Feds Seize Poker Websites; Founders Indicted
from the guilty-until-proven-innocent dept
It appears that the federal government has really fallen in love with its new found ability to simply seize whatever websites they don't like. The latest is that the FBI (not DHS this time) has seized the three largest online poker websites, PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker, and indicted the founders of those sites. Some have already been arrested with warrants out for the others. Because, you know, poker is destroying society or something. While at least this time it actually commenced legal actions in association with the seizures, the more the government does this, the more it's going to make sure this new favorite tool (domain seizures) gets shot down by the courts.First of all, whether or not those sites are illegal is something of an open question. Back in 2006, as part of a bill to protect our ports and harbors (I'm not kidding), Congress passed a "ban" on online gambling. But it's been a pretty open question as to whether or not poker sites really applied. There are questions as to whether or not poker is a game of skill or chance, with at least one court saying that it was the former, and thus not necessarily "gambling."
On top of that, some in Congress have been working hard for a while to clarify that online poker is legal.
Even if you accept the idea that these sites are breaking the law -- which is a big open question -- is it really okay to simply seize the domains prior to an adversarial hearing? File charges, bring it to court, and have the government ask for an injunction, allowing the site operators to state the basics of their case. Seizing the domains seems like a massive government overreach (yet again).
Of course, the interesting thing to me is that this may get a lot more people interested in the federal government's new love of seizing domain names prior to any real due process. Perhaps not that many people are all that concerned when the issue was the "boring" question of copyright, but an awful lot of people play online poker, and they are unlikely to appreciate the seizures...
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Filed Under: domain seizures, fbi, online poker, poker
Companies: absolute poker, full tilt poker, pokerstars
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Poker's Status
http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/pennsylvania-judge-rules-poker-is-a-game-of-skill-941/
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Re: Poker's Status
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Game of skill
I had an account with at least one of these sites at one point, but only a free account.
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Re: Game of skill
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Re: Re: Game of skill
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Re: Re: Game of skill
Even pro football games start with a coin toss...
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DNS caching?
If the client programs are even using the domains to access the sites, they will continue to work as long as DNS caches are intact.
At this point, since I work in a shop full of software developers, they're probably just gonna add pokerstars.com to their hosts file and continue on their merry way... which is pretty amusing. I guess they'll be stuck playing with other smart people, maybe online poker will become more challenging ;)
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Re: DNS caching?
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Re: DNS caching?
For now...
This feels like Neteller all over again - x10
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Re: DNS caching?
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Re: Re: DNS caching?
So, when I ping pokerstars.com and it returns 77.87.179.116 here because my upstream DNS server still has the entry cached, that's somehow a misunderstanding on my part?
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Re: Re: DNS caching?
Suck it, I know how DNS works.
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Re: Re: Re: DNS caching?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: DNS caching?
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Re: DNS caching?
Windows
\Windows\system32\drivers\etc\hosts
Mac OS X
/private/etc/hosts
Linux
/etc/hosts
The format of each entry is:
[internet address] [domain name]
127.0.0.1 www.domain.com
internet address - a standard IP address, i.e. 127.0.0.1
domain name - A Fully Qualified Domain Name, FQDN, i.e. www.domain.com
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backstory (fascinating reading)
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Funny how poker is more transparent than those CDOs and other instruments they let the banks gamble on. Also, I don't remember poker bringing down the world economy. Obviously someone isn't paying enough to the right people.
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If their servers haven't melted down, that is.
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pokerstars.com - 77.87.179.116
absolutepoker.com - 66.212.244.175
Pop those in your host file and off you go.
Interestingly enough, the DOJ/FBI page is hosted on the Amazon EC2 service. No DDOS opportunity there.
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To gamble is to wager money in a game of skill or chance. Either way, you are putting up money for something that is not guaranteed. So, poker is gambling. Ask a casino manager or old timey cowboy if he agrees with some no-practical-application-theory-only law professor who feels poker is not gambling based on some pseudo-intellectual argument. I think you already know the answer you'll receive, and it's the right one.
"Even if you accept the idea that these sites are breaking the law -- which is a big open question -- is it really okay to simply seize the domains prior to an adversarial hearing?"
Absolutely not.
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Much like the stock market...
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It turns out the answer was yes, and now the answer moving towards no. Can you gamble in the game of the stock market? Absolutely. Can you gamble in the game of poker? Absolutely. Are all people playing either of those games gambling? Absolutely not.
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Maybe it's like with online porn vs sex attacks. Maybe if you could all legitimately (and sanely) gamble (which by the way can be very profitable for the economy and government) there would be less mad gambling with the world economy.
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It is, quite simply, the entrenched gambling industry attempting to legistlate the competition out of business instead of competing/innovating with them.
