My personal/industry thoughts on Black Friday - Page 2

sir, isn't it "dangerous" to play in sites that currently accept US players? do you think the US govt. will go after those sites after the PS/FTP/UB thing?

On April 17 2011 14:18 goose58 wrote: What do you think is gonna happen with Cereus?

Again,
it is hard for me to give a hard statement,
but again:
is there liquidity mostly US based?
are they financially stable?
are they operating in other regulated jurisdictions?
do they have good management?

I'd say the writing is on the wall here.

On April 17 2011 14:28 DvoBoardRider wrote: sir, isn't it "dangerous" to play in sites that currently accept US players? do you think the US govt. will go after those sites after the PS/FTP/UB thing?

Just for the context, I'd like to reframe the word 'dangerous' to 'risk'.

If you are not a US player; the risk is if you join a site that is mostly US based and it folds, then you may folding along with it.

Also, while the indictment might have been politically motivated and no more are forth coming (as they already have the top 3)... who really knows. I definitely do not have the answer for that.

But as a player, you need to weight the risks of having access to US players or not having, and its kind of the same reasoning why some Swedish players will play on FT verse their domestic or an EU licensed site.

Since the UIGEA passed, the risk has been the same, it's just the enforcement is now coming into play.

For US players, it has always been a choice of absolutes: to either play poker or not to play poker online after the UIGEA. But I don't think there was ever denying the risk factor unless you really accept what a company states at face value. I'm not going write that there is no risk and it is something I need to also sort out in the very very near future as to how we continue to operate as a site and part of a network.

If legalization is right around the corner, then it would be foolish for anyone to try to cater to the US market, to risk getting banned from it.

I know that the answer may have not been exactly what you were expecting, but I'd say everything is just to early to say where things are headed both for the level of risk/reward (as it may not be worth it for an international player to hit up the US market if really most people do finally decide to quit until it becomes fully regulated) or what will be the US gov't next move.

On April 17 2011 14:08 HeroPoker-CEO wrote: Show nested quote + On April 17 2011 13:33 ManofFire wrote: Thanks for your posts. Out of curiosity since I play on Playersonly: how much jurisdiction do the skins on Merge have on cashing out policies? Much, we can handle it on our own, or through the network or give specific instructions on it, like restrictions or exceptions.

Thanks a lot for the quick response.

As the CEO of a new up and coming pokersite - are you happy to see the top 2 big sites fall / lose what was a near perfect reputation? I immagine there will be a lot of refugee playes looking for a new place to play

^he already answered that


new question (and thanks for all your replies, this blog post has been extremely interesting) :

international withdrawals are working... friend of mine, american, wanted to transfer me money for me to cashout for him and give to him somehow but US players cant transfer as well

i was pondering later on -- i understand the blocking of american based players via IP and whatnot, but what interest does FTP/PS have in not allowing them to try and transfer their money out? I figure FTP/PS would want to help out their players as much as possible but this just makes it seem like "they have our bank monies which = players money and we have to wait to see what sort of settlement will occur meaning if we have to pay big bucks than the players will have to cough up their rolls" or something of that nature.

Is that totally non-sense? Or does the inability for player transfer make the situation be even worse than thought? Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Also there are claims that like 75 banks are seized including international banks (please correct me if im wrong) -- wouldnt that mean that there is a possibility that the amount of money seized is greater than the total american roll on sites? What kind of access do the sites have to their money in such banks?

thank you for doing this.

Ya I'm gonna download your poker site in the next week or two.

On April 17 2011 18:47 TalentedTom wrote: As the CEO of a new up and coming pokersite - are you happy to see the top 2 big sites fall / lose what was a near perfect reputation? I immagine there will be a lot of refugee playes looking for a new place to play

My investors are quite happy, but it isn't like Hero Poker was in competition with PS and FTP, simply we just launched and our objective was to do branding for 2 years and then assess at that point.

But I guess what is different from Hero from many of the other network sites out there was that it was created with the intention of going big and mainstream should the opportunity arise, so the framework was set up that way, which is great because now we can start to flex that more 'mainsteam structure' without getting swat down by PS or FT immediately and that our marketing dollars have a better chance of seeing light.

But on a personal side, it's not like I planned or anticipated for this situation and so many of the players I know are simply in such a bad situation. I was even thinking of setting up place in Korea or Aus for US players to come over and settle down for the next couple of years (basically just prepare everything for them to come over)- I guess I am still thinking about that.

Also, don't think the DOJ didn't get a wealth of information on every site out there in the world and isn't aware of what is going on( I bet they know more about online poker than most senior directors do now lol), so thinking to just step in there and own the market is a bit foolish, rather, I still need a few more days to really really think about things and how to best protect the brand, company and all my players for the future. But the collateral damage of what happened to PS/FTP will have scarred so many US players and perhaps the fall out isnt' over and people on 'the site that shouldn't be named cause it is already so scandelous' will be totally screwed first.

So one hand, as a business professional, there is an obvious opportunity here, and it's my job and responsbility to manage us into a stable and advantegous position. On the other hand, the level of destruction to player's confidence is something that really will take a lot of effort to over come and I need to balance the intake of possible new players and our ability to ensure that everything is well protected and stable.

So the short answer is, I'm still in shock a bit about it all, more concerned about my friends and player I know and the general state of this poker tsunami, but I am also in the middle of getting some emails of the survivors looking to get back on their feet, so I'm getting around to really focusing on their secure and protected 'relocation'. It does sound overly dramatic, but man, that is how I feel right now. But my investors are again quite giddy like school girls-but I'm not about to compromise our position and brand by going all gun-ho into this like some battlefield vultures.

