Roughly a week ago, on their last day in session before adjourning to bother you full time with their commercials and recorded phone calls, Congress passed a bill to outlaw payment to online gambling sites. This is a form of the bill I mentioned a few months ago, with an important distinction: it was tacked onto a totally unrelated port security bill, in one of the government's most time-dishonored tactics. Bush signed the bill on Friday.
In response to the new law, many online poker web sites immediately suspended all U.S. money accounts. But a few are forging ahead, forcing the issue with the declaration that poker is a game of skill, not chance. And I hope it's forced sooner rather than later, because... well, simply: this totally sucks. Sure, it's far from the worst thing that our elected officials have done in the past few years.
But that list was already so damn long. Did it really need this too?
6 comments:
Our laws again espouse the hyprocrisy of our lawmakers. I hope this gets challenged. Someone out there must have the money (ergo, power) to challenge this.
What's happening to your account at this moment? Is it frozen, i.e. you can't touch it at all? Can't even withdraw the money that it's it?
That would be a little harsh...
My account is thus far unaffected, but hey, I'm a damn canuck.
FKL
If you live in the U.S. and use PartyPoker, you can still log on. You can sit in play money games. You can see your account balance. But if you try to sit at a real money table, you get rejected.
I haven't tried to use the "Cash Out" or "Transfer" options yet. For the moment, I'm going to be patient and wait for heads to come out of asses.
I'd take my money out of Party Poker. Seems to be the privately held companies are the only ones staying up. Also, if you use Firepay (as I did) for deposit/withdraws you may want to get your money sooner than later. They will no longer be servicing US customers in a few weeks. Neteller says they will keep it going though
I'm back to Ultimate Bet.
Nothing is going to happen for this until next year at the earliest.
I'm sure many in Congress would love to be able to make some sort of poker legal (heck, I bet at least a 1/3 of them have poker accounts already)... but it comes down to three things:
(1) how can them make it legal and verifiable so underage players are not playing illegally;
(2) how can they make sure they can receive taxable winnings;
(3) how can they tax this part of the interstate commerce and not tax other interstate internet commerce.
I think the last one is the hardest one to figure out. Reason being is there are thousands of different tax rates in this country you have to take into account... not just a simple income tax (simple as in everyone's rate is the same).
My suggestion to you Evan... think about getting your money out soon.
Well, I just cashed out (hadn't played in months anyway) and it looks like everything went through fine.
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