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While I'm generally against gambling, one must realize the true purpose of disallowing anyone to open up a gambling arena. The purpose is for the government to grant government sanctioned arenas monopoly power over the market. The same thing applies to liquor/alcohol licenses. While I generally don't think people should drink (though some alcoholic drinks might actually be good for you in moderation and that might be OK), the government of many states grants liquor licenses and those things are expensive as heck. They artificially limit how many people can open up bars and whatnot. Why? Because it effectively gives very specific interests far less competition to compete with. and while I agree the effects maybe good in this case (ie: reducing gambling and drinking), which I actually do think is a good thing, I think the true motives are nefarious. The true motives are the same motives behind why the government grants taxi cab monopolies and all the other many monopolies that the government grants.
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> of the world and will lead to mass killing of kittens
No, we Americans don't act that way at all. The big casinos are acting like that, and buying off congressmen to make anything that threatens their cash flow illegal.
The average American couldn't give a tin shit about online poker. But the Las Vegas and Atlantic City Casino Associations do. And since they have the money to buy votes, the average American gets yet another freedom taken away from them in the name of protecting a legacy business model threatened by the internet.
It's just another flavor of the MPAA/RIAA lunacy.
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If they really wanted to protect there legacy model they needed to stop them from buying brick and mortar event seats to resell in the form of a tournament seat. And furthermore satellites for that seat. Now if you say is true and there attempting to protect a legacy business model then the logical conclusion they needed to do this back in the 90's.
Did they? NO. They adapted. 10,000 players laying 10k down for a shot at glory; enough said.
So how does this exactly put holes in your theory? Oh yeah, they adapted before and its Uncle Sam with that finger of his giving us a prophylactic while we are under anesthesia because I'm dam sure if anybody was awake to the issues there sure as hell is a fallout.
I'll say this again for those in the nose bleed section. Learn the trickle effect. Turn on the faucet of oppression and there's and obvious reaction. Drip the shit and people build a bigger/better bucket.
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That was why I included the (en masse) bit...
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> an American pastime game (poker) and the backbone of an
> economy (stock market)?
You needn't point that out at all. The difference is obvious. When people fuck around gambling on the stock market, entire nations can collapse. When people fuck around gambling with poker, nothing happens.
Which is more harmful?
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Re:
I play professional tournaments for money in all three and have some first hand knowledge of how and why this is allowed.
The crux in poker is that players can win even if they don't hold the best hand, bluffing is a skill and can be done regardless of the cards you are dealt allowing you to still win through the use of skill.
Roger Sharpe proved pinball was also a game of skill to the NY City Council and single handedly helped overturn the ban on pinball in several states.
The San Diego Chess Club, of which I have been president of for 15+ years now, has had the local authorities visit because someone wasn't comfortable with players playing chess for money (anywhere from a quarter a game to five bucks a game playing blitz chess - 5 minutes on the clock for each player). When the police showed up they asked a couple of questions, essentially was all the money strictly between the players involved, and when told that it was they informed the complainant that there was nothing illegal going on even though it was in a city park (Balboa Park).
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Except if "the house" is a casino that's paid some kind of license fee to the government (or exists outside the US's jurisdiction)? Because casinos take a cut of each pot, right?
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fulltiltpoker.com - 91.211.98.20
absolutepoker.com - 66.212.244.175
pop those in your host file and off you go.
Also, it seems that the FBI/DOJ page is hosted by Amazon's EC2 service.
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Again, Mike spins this his way. Read the article, seriously.
And if they wouldn't have shut the sites down, MORE people would have lost MORE money.
But you're right, since no one knows if it's legal or not, let's allow them to keep stealing our money. It's a great plan Mike.
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And all of the above is according to US laws. I'm aware the WTO deemed the bans illegal, but that doesn't make actually make it illegal in the US. Read up on it. Hence, all this was legal.
If they didn't supposedly fraud, there wouldn't have had a seizure, therefore there wouldn't have been a story. But that's not how TD/Mike operate.
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But as for coulda shouldas. Ya may want to get your story strait eejit.
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110415/13475713911/feds-seize-poker-websites-founders-indicte d.shtml#c1062
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Re: Spin spin spin
You have to ask yourself why they resorted to fraud and money laundering. They were working around the system. The issue of whether or not poker is gambling forced them to work around a law that banned online gambling.
The real question to be asked is why we put up with a Congress that hides an online gambling ban in a bill that is designed to protect our harbors and ports. Yell "the TERRORISTS are coming!!" and you have a bill to protect ports that is not going to have much opposition, then add in whatever legislation may have had some opposition and job done.
So yes, they did commit crimes, because the TERRORISTS could use online gambling to get us.
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Except they didn't shut the sites down, did they, genius?
