having problems.  I contacted C-Span to see what the deal was.  Because the debate was so long it’s pointless to recap it.  You really just need to watch and listen to everyones reaction to get a feel for how it went (once they fix the link).  Anyways, I added a new perspectives weekly video in the video section.

6:39pm – Still no luck on the video clip of the debate this morning.  This link from CSPAN which is supposed to have the full coverage is not working properly.  ( rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/e060807_gambling.rm ).  There will be a “transcript” of the meeting written out by the FSC but who wants to read the entire debate when even the video version lasted 2 hours.

12:24pm – The Financial Services Committee debate was broadcast this morning.  Overall the debate went very well.  I’m still trying to see if I can get an archived video to upload it.

1:09am – A few days ago we reported that an organization called IMEGA is seeking an injunction against the enforcement of the UIGEA.  This injunction would delay the enforcement of the UIGEA past the 270 day period which is 37 days away from potentially being enforced full fledged.

I personally had never heard of the company and after a search couldnt find the website.  Gambling911 did a great article and interview with Joe Brennan (www.gambling911.com/Internet-Gambling-060707.html), the man behind this organization.

Below are the cliff notes of G911’s interview/article if you dont feel like doing more reading.  Also, here is the 36 page suit being filed.  You’ll have to cut and paste it but just to let you know, it’s a .pdf file.  (www.igamingnews.com/articles/files/iMEGAcomplaint.pdf)

CLIFF NOTES

* Joe Brennan Jr. is head of the IMEGA which seeks an injunction on the UIGEA

* The injunction would put a delay on the enforcement of the UIGEA

* The organization was formed because he believed the UIGEA to be unconstitutional and will have widespread implications and lead to future internet censorship.

* The President of IMEGA, Edward Layden will appear today at Barney Franks FSA meeting to determine if the UIGEA can be regulated.

* The organization is unheard of because they wanted to stay “low key” so that the US Department of Justice didn’t speed up the UIGEA enforcement release.

* A date for a hearing of this injunction should be issued shortly

Updated Thursday June 7

1:34pm – Florida Congressman Robert Wexler is expected to introduce legislation today exempting poker from the recently passed UIGEA.  Other games mentioned were bridge and chess.  The legislation would have to pass the House and then the Senate, both major tasks, before becoming law.  While we’re kind of talking about Florida don’t forget stakes will be increasing at local poker rooms around Florida coming July. 

Updated Wednesday June 6

4:39pm – Skill Games Network has officially gone out of business.  They stopped accepting US players a few months back and it looks like they couldn’t keep their heads above water.  The most notable site they ran was Gamesgrid Poker.

1:45am – Bodog has removed Western Union as a deposit and withdraw option from their site.  This is interesting and I am going to contact Pete from Bodog to see what happened.  Interestingly enough Pokerstars.com still has Western Union and Moneygram as a deposit option.  From what I’ve read Moneygram is a better option so I’m sure Bodog will add them soon.  I wonder if Bodog dropping them as an option is a sign of things to come for other sites that use them.

Updated Tuesday June 5

11:24pm – Some very interesting news developed late today.  A company called iMEGA (Interactive Media Entertainment Gaming Association) filed a law suit against the US and Attorney General Gonzalez from enforcing the UIGEA.  I’ve never heard of this group nor has Google.  The foundation of the suit says the UIGEA imposes on Americans fundamental rights to be free and from government imposing public morality in the privacy of one’s home.

The suit will rely heavily on the recent WTO decision which ruled against the US gambling law. The US then decided they could just withdraw their treaty obligations regarding online gambling.  It seems a lot of things have been brewing lately.  Supposedly, this iMEGA group (which I’ve never heard of) has some big monetary backers.  The Attorney General sure has been under fire lately.

12:24pm – 888 Holdings announced today that it has followed PartyGamings lead and is negotiating with the US Department of Justice.  This 888 Holding’s press release was very short and it just stated that they were in talks with the DOJ but it was too early to release any information on the potential outcome of the negotiations.  As with Partygaming, some analysts’s believe this is a positive action for 888 Holding’s stock price.

Updated Monday June 4

11:36pm – Party Poker has agreed to cooperate with the US DOJ.  A formal letter was sent to Party Poker requesting information for further investigations to online gaming and PartyGaming announced today they are complying.  They seem to be working out some sort of deal with sites that dealt with US players prior to the UIGEA and Party Poker is agreeing to partake.

According to Forbes and Bloomberg, which both picked up the story this is good for their stock price.  “It could give the stock more stability and let US Partygaming executives into the US without fearing prosecution”, said Bloomberg.  It is likely that 888 Holdings (Pacific Poker) is doing the same.

3:00pm – A few days ago we announced that the Financial Services Committee (FSA) would be discussing if internet gambling could be regulated effectively.  This is in correlation with Barney Franks proposed Bill to regulate online gambling.  On June 8th you will be able to watch the discussion by copying and pasting this url ( www.house.gov/apps/list/hearing/financialsvcs_dem/ht060807.shtml ).  We’ve linked it up in the “Upcoming Events” chart above as well.

2:41pm – I had an interesting chat with the CEO of a Credit Union today while on the golf course.  We got to talking about the UIGEA and how it would affect their business model.  While he said their credit/debit cards are already blocked by gaming sites the cardholder can actually have this lifted.  I couldnt really go into details with him because we were playing in the Florida State Amateur Qualifier but it was interesting nonetheless.  I did not know you could request to have the code removed so that gaming restrictions couldn’t be blocked on your card.  That’s got to be worrysome to Senator Kyl.

2:22pm – Neteller has released their press release for the release of US funds.  Guess what?  You won’t see a dime until at LEAST July 13th.  This just so happens to be the same time the 270 period is up for the Treasury to release regulations for the UIGEA.  Here is the full Neteller press release. (http://www.neteller-group.com/press/en/130.htm). Also Neteller updated their US FAQ page if you still have questions about this press release.

Updated Sunday June 3

1:44pm – Over at Pokerstars.com word is they have temporarily suspended their prepaid debit/paytru deposit option because of an overload on demand.  I’m sure it will be back up soon once they get caught up.

2:18am – We added this weeks Perspectives Weekly video to the video section above.  The most interesting topic is at the end where J. Todd talks with the legal council (Mark Mendel) of Antigua.

Updated Saturday June 2

3:36am – When Barney Frank introduced his Bill HR 2046 to try and “regulate” online gambling he mentioned a date in June where the Financial Services Committee would get together to discuss the question “Can Internet gambling be regulated to protect consumers and the payments system?”  The date (which we added to our timeline above) will be June 8th at 10:00am.  They are going to allow witnesses in by invitation only.

Updated Friday June 1

12:15am – I have added a chart for a list of important dates so that we can keep track of upcoming events.  The “days left” will be changed on a daily basis.  We will also add more events but I just can’t think of any more right now.