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FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

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Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#261
post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if the Monopoly instructions read "if any questions arise, ask the Banker, his word is final", I would not play that game.

That's more or less what the rules for any Pen&Paper RPG and lots of different sports (e.g. soccer) say.

Case in point: when I was younger and played soccer, we had one ref who before the game would go over rules with us. Invariably, he'd ask us what offsides was. A younger kid would always give him the book answer for the league: being ahead of the ball with less than two defenders between you and the goal (goalie counts as one). He'd quickly then say "no! offsides is this." and point to his whistle. The point was very clear... He had the final call on what was offsides, so there was no use complaining if we had a different opinion.

He was actually a quite fair ref.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#262
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it is you who is wrong. Wikipedia's first sentence on 'currency' is this: In economics, currency refers to physical objects generally accepted as a medium of exchange. I don't claim to have the requisite knowledge on the argument at hand, so I won't speak to that, but it appears that the assertions you're arguing as fact are incorrect.

Jesus H. Christ on a pogo stick, in what courtroom does a 1-sentence wikipedia definition of "currency" followed by some blogger exposition constitute what is and is not creating an alternative currency? This is simple -- you're not allowed to compete with the US gov't when it comes to providing the currency of the land. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and some mediocre reasons to oppose it, but at the end…

"This is simple -- you're not allowed to compete with the US gov't when it comes to providing the currency of the land. There are a lot of good reasons for this, and some mediocre reasons to oppose it,"

I agree. Competition usually hurts the market. . .

There are several examples of competing currencies being used to revitalize economies. One example is the "Miracle at Wörgl." While this system implemented by Silvio Gesell had many problems that I will not address. It did bring the communities who adopted the scrip as currency out of depression.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#263
post #18

Wow this is huge. I used to play online poker for a living, I had a decent chunk of cash locked up for almost a year when they came down on online poker previously (UIGEA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling... It's worth noting that these are NOT American companies. It doesn't look like anyone (players) has had their assests seized; but this is bad news for a lot of people. It also appears p…

> I had a decent chunk of cash locked up for almost a year This isn't a judgement, but a real attempt to understand: why would you lock up a significant amount of money someplace like that?

This was (and still is) common practice for online poker pros. I have some friends who play for a living and I did while in school...

Keeping money online or in a "Neteller" account was a good way to keep a bankroll outside your regular "spending money."

Most professional (or serious) players keep a bankroll as a running tally of gains/losses and for tax purposes (yes, it's true).

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#264

I'm happy to see this featured so highly in hacker news. As a professional poker player, the biggest concern right now are players balances. I know players with 250k+ bankrolls that are extremely concerned about the status of their money online. Right now it's entirely unclear the relative size of the seizures. If anyone has any questions from someone in the midst of this, fire way. I'll be up all night.

Can you explain why someone would leave that much money in there? Are there tables that you can bring 250k to? Do these sites pay interest?

How do you trust these sites? A casino in Las Vegas will get huge fines if one of the employees rips off players. How do you know some internal IT guy isn't cheating you?

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#265

The hijacked DNS has not propagated everywhere yet. Mine are still working. If anyone has last minute business to do on these sites, such as cashing out before the FBI steals your money, add these to your hosts file: $ host pokerstars.com pokerstars.com has address 77.87.179.116 pokerstars.com mail is handled by 20 mx20.pokerstars.com. $ host absolutepoker.com absolutepoker.com has address 66.212.244.175 absolutepoke…

The FBI press release[1] says that they've shut down all the sites' bank accounts too, so you're unlikely to be able to pull your money out. I selfishly hope they go after everybody with money on any of those sites, because it might generate more outrage than just the domain name seizures. [1]: http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2011/manhattan-u.s...

Cashing out is not working for me...

