Lost in America

I wanted to write something about the current situation for online poker players here in the U.S., a little over six weeks after “Black Friday.” Was scrounging for a title and remembered that excellent 1985 comedy starring Albert Brooks and Julie Hagerty, Lost in America. A movie which begins with an ill-fated trip to Las Vegas, if I remember correctly.

There was a point about two weeks after Black Friday when I considered changing that tag line up there at the top of the blog where I identify myself as “an online poker player.” I mean, I wasn’t playing online poker. And in truth I wasn’t sure when I would again.

The two sites on which I had previously played -- PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker -- no longer served U.S. customers. I had an empty account on Bodog, a site I abandoned long ago when its traffic had died down to a point that I could rarely find games/limits I wanted to play. As I mentioned in that “Five Years” post (from 4/28/11), I still wanted to keep my poker blog. But I wasn’t really playing at all, and it was looking as though I may not for a good while.

A week after Black Friday I had spent a small amount of time and energy looking into depositing options at a couple of the sites that still served U.S. customers. But meeting with some initial resistance I quickly gave up. I could have made it happen, I am fairly certain, but I lacked the resolve to see it through. (Probably says something about the nature of my commitment to the game, actually.)

Then, a few days after that fifth-anniversary post I won a whole dollar via a freeroll (and then a sit-n-go) on Carbon Poker. And two weeks later I managed to score another, larger success by earning $100 in a freeroll on Hero Poker. Since then I’ve split time between the two sites, occasionally playing those 11-cent SNGs on Carbon and some six-handed PLO10 on Hero.

Since April 15, more sites have left the U.S. market. For a variety of reasons, Victory Poker pulled out just a few days after Black Friday, initially moving its U.S. players over to Cake Poker, then more recently sending all the rest over to Cake and shutting down altogether. Then “Blue Monday” (5/23/11) saw the domains for both TruePoker.com and DoylesRoom.com seized by the DOJ, apparently due to their being part of the Yatahay network on which also resided the popular sportsbook Bookmaker.com.

Last week came news that the Merge network -- on which we find both Carbon Poker and Hero Poker -- was temporarily going to stop taking new U.S. players, although Americans who already had accounts would still be able to play, deposit, and withdraw as usual. Apparently that decision was primarily due to Merge needing time to handle the additional traffic the network has seen since April 15. No word on when Merge will again allow new U.S. players to sign up, although it sounds like it could be anywhere from 1-3 months. (A couple of Merge skins -- Sportsbook and Hero Poker -- had already made the decision to stop taking new U.S. players prior to last week.)

All of which is to say, options are dwindling. Bodog is still around, although it appears U.S. poker players aren’t terribly excited about jumping into the games over there as the site has seen only a small uptick in traffic on its poker tables since Black Friday. Cake Poker is also today sitting at about the same level, traffic-wise, as on April 15 (according to PokerScout). There’s the Everleaf network where a site named LuvinPoker is starting to be promoted a bit, but I don’t know much about what’s happening there.

Another option for U.S. players, Rise Poker, popped up last week. Rise Poker offers freerolls with real money prizes -- i.e., you can play there without depositing. There is also a “VIP Membership” for $19.99 a month which gets you into lots of other tourneys and opens up further game play options. They’ve launched a blog and forum, too, over there, where some of my buds (including F-Train, Dr. Pauly, Change100, and Benjo) can be found writing.

Rise Poker is part of the ZEN Gaming Network. I’d actually heard of ZEN previously because I know someone who played on another site on the network, NLOP.com (National League of Poker). She enjoyed playing the games there, having gone deep in a tourney once and winning a small amount. If I’m not mistaken, I believe the player pools for both Rise and NLOP are now combined.

Thanks to winning that little bit of cabbage via those freerolls, I’m still calling myself “an online poker player,” although am not pursuing my hobby as often or at the same level of seriousness as I did before. I’m curious to know what other U.S. online poker players are doing at this point. My sense is most are still sitting on the rail, discouraged from trying to fuss with depositing on other sites (as I was back in April). Lost, so to speak.

So let me ask my American readers who also call themselves online poker players... what have you been up to since April 15?

Blue Monday (How Does It Feel...?)

