December – January 2010 , 2011 US Gambling
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January 31, 2011
– I just finished attending an online gambling conference in London. Usually there is quite a bit of chatter about the United States and the future etc, but this time I don’t think I really heard it mentioned once. There was a bit of talk about Doylesroom moving from the Cake Network to a no-name network. Speaking with an ex-Cake employee, he believes Cake poker will be in ruins here shortly. In short, Doylesroom left the Cake Network to get out of millions in debt essentially scott free. Meanwhile, Cake has a few “pennies on the dollar” type of things to collect and they could be done for. The Sportsbook poker move really killed them. This is just speculation but judging from Doyleroom’s past, I wouldn’t trust that site with a penny of my money, and with Cake’s recent trend things are not looking good.
January 20, 2011
– It looks as New Jersey is about to regulate online gaming. This new “Atlantic City Online” only needs the signature of the governor to be officially the first state to regulate online betting…in the USA. There are approximately 8,413, 350 people in New Jersey. It will be interesting to see how many people actually end up gambling online versus gambling at the local casino. I’m sure California and Florida would be interested in these numbers…While having never been to New Jersey I would find it odd that online betting would become all that popular. From what I’ve seen around the world, when there are local casinos near by people prefer to go to the casino, unless it’s for poker. On the other hand, there are not that many “Major” casinos in NJ so online may make it more applicable. The ease of online sports betting and the larger player databases of poker sites would definitely drive more of those games toward online.
January 5, 2011
– Today The United States Department of Justice seized another $8 million dollars from financial “outfits” that were processing payments, specifically for those players located in Washington State.
January 3, 2011
– The only poker room to once accept American Express credit cards has shut down, Big Bet Poker. The main reason I’m announcing it is because they were the only room to use Amex as a deposit option for credit cards.
December 16
7:53am – According to an ESPN article, the Reid Bill for legal online poker id DEAD. While the author doesn’t mention the sources, the PPA was quoted in an email sent to ESPN that they were disappointed and seemed to confirmed that the Reid bill was not going to pass in 2010. Never say never though, you never know with politicians.
December 15
10:19am – There have been some changes to the Harry Reid “legalization of online poker” on a federal level in the US. While nobody knows if this will pass in the next few days, it still has a chance. The likes of Stars and Full Tilt would now have to wait a year and a half according to a new draft of the bill. Taxes on the gaming sites would be lowered by 4% from 20 to 16%. That would mean more benefits to players. One really bad thing is that the new draft seems to allow states to only offer state by state player pools, meaning you could only play from people from your state if you state went that route.
December 8
10:31pm – A few news sources began running speculation that the poker legislation Bill was dead. The “leaks” that I read don’t really give any real definite answer and it could just be posturing anyways. As of right now, and from my readings things are still alive and I wouldn’t believe otherwise until AFTER the lame duck session is over, re: UIGEA…..
December 7
10:18pm – I was reading an article in the “Politico” about the poker legislation and came across this quote by Jon Kyl on his opinion about this bill passing.
“Zero chance — no chance whatsoever that would be part of the tax deal. I don’t think it would be the right thing to do.”
I’m still trying to figure out what he means by not the right thing to do. I mean tacking on a bill to a must pass bill is exactly how him and Bill Frist made online poker transactions “illegal” in 2006. It’s dejavu but in the different direction.
Others in the gaming industry are being quoted as this having a 30-50% chance of passing.
Another update was in a new (final) version of the bill. The 15 month blackout period for the likes of Pokerstars and Full Tilt Poker is not going away.
December 7
8:16pm – Rich Muny of the Poker Players Alliance issued a press release at twoplustwo by John Pappas, the Executive Director of the PPA. To me the press release is a bit ominous in tone, kind of like they are preparing if the Bill doesn’t pass, to show the PPA and things are at least moving forward. Who knows if that’s just preemptive if the Bill doesn’t pass during the lame duck session, expected to end December 17 or if they don’t feel the bill will pass. There are about 5,000 posts at twoplustwo alone on speculation of this draft bill, but I wouldn’t read too much into anything right now.
I’m just throwing this out there but if this bill does pass I think it would lead to more online casino gambling as a whole as Americans eyes are widened to “gambling” online. They may just assume that casinos are legal as well, and this could lead to online casinos making larger profits due to increased attention to online gaming.
December 6
5:00pm – From reading various forum boards it seems like people are going crazy, pro and con about this bill. It’s really too hard to say anything concrete about this bill until the final draft is released. A couple PPA board members have already stated they are working on the 2 year blackout and 15 month timeframes. A lot of speculation on the way it’s currently written but just remember the bill could vastly change…..and it still has to pass. We can only go on what was currently released and those who speculate correctly will likely make a lot of money.
December 5
4:13am – We’ve finally got a real possibility of a decent legal online poker bill to pass in the US. After reading the Bill and a couple legal opinions on the “Internet Poker Legislation” just released by Harry Reid here is my brief opinion of the poker bill passing and general facts. These are just my opinions at this point.
1. Even if the bill passed tomorrow, there would be no legality change until 15 months.
2. This does not mean this wouldn’t change the landscape significantly in the meantime. Please read the following points, but I would expect very large amounts of acquisitions and mergers due to the nature of things.
3. Offshore operators will be allowed to accept US players, but not until after the 15 month waiting period, and a 2 year blackout. That means 3 years and 3 months of no US acceptance if they go that route. As you would expect, with payment processing so difficult and expensive for these sites that accept US players this would lead me to believe in the following point below.
4. Ok, so due to such a long waiting period for current offshore companies it appears as if US brick and mortar casinos may be allowed to acquire these sites and circumvent the 2 year law. (I am not 100% sure on this but it appears from readings this will be allowed). This would mean we would probably see things such as “Harrah’s Party Poker”, or “MGM’s Full Tilt Poker”….you get the point. I don’t see them dropping the names of such highly branded poker sites, only smaller sites or networks they acquire.
5. If this happens, it will likely be deadly for affiliate partners of the current US accepted poker sites like Stars, Full Tilt, Absolute Poker etc, that are on a revenue sharing program. I see the players being wiped clean by the acquisitions and affiliates taking a massive loss in the short term.
6. Poker players on rakeback and rakeback in general may disappear as sites adapt a business model more in line with PokerStars and offer their players incentives such as gifts and land based loyalty programs.
7. Unlicensed sites will not be profitable in marketing to US players “unlicensed” and will disappear if they try. Also the Bill seems to be ramping up on illegal gaming so it may prove hardship for the online sportsbook and casino operations.
8. In the Bill, US players will not be allowed to play against international players.
9. A 20% tax will be forced on operators. As I said earlier, because depositing and withdraw expenses cost current poker sites that accept US players in excess of 20% already because of all the loops they have to jump through, I don’t see land based poker rooms raising rake unlike what we saw Pokerstars do in France. This is a different sort of tax as its on revenues, not deposits.
10. States that have land based poker rooms will automatically be opted into allowing their state citizens in playing online poker, although they do have the ability to opt out. The states which have this are the following: (California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia). States that do not have legal poker rooms on their land must opt in.
11. You must be 21 years of age to play online poker under this bill.
December 3
9:04am – The cereus network (Absolute poker and Ultimatebet) have added two new deposit options for US players. They are a bit bizarre. The first is called perebook and the second is quickvoucher. Both seem to be essentially purchasing “nothing” but getting credit to your account by doing so. I don’t expect either options to last very long.
