US Poker News for October 2008
For current information visit our us poker sites page.
October 29
2:45pm – For those that play at Doylesroom, expect delays in cashouts. There have been delays for the past weeks but do to 2 of their processing systems for US players going down they expect another 2-3 weeks in delays.
12:13am – Gambling Law Professor I. Nelson Rose who’s done several articles for us in the past gave his thoughts on the Kentucky issue in an interview at pokernewsdaily. In short, he believes the sites should block Kentucky and IF other states follow then that’s when they should fight back.
October 27
9:52pm – Cardplayer has a well written article on what the lawyers in the Kentucky case are talking about and what will commence in coming months. The views by the lawyer of Ifrah of the Interactive Gaming Council are that it is unlikely many of the domain registrars will hand over the site domains. He also says Kentucky is basically using extortion to gain some $1 billion from these sites if they end up getting seized by Kentucky.
9:40pm – Full tilt poker will be standing up for themselves unlike others in the Kentucky domain seizure. Here is their plan of action in an email sent out to players.
…….The domain name registrant of fulltiltpoker.com has filed appropriate legal action in the High Court of Justice, Chancery Division, of the United Kingdom, which does have jurisdiction over the domain name, and Full Tilt Poker expects that this Court shall properly and swiftly address this blatant abuse of the law in the Kentucky proceedings. We expect that this decision will have no impact on players residing within Kentucky or other U.S. states……
October 24
4:03am – Bugsyclub has officially GEO blocked players from Kentucky starting yesterday at 11am.
3:44am – The date in which the 141 gambling domain names must GEO block Kentucky has been extended. At first they were given 30 days by the judge (Nov. 17) but they have allowed for more time. The new date is December 3rd for the sites to prove they have GEO blocked Kentucky so that they do not lose their domain name. Most sites on larger networks will likely comply before then.
October 23
12:40pm – Both Pokerstars.com and Fulltiltpoker.com have added the option to withdraw via echeck/EFT/Bank Transfer, whatever you want to call it. Previously it was a deposit only method. The limits are $2500 and you are only allowed to use it once per week.
12:28pm – I spoke too soon. Microgaming will place an IP block on Kentucky. Not only that but they will be using a proxy detector so you can’t hide your IP.
October 22
10:17pm – Poker sites on the Microgaming Network will once again be making sure their clients ban all 12 states listed on their “ban” list. For awhile there were some poker sites on the network that were only banning 3 states. I will be making changes to the list later tonight. You can see the list of banned states in section IV on this page. Here is a list of Microgaming sites. It should be noted that Kentucky is not yet on the list.
October 20
9:36pm – I just got off MSN with Brandon a reputable affiliate program director over at Aced.com which is a skin on the Merge network. Brandon clarified some things in the last post I made that might have been confusing. Here are two of the important questions that I was curious about.
Roger: Why is it that Merge is making you guys (Aced.com) and others on Merge block KY? I thought in the court order it said only for the sites on the 141 domain list to geo block access?
Brandon, Aced.com: I think it’s due to the fact they are not on the list, and are glad to be. So they are going to abide as if they were on the list, to keep on the safe side.
Roger: So you guys are just geo blocking correct….could an exisiting KY player still play if they had the software downloaded?
Brandon: Yes, we are just blocking NEW signups at aced.com. All old KY players are ok.
So from this information is seems like if you’re from KY you might want to start downloading as many US poker sites as possible.
2:37am – Update: Please see correction post above. Also I just wanted to make a note regarding my latest post. Merge will be blocking players from Kentucky from ALL of their partner sites, whether they are on the 141 domain name list or not. Because they use the same “platform” software they can’t just block it from the site on the list, but instead have to block it networkwide. For example aced.com and carbonpoker are on the merge network. Aced isn’t on the list but will still have to block players from Kentucky. So essentially the 141 domain names is irrelevant, it’s actually in the hundreds, possibly thousands if other networks do it this way! The reason being if you were from Kentucky you could still play at the banned sites if you had the software downloaded on the computer, so it seems the sites will not only be GEO blocking but placing preventitive action on the actual software as well. So if one site is on a network the whole network of sites is up shits creek it would seem.
October 19
4:38pm – The Merge Network is one of the first to announce they will be blocking Kentucky players via Geo targeting because of the Kentucky domain seizure issue. This is not what we want to see. They are the 20th largest poker site/ network on the internet.
October 16
8:15pm – Well it looks like the Judge actually did it and ruled against the 141 poker sites/online casinos. He basically said he will make the poker site domain owners, agents, registars or etc. show up and prove they are Geo blocking players from Kentucky. If they don’t show up, or don’t block players from Kentucky then the domains will permanently be property of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. They have 30 days to do so (Nov. 17 10:00am). John Pappas of the PPA said in a press release that he is confident the plantiffs will appeal todays order and it will be overturned in the Kentucky Appellate Court.
It’s hard to say what the poker sites will do. It seems the ones who have their domains registered with US registrars are screwed but will the sites with registrars outside of the US just ignore the order? The precedent this ruling just set is going to be very, very bad not just for poker but for the internet in general! The judge called it “doomsday” thinking and said the internet is not above the law. So now what’s to stop the other states from doing the exact same thing Kentucky just did.