Saw various folks -- I believe Poker Scout was the first on my Twitter feed -- using the phrase “Blue Monday” with reference to yesterday, an attempt both to evoke “Black Friday” while distinguishing it from the events of that day, too. I liked the reference, for a couple of reasons.

One was the immediate reaction I had felt upon learning that a federal grand jury in Maryland had returned indictments against two gambling businesses (ThrillX Systems and K23 Group Financial Services) and three individuals charging them with illegal gambling and money laundering. The indictments, dated April 26, 2011, were unsealed yesterday, and also involved the seizure of 10 different domains, including at least a couple (TruePoker.com and DoylesRoom.com) that hosted online poker.

Was hard not to feel “blue” -- i.e., sad, even a little down -- about the news, especially when considered as an indicator of what appears to be an increasingly dim future for online poker here in the U.S.

Additionally, for some of us, “Blue Monday” also evokes that early ’80s synth pop hit by New Order, the one that begins with the self-pitying line “How does it feel to treat me like you do?” Again, as an American online poker player, it was hard not to respond in a similar vein -- like we’re getting treated badly here. And perhaps to think how we’re looking at the aggressive establishment of “new order” for our game.

My mood became a little less “blue,” however, as I learned more about yesterday’s indictments.

A press release appeared yesterday afternoon explaining the charges as well as the “impressive undercover work” performed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) that led to the indictments.

Agents set up a fake payment processor, called Linwood Payment Solutions, in order to learn more about how the businesses operated. A Maryland resident was then given $500 to set up an account (on BetEd.com), won some cabbage and used the fake processor to move winnings back to gambler’s bank account. That was back in November 2009. Subsequently, the fake processor went on to facilitate over 300,000 transactions for the two targeted businesses and involving the 10 sites, moving more than $33 million back and forth all over the globe.

In other words, there appear to be some significant differences here from what happened on April 15th when the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker/UB were charged along with those other folks involved with payment processing.

For one, yesterday’s indictments only refer to money being moved around to faciltate sports betting -- not poker. Or any other forms of gambling, for that matter.

With regard to TruePoker.com and DoylesRoom.com, the domains were seized, but the founders/operators of those sites were not targeted. I believe this resulted from the fact that Bookmaker.com -- a hugely popular sportsbook and one of the other 10 seized domains named in the indictment -- was part of the Yatahay network, a network to which both poker sites belonged, too. DoylesRoom moved there (from Cake) in late January. And speaking of recent moves, Doyle himself announced he was stepping away from DoylesRoom just last week, a move some are thinking might’ve been more than just another example of good timing by the “Godfather of Poker.”

In other words, for those of us in America who are variously invested in online poker (emotionally, financially, etc.), I don’t think yesterday’s indictments are necessarily to be regarded as a specific blow against online poker. Unless, I suppose, you were one of the few for whom TruePoker or DoylesRoom was a site of preference.

Still, yesterday gave us plenty to be concerned about.

The involvement of various governmental agencies here -- including ICE-HSI and the Internal Revenue Service -- suggests all forms of online gambling, including poker, are receiving a lot of scrutiny at present. As does a more-than-two-year-long sting operation set up to nab these two businesses.

Also of note from yesterday was the news that one of those named in the “Black Friday” indictments -- Bradley Franzen -- pleaded guilty in a New York court hearing to conspiracy to commit bank fraud, to accepting funds in connection with unlawful Internet gambling and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Unsurprisingly, the plea is reportedly part of a deal to try to lessen Franzen’s punishment in exchange for his providing “substantial assistance” to prosecutors in their continuing efforts to take down the other individuals and sites targeted in the April 15 indictments.

All of which suggests things are especially tenuous at the moment, both for those few online poker sites still serving American customers -- all of whom (one has to think) must be at least contemplating leaving the U.S. market, if not worrying about becoming the next to be targeted by the feds -- as well as for the so-called Big Three, two of which (PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker) still remain the largest in the world.

So I think I’ll stick with “Blue Monday” as a shorthand way to refer to what happened on May 23rd. I mean, perhaps we aren’t necessarily feeling “blue,” but it does seem like we’re getting knocked around pretty good. As Poker Scout wittily put it yesterday, “Only makes sense to pair black and blue in this context.”

(That image up top comes from an exhibit at the Amherst Museum in New York collecting various laundry-related artifacts, titled “Blue Monday: Washday and Women.”)