uhh guys?

Make sure to read Zack's rant below.

"uhh guys?" said Rash as he pulled up PokerStars.com on the afternoon of Friday, April 15th. "What is going on with their site?" (checkout the site if you haven't seen the FBI seizure graphic). It was only 2:20 PM so I wasn't quite awake yet but I wiped the sleep out of my eyes to see one of the most troubling things I had ever seen. As Rash tried to pull up a table on stars he got a notice saying that due to government regulation our area was not allowed to play in real money games. We all immediately knew this was trouble for the near future.

Now more than 24 hours has passed since the original indictment and charges were released from the Southern District of New York. The DOJ (Department of Justice) has called for the indictment of owners/higher ups of Full Tilt, Poker Stars, the pathetic Absolute/UB, and others who coordinated the 'illegal' payment processors. All of this is a product of the 2006 UIGEA bill and the things the poker sites have done to circumvent these banking regulations against gambling.

Since the specific details and further coverage about the actual law suit are available all over the internet, I want to focus this blog on its impact to our group specifically. Since we have all played a great deal of online poker on and off for the last several years, the fact that we can no longer play comes with a huge cost. The best way to explain what has happened to us to the common person is to use college as an example. Say you complete college and go to medical school for 3 or 4 years. Upon your completion, you find out that your government no longer allows people to practice medicine in this country. Shocking right? We've all studied and played the game for several years up to this point where we were truly profitable and making enough money to seriously make us consider online poker as a profession. Now that we've reached this plateau, its seemingly all for nothing.

Although we don't know how long this law suit will last and what will come of PokerStars and Full Tilt, most reputable sources believe it could be months before we could get our money back, let alone play. Chances are that online poker will not be allowed in the United States again until it can be fully regulated by legislation passed in congress. Who knows how long that could take.

The most frustrating aspect of this poker catastrophe to me is that the rest of the world licenses and regulates online poker without any problem. It would be so simple for the United States to pass similar legislation, make tons of money through taxation, and create a safer environment for players all over the country. Thus far, they have refused to do so.

So whats next? Luckily for us, we're "students" (I use that term lightly but it's still true), we're single (obviously), and we're not stuck anywhere. The most logical choice is simply to move for the duration of the forced online poker blackout. Since the information is all so new, we don't know the extent of how this will affect us yet but if we find out it's going to be at least six months there will be a new trend on twitter from @nhatley and @msauce_, #packurbags.

I'll write again next week once we know more and have a better idea of what's to come. For now I'll leave you with my foreshadowing fortune from a PF Changs fortune cookie...



Coincidence?