2:00pm – Still no news on the Kentucky domain seizure. I’ll post it as soon as it comes in, since I’m sitting here waiting for comcast to fix my slow internet anyways. 
A story came in today from the UK Times saying that Partygaming and the US are close to wrapping up their negotiations. According to the article the DOJ originally wanted all monies made prior to the UIGEA to be paid by Partygaming to the US. Can you say bankrupcy, considering something like 80% of their money came from the US prior to the UIGEA for about 6 years! This is what Partypoker looked like back when they first came out, which is pretty funny. Anyways now the negotiations supposedly turned into a more feasible option that wouldn’t include bankrupcy. Their stock dropped 10.47% today. Some news sites are already trying to spin it into BS that “Partypoker will re-enter the US market”.
October 15
5:40pm – The judgement for the Kentucky domain name(s) hearing will be delayed until tomorrow afternoon.
2:04am – Well today is the day that the judge is supposed to make his decision in the Kentucky domain name seizure case. I wonder what the odds are that a delay occurs…..Via a forum post by a PPA board member, they expect to see a ruling between 2 – 4:30pm.
October 13
2:33am – SB poker opened up to players from Canada. They sent out a press release and I just now read it. The poker site was basically US only before.
October 12
2:09am – So far everything in the gambling market in regards to the US is still focusing on the upcoming judgement for the Kentucky domain seizure. A site called Cardspike was also added to the US list. A friend is an affiliate manager there and it runs on the cakenetwork so I hope those guys the best with the card room.
October 10
2:52am – Ok I feel like a dumbass. This month I was labeling everything as “August”. Thanks to the visitor that emailed me and reminded what month it was. 
October 9
9:13am – The claims that Godaddy already gave Kentucky the domains registered through them (Doylesroom, Cakepoker, and Ultimatebet) are not necessarily true. At least not until the hearing is over and if in fact it goes the way of Kentucky. This was a statement issued by the General Counsel of Godaddy.
“We issued a registrar certificate to the state that says the court has jurisdiction over the issue, but it doesn’t have control over the domains, other than the ability to exercise judgment so that when there is a final adjudication on the merits of the case or a settlement by the parties, we will honor that outcome,” Jones said.
Also, Bodog will not be getting Bodog.com, Bodog.net, etc back. The Court of Appeals rejected their attempts to get the domains back. The judgement is now $50 million for the domains up $4 million from $46 million.
October 7
2:40pm – I contacted Adam from Domainnamenews about Godaddy throwing in the towel and handing over the UB, Cake, and Doyles domains. Here is what he had to say.
“We had heard it via a rumor at the show but it does look like godaddy gave them up from what we’ve heard elsewhere. I’ll try to follow up with my godaddy contacts.”
2:14pm – In the Kentucky domain seizure hearing the judge has said 7 days are needed to make a decision. Gambling911 did a really good job of capturing the hour by hour remarks made by both sides during the hearing.
1:08am – For some reason Gambling911 is saying that Cakepoker, Doylesroom, and Ultimatebet were handed over permanently by Godaddy to the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Their source is said to be iMEGA but this still makes no sense. For one, Godaddy said they were going to file an objection to the court order tomorrow. I can’t see them suddenly changing their minds 1 day before the hearing without a fight. Secondly the whois information has NOT changed. Until I see either a press release from Godaddy, UB, Cake, or DR or a change in whois info I find it hard to believe.
October 6
2:13am – There is expected to be an open press conference today with statements in regards to the 141 Kentucky domain seizures. The PPA is expecting thousands to show up. The hearing is still set for tomorrow morning, Aug. 7.
October 5
8:18pm – Stating “economic conditions”, Duplicate Poker has shut down. They classified themselves as the only truly legal US poker room. I did happen to read about players having some difficulty withdrawing a couple days ago but gave no attention to it….now we know why. They were a good company to work with while they were around, hopefully they can turn things back around.
October 3
1:35pm – I wanted to give a little insight to those poker affiliate bloggers and website owners who were hit by the google penalty. Even though the penalty expired for the sites who were buying links, it did not expire for the bloggers selling the links.
Here is my theory on it. The sites who got hit for buying links were given an exact 90 day penalty. It didn’t matter if they filed for a reinclusion request or not, they got relisted. I do think google’s algorithim picked up to see if their percentage of “bad neighborhood” incoming links went down and then the reinclusion team gave them the go ahead to re-rank the sites, or it could have been an algorithmic automatic re-inclusion.
As for the blogger sites selling, it’s going to be worse. My prediction is they will get a minimum penalty of 180-360 days only if they drop off their sold links and file for reinclusion. I don’t think Google will give them re-inclusion simply when they adhere to their guidelines.
October 1
2:26am – The poker players alliance will announce a new bill later on today. This bill is S. 3616, “Internet Skill Game and Licensing Control Act”. Unfortunately the PPA already said they don’t believe the bill will pass….not this year at least. The bill does exactly as the title says, it gets framework together to license, regulate and control online poker to protect the players and control any sort of underage gambling / compulsive gambling that goes on. Ah, and don’t forget taxes.
