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Feds Show Their Cards On Online Poker: Freeze Funds
from the whoops dept
For years, the federal government has insisted that online poker in the US is illegal, and reinforced it by tacking on punishment for payment processors who process gambling payments onto a totally unrelated bill about harbor safety. Poker players, on the other hand, have insisted for years that there are no laws against online poker -- in part because the laws are all against games of chance, whereas poker is a game of skill. This position received a small boost recently when a judge agreed that poker was a game of skill rather than chance. On top of this, there's been an ongoing effort underway (led by Barney Frank) to specifically make it clear that online poker is legal. However, until that bill goes anywhere, the feds apparently still believe it's very much illegal and have now started going after the payment processors, freezing the funds of payment processors who work with a variety of online poker sites. Expect quite a legal battle to follow.
Reader Comments
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WSoSM
There's a reason that there's no such thing as the World Series of Slot Machines.
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Point of View
Depends on your point of view on 'new things'.
Is something natively Legal, or Illegal?
Are they trying to expand gambling prohibitions beyond their bounds?
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Re: Point of View
Nothing is natively illegal! For something to be illegal, there has to be a law expressing exactly that point.
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Re: Point of View
Natively legal/illegal?
Do you mean malum prohibitum vs. mala in se? Or what the hell do you mean?
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RE:
The PPA will pursue every legal course available to ensure that poker players' funds are not seized and their right to play poker online is protected.
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Anyone care to notice freezing credit card processors is a bad thing? im sure there like my credit card processing company in that there are a TON of companys who use them. Telling all of those people that the gov just froze your payments when geting credit is already a pain in the ass can spell death to companys who rely on cash flow down to the day or week.
if you dont think thats correct just realise that for a small store you can have 10,000 in payroll, sales tax (paid quaritly or daily).
a lot of companys are running a vary narrow edge and the gov locking away all the credit card payments is a really bad thing.
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The moral is this: Only our state run gambling is legal. The house always wins!
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I think so
Natively legal, for sure. Interesting post anyway.
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our govt is gay
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