On April 17 2011 20:41 CamilaPunt wrote: ^he already answered that new question (and thanks for all your replies, this blog post has been extremely interesting) : international withdrawals are working... friend of mine, american, wanted to transfer me money for me to cashout for him and give to him somehow but US players cant transfer as well i was pondering later on -- i understand the blocking of american based players via IP and whatnot, but what interest does FTP/PS have in not allowing them to try and transfer their money out? I figure FTP/PS would want to help out their players as much as possible but this just makes it seem like "they have our bank monies which = players money and we have to wait to see what sort of settlement will occur meaning if we have to pay big bucks than the players will have to cough up their rolls" or something of that nature. Is that totally non-sense? Or does the inability for player transfer make the situation be even worse than thought? Any thoughts on this would be appreciated. Also there are claims that like 75 banks are seized including international banks (please correct me if im wrong) -- wouldnt that mean that there is a possibility that the amount of money seized is greater than the total american roll on sites? What kind of access do the sites have to their money in such banks?

I really don't want answer this question, cause its going to hurt really badly.

This is purely MY OWN assessment, it is the same opinion I would give to a gov't analysist. But the final outcome is still very much up in the air, please take what I write in the context that this situation is still very very early.


The act of funding and cashing out, it under fraud and money laudering, so by rights, all these funds should be considered evidence and utlimately to be distributed by the DOJ should there be a resolution. Its not like FT/PS don't want to give you your money, but it may be out of their control as your actual funds are now frozen.

Even your online balances, by allowing for any time of fund transfer, cash out, player to player transfer, could be interpreted that these sites are still engage in MONEY LAUNDERING and are continuing to give the middle finger to the DOJ.

Additionally, all payment gateways under PS/FT are now monitored or shut down in the US, PS/FT would have to renegotiate new payment solutions to get the money to you-I think I addressed this before, but the act of doing so, would again, make them further guilty. But the main thing is, what most players aren't getting is that the charges leveled against PS/FT/UB/AB are so freaking serious, its not that they left the market voluntarily like Party, the DOJ see them as full on international criminals. So to answer your question: the inability to do player to player transfers is to limit the issue of money laundering issues of you transfering to your canadian friend and him cashing out for you.

Bank accounts.
Not all of the accounts listed may be 'in transit' accounts, as the fund path can be easily back tracked from a 'in transit account' to an actual holding of player accounts. So, these accounts may be more than the sum that were in the process of being transfers, but its highly unlikely that these accounts will represent the full amount of the players bank rolls or the company's holdings.

They aren't stupid and no matter how much payments are linked with company operations; the actual profits and marketin funds are on a completely a different set of accounting trails.
Providing there was no internal bank account cross over and the payment providers only did payment; then
yes, the total funds frozen can be more than what was in transit, but
no, I can't see it being all the player balances.

Also, these accounts have been identified, and likely are in process of being contested over, meaning, that just like your own cash out request, the site's own cash out requests from these accounts are now 'pending'; if interpol or the DOJ has enough pull then they will take then over, if they don't depending on the jurisidiction, then the sites will get access to them.

If these accounts were more than the sum of the player balances, then it would be an automatic gg as the operational and marekting funds would not be able to cover the initial rush to cash out. But that hasn't been the case for PS and FT to my knowledge,as some cash outs have gone through; no comment on the 'site that shouldn't be named because it was already too scandelous to begin with'.

Sorry for the late response,
just flew into Macau for meetings this morning.

I gotta say david I like the way you present yourself given how everything has gone down this week. it might make me wanna play poker again someday on your site :D

godspeed to you!

+1 to rainkhan. Heropoker here i come. Thanks for taking the time to answer all these questions.

Guys thanks, it's the least I could contribute, and much thanks for the comments,
cheers,
David

And thanks RainKhan for the music as well ^^

if heropoker is ever open to americans ill definitely give it a try.

thanks alot for doing this.

heres a final question if u have time:

i managed to cashout immediately after finding out of the incident and worked fine but now a few days later i tried to cashout from ftp and got a delay reply due to high volume cashouts .. not only me but majority of non us lpers trying to cashout later on have had problems

now i now that the cashout process is automatic if below a certain value which i assume 99% of the people cashing out are doing below this value so is this worrisome?

On April 18 2011 20:18 CamilaPunt wrote: heres a final question if u have time: i managed to cashout immediately after finding out of the incident and worked fine but now a few days later i tried to cashout from ftp and got a delay reply due to high volume cashouts .. not only me but majority of non us lpers trying to cashout later on have had problems now i now that the cashout process is automatic if below a certain value which i assume 99% of the people cashing out are doing below this value so is this worrisome?

No worries,
1. Even if the minimum amount is usually automatic, ftp can disable it so then it all just goes to pending first.
2. The business aspect to this is the same as shutting down a freefalling stock market and operational:

(a) Even if FTP does have the cash and resources to handle a simultaneousness amount of cash outs, they obviously don't want everyone cashing out their entire bankroll immediately, so by making the majority of the cash outs pending, but also still continuing to do the cash out in phases, this can allow time for some non-us players to change their mind and cancel the cash out and play instead.
(b) They may have reached a bottle neck in the actual financial transaction side, meaning that while the internal system is automatic, they still need to communicate with the bank and a large volume of cash outs would probably give the bank pause and they would also process things in batches.

But in both cases, for international players, I could see that within a week cash outs should be occurring again with the same level of service as before for non-US residents. If it doesn't get resolved in 2 weeks or it is still limited, then either they had a such cash out volumes or their 'internal accounting' is struggling.

Cheers, I'm in Macau, but am able to get to my email/internet a couple of times a day until Thursday.

On April 18 2011 13:54 joLin wrote: if heropoker is ever open to americans ill definitely give it a try.

Hero Poker part of the Merge network, and the network is open to US players.