August 2009 Poker Updates

Please refer to the US poker sites page for latest information.

August 29

1:44am – There has been very little coverage on this which is why I missed it last week. Anyways if you had money in any Betonsports website and never got your money, apparently the government is using the $43 million given up by Gary Kaplan in the plea to give the monies owed back to players. Majorwager came out with the story so if you have any money owed now is the time to hop on it, you only have 60 days.

August 27

10:36pm – For any casino or poker affiliate out there who uses a banking solution called affiliatespeedpay, they released an email today that they are closing down. No reason given but you only have until the end of September to get your money out! Knowing the people behind this company (or once behind it), you probably will never see it again if you don’t cash out asap.

August 26

9:00pm – It was interesting to hear Pokerstars issue a memo to the press today saying accusations that their player base is almost all US players was not true. In the short memo they said only 50% of their market share is US players. There was no reason given as to why Pokerstars came out with this report but maybe it could be a move to tell the DOJ that the US isn’t everything. I believe the numbers as Pokerstars.com is the biggest poker site, people tend to go where the crowd is no matter what country they’re from.

August 23

4:44am – Remember Neteller? Well seems like the DOJ is no longer after them. Basically the US DOJ never acted on their claims and it expired. My question still remains, wtf happened to the arrests of the Neteller co-founders. Every time I call the US Attorney’s office of NY I get the same BS, that they can’t comment on ongoing investigations. Out of pure curiosity, I just wonder what ever happened to those two guys and what sorf of penalties they had/are facing. (Not that I wish them any ill will but christ, they did run the biggest online gambling site processor in the world at one point)

August 20

4:31am – The hearing for the seizure of millions of dollars in what poker players know as the “poker echeck” problem that occured last month was cancelled yesterday. Apparently the judge needs more time to go over briefings to see if the money should be released.

4:07am – An update on the ewalletxpress option is that no US facing poker site has the option to withdraw using this option. Absolutepoker and Ultimatebet have been added to that list, other big sites like Stars and Full Tilt never used them so no biggie there.

August 16

3:19pm – First reported by a news article on pokerdepositoptions.com is information that ewalletxpress is having legislative concerns and some poker sites are disabling the option to withdraw funds via that method. A possible US pullout could be a concern. But it is also said to be “temporary” but as we know that’s what’s always said whether it be permanent or not. Remember Neteller? The sites affected are those on the Merge network, Bodog and the Cakenetwork so far. My pessimistic side says they are disabling the withdraw option at a specified number of sites so they don’t receive an exorbiant amount of withdraw requests all at one time, if and only if, they are moving away from the US market. My optimistic side says the same as my pessimistic side. More to come on this situation. On a side note, I contacted various casinos and they are not reporting any problems.

As always we recommend Pokerstars.com via echeck anyways as the easiest, free and fastest deposit/withdraw option. Personally I wouldnt even bother with ewalletxpress and while it would suck to lose another ewallet, I don’t see it as a huge loss, just more crackdown as December 1 nears (when the UIGEA is officially law and banks are obligated to comply). The bigger impact will be seen for casino players who deposit and withdraw at casino sites as less options are available.

6:51am – The founder Gary Kaplan of the once publicly traded billion dollar gambling site, Betonsports.com, finally pleaded guilty after….I can’t even remember how long but it’s been at least a couple years since he was indicted. He has to give up $43,650,000.00 and serve about 3 – 4 years in prison. If you ask me he should’ve taken this offer years ago. His time would be about up and $43mill probably isn’t that much to him considering what Betonsports used to be.

Congratulations Rebecca on your new position as Calvin Ayres ?

August 13

10:47pm – A quick scan of the forums and news portals shows whats going on as of late. Some people are complaining about deposits still not debiting their bank account after deposits from PokerStars. This seems to be related to the instant deposit option, echecks and deposits back from July. As of now no other major deposit or withdraw concerns at Pokerstars.com or other sites are being reported.

Players that tried to withdraw from Eurolinx still haven’t received funds since April. Eurolinx was a Microgaming skin running the Microgaming platform that accepted US players. Just one more reason to stick to the big poker sites!

More poker players and casino players are giving praise at twoplustwo forum (where it’s usually bashing of Bodog) about the major improvements of withdraws and deposits. Bodog.com seems to officially be on the up and up for now.

That’s about it for now for heading into the weekend…..

August 6 – Mr. Rose has revised his interpretation of the recent Menendez bill to legalize US poker. Please follow the link to read his opinion of the bill.

4:02pm – Here is the S 8309 Menendez bill in entirety from the Poker Players Alliance.

3:40pm – Apparently Chris has some inside information on Menendez and why our industry does not want him. Gambling911 will release the information as to why shortly.

3:26pm – The Southern District of New York is at it again. They have filed an indictment against a man named Douglas Rennick. Who the hell is Douglas Rennick? He’s the guy behind a lot of the checks issued to poker players. Apparently he is also behind the same processor that had their funds seized in the massive site wide “poker echeck” problems that went down last month. They are the same company who filed for a return of the money seized in the echeck issue, and now they are being indicted. The DOJ is seeking 566million and 55 years in jail. YIKES!

1:30am – Menendez is expected to release his bill to regulate online gambling today, according to the Dow Jones Newswire.

August 4

3:19am – Mr. I Nelson Rose, Gambling Law professor (www.gamblingandthelaw.com) is working on an article for us in regards to the bill that Menendez will be putting out there and his opinion of it. He has started working on it today and will likely give us something to publish before the bill is out and and after thought once it’s out. Stay tuned, his thoughts are usually always spot on….

August 3

12:45pm – I have re-added Bodog.com to the top list of poker sites. After reading multiple forum posts it seems all deposit and withdraw issues have been ironed out and my affiliate manager says all that is on the up and up, and they have implemented new stuff for processing.

12:04am – For you guys on the West Coast in California there is some news. Jim Tabilio the President of the Poker Voters of America has resigned. Jim was known for his push for legalization of intrastate online poker in California.