They seized the domain name, but the sites are still up and running.
So how does that wrinkle fit in with your "they're just protecting people from losing money" theory?
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Again, Mike spins this his way. Read the article, seriously.
And if they wouldn't have shut the sites down, MORE people would have lost MORE money.
But you're right, since no one knows if it's legal or not, let's allow them to keep stealing our money. It's a great plan Mike."
Yeah, it does look like they are probably guilty of laundering, but who do you think was stealing and who were they stealing from? They did what they could come up with to get the players money to them. Unfortunately they weren't able to find a legal way to do that, but there was no theft involved.
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Oh and It forgets to mention that Pokerstars.com is fully owned, serviced, and operated out of the Isle of Man.
ie: IT IS NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM A USA COMPANY so the USA has absolutely no jurisdiction at all.
Also good luck prosecuting an entity on the IOM. No, nada, nyet extradition ability with them. Well maybe rendition which I would not put past the USG at this time.
Maybe they should try coming after some of the Australian Poker sites too.. Though be prepared for the USG Agents who do to spend a lot of time in federal gaol.
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I believe you're mistaken about that.
"The Treaty on Extradition between the Government of the United States of America and the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.... shall apply in relation to the United Kingdom: to Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man..."
http://www.expatintelligence.com/extradition-treaty-isle-of-man.shtml
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Can the U.S. survive loosing their economic leverage to force others to do something.
Will the U.S. accept to be bullied to accept their views?
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> some poeple might have in their accounts?
The government will keep it, of course, to "protect" those wide-eyed innocents from having it "stolen".
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HAHAHA... Good job FBI.
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More whack-a-mole that compromises the integrity of .com & .net
http://50.17.223.71/
Watch this space to see a list of all of the domain names they've seized:
http://www.dailychanges.com/cirfu.net/#tab=in
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Lottery
They allow Indian casinos to have poker and slots and tax them. It all boils down to TAXES. Which the government does so poorly to spend so they want more and More and MORE.
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Stocks vs Poker
Poker is a game of betting skill. You bet on your personal analysis and mathematical skill, hoping your knowledge will allow you to make winning investments in hands, trying to beat your opponents to the pot, and hoping unexpected bad luck doesn't screw your investment over. You decide when to call, raise, or fold your investment in a given hand as it progresses from play to play.
Can someone explain to me how these are at ALL different, other than than the fact that game of stocks has far more simultaneous players and the game is played over a longer time scale?
Oh right, one has a powerful lobby behind it, the other doesn't.
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Re: Stocks vs Poker
One can effect entires economies and the other can't. Just as well they're going after the dangerous one...
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Re: Stocks vs Poker
Your comparison between the stock market and poker is sadly lacking in substance. Poker is fair and truly a game of skill.
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Kenny Rodgers.
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Well
I am to make a happy living playing online poker and the one I play at updated and poof still online. Makes one wonder if the trickle effect comes into play here.
Turn on the faucet of oppressive actions and ya get an obvious reaction. Ya drip water in the bucket and people build a bigger bucket.
Can you imagine if they locked the accounts? Capture of Trillions of legal (as the definition stands) assets. I'm pretty sure the entirety of The Mouth's Rage will be the least of there issues.
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thank god, I hate thinking for myself
By the way, what's that powerball up to now? Think i'll pick up some tickets on my way to the bingo hall right after I hit the horse track and place some wagers...
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USA domestic police get to make international law
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Re:
Considering a great many of those players are citizens of other countries where online poker is perfectly legal, that would amount to a wholesale illegal theft of property by the US Government.
Talk about a political and diplomatic hornets nest...
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online poker
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Re: online poker
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Re: online poker
Your government wouldn't know socialism if it voted in every so-called left-wing politican in the country. Obama is no more power-hungry than any other politician, and seems a lot better than the Cheneys, Rumsfelds, etc. that graced the last administration. Last I heard, Hawaii counted as part of the US, or are you going to explain how every other Hawaiian person also isn't American? I have yet to see a Muslim alive who would swear on the Bible rather than the Koran, and who would attend a Christian church. I have also yet to see Muslims 'take over' any Western (and historically Christian) country.
So... you were spouting?
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land of the free?
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Re: land of the free?
I agree with you except for this part. I don't think it's reasonable to claim there is no luck involved in poker. Even the top pro players readily admit there is an element of luck.
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Goodbye America
I'm quite happy America will soon be relegated to 'has been' status - the fact that you are the biggest debtor nation in the world and is now only a world power because of its military - goodbye America - your government has turned you into a big pile of shit.
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Play Full Tilt In The United States ???
I'd like to Know ...
http://www.facebook.com/socoolbob
http://www.facebook.com/learninghow
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re
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maingame
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