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#266

I'm happy to see this featured so highly in hacker news. As a professional poker player, the biggest concern right now are players balances. I know players with 250k+ bankrolls that are extremely concerned about the status of their money online. Right now it's entirely unclear the relative size of the seizures. If anyone has any questions from someone in the midst of this, fire way. I'll be up all night.

Do you have a large proportion of your wealth at stake here? Do you use many sites or just one or two?

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#267
post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in Las Vegas in the 70's when the Secret Service stepped in and shut down the process of people paying for things with Casino Chips. For those not familiar with them, a Casino Chip has a current denomination ($1, $5, $25, etc) and the name of the Casino on it. For a long time Casinos, as service to their customers, didn't care if you played with another Casino's chips so you could just carry them around from…

I won't attempt to argue that the Liberty Dollar wasn't a misguided enterprise. Even when the law is on your side, the fact that the government controls the courts assures that you'll never get a fair trial. You're misunderstanding the constitution and what the "right to create currency" means. There are many currencies in circulation, and there have been many state and even private currencies over the years. Even to…

I listened to a lecture by the author of "The Creature from Jekyll Island" where he made some outrageous claims about the ownership of the Fed. I was trading US Govt. bond futures at the time and we went to some pains to understand the federal reserve system and to say he erred in fact is being generous. It was full of slavering nonsense, often with anti semetic overtones.

As a side point paper money is obviously extremely vulnerable if abused (see Zimbabwe) however the idea that your money supply should be dictated by mining is beyond primitive. Periods of rapid economic expansion will lead to deflation unless the state controls mining and has sufficient mineral reserves which then becomes the same thing as printing money.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#268

The indictment from the DOJ with a list of the charges: http://www.justice.gov/usao/nys/pressreleases/April11/schein...

To be fair, most of these charges are probably true.

What I'm not sure is how they can prosecute Canadian citizens living in Ireland or Canada.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#269
post #18

Wow this is huge. I used to play online poker for a living, I had a decent chunk of cash locked up for almost a year when they came down on online poker previously (UIGEA) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAFE_Port_Act#Internet_gambling... It's worth noting that these are NOT American companies. It doesn't look like anyone (players) has had their assests seized; but this is bad news for a lot of people. It also appears p…

> I had a decent chunk of cash locked up for almost a year This isn't a judgement, but a real attempt to understand: why would you lock up a significant amount of money someplace like that?

Well in the pre-uigea days Neteller was the company winning th transfer market.. very similar to paypal except you could use them for poker sites.

When the UIGEA passed, neteller had all it's assests frozen.

This is common practice though.. poker players will have a huge chunk of their networth on poker sites. Keeping money online just made sense, that's where you would use it to make more money.

So I didn't get it locked up from a poker site itself (as far as I know no one lost money that way), but from the payment processor. Everyone got their money back, it was just a long time.

I had a couple months worth of living expenses (I was small time).. but others had dozens to hundreds of 1000's locked up.

Re: FBI seized PokerStars.com, FullTiltPoker.com, UB.com,... domain names

#270

The hijacked DNS has not propagated everywhere yet. Mine are still working. If anyone has last minute business to do on these sites, such as cashing out before the FBI steals your money, add these to your hosts file: $ host pokerstars.com pokerstars.com has address 77.87.179.116 pokerstars.com mail is handled by 20 mx20.pokerstars.com. $ host absolutepoker.com absolutepoker.com has address 66.212.244.175 absolutepoke…

The FBI press release[1] says that they've shut down all the sites' bank accounts too, so you're unlikely to be able to pull your money out. I selfishly hope they go after everybody with money on any of those sites, because it might generate more outrage than just the domain name seizures. [1]: http://www.fbi.gov/newyork/press-releases/2011/manhattan-u.s...

Ouch, but that would be interesting as far as raising awareness went. TBH though, just stopping the millions of people who use those sites from getting their money should create suitable outrage. I mean PokerStars advertise on TV here in f'n New Zealand. They're huge and that is a lot of pissed off people who have suddenly been made aware about the issue.
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