Sunday, April 17, 2011

FBI poker shutdown

One of my favourite online activities have been playing online poker at pokerstars. The FBI poker shutdown that occurred on friday is risking that activity.

Federal prosecutors have charged Pokerstarts and Full Tilt Poker with bank fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling, the US Justice Department announced on Friday. Those behind PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker have had their domains seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and 76 bank accounts owned by the companies have been temporarily shut down via restraining orders.

Online gambling became illegal in the US starting in 2006, when legislators barred wire transfers, "payment system instruments," and credit cards from being used as payment methods for online gambling sites. My brother was playing last night at PokerStars so I am guessing that shutdown is only affecting US residents.

Poker is a game of skill, if you don't believe that and have never played poker before, you are very welcome to play me for money. Which is different to playing lotto and keno.

I entered two local poker tournaments in the last two months and have made the final table in both. In my experience the amount of luck needed to do well in a poker tournament is dependent on the speed of the increase of the blinds.

Playing online poker can be one of the most exhilarating activities and also the most draining activities so I haven't played online poker in a while as dreading the amount of thinking I will need to do to get into the money with online poker tournaments. But I have always planned that once I have no money I will start playing again instead of blogging.

So why is their a FBI poker shutdown. First I don't believe the press, I have got a feeling it has something to do with how the US dollars is losing a lot of it value in the last few months and how US government is not able to tax online poker likes it can with other services. Government is having issues in getting tax revenue so will be looking for many different sources and online poker is one of them.

FBI poker shutdown is another example of how US Government has lost it priorities, how many banks and CEO's has the FBI prosecuted for the financial collapse of 2008?

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