Apparently, the sky just fell...

[Kurn]

Any non US players interested in a small 'Stars -> Cake swap?

[Talking Poker]

I got a call from Stars this morning.

I talked to one of their VIP Managers for a good 10 minutes, and he was very friendly and sympathetic, but also a but uncomfortable - at least that was my read.

He did his best to answer all of my questions, but there are obviously a lot of unknowns. According to him though:

-Money is safe
-Stars will continue to operate outside the USA
-No timelines
-He suspects VPPs/FPPs will be prorated based on their value
-He noted my concerns aout money transfers to/from staked players
-I can't just fly to Canada for the weekend and play from a non-USA IP address... I need to establish residency with an ID (I think) and definitely a utility bill of some sort

Pretty much everything I expected, but I was still glad they called.

[sjay2k]

No offence, but this isn't really a reasonable request right now, given the likelihood that Stars cashouts get frozen and/or international transfers get reversed.

[sjay2k]

My concern is the following:

1. The allegations against the sites are immense. The allegation of fraud and bribery appear to be substantiated. Defending the claim will be extremely expensive, if not impossible. The DoJ are going after the sites for billions of dollars, and I don't see how they get out of this cheaply.

2. You have to wonder how much money the sites have lying around on top of player balances to fund the lawsuit. The sites have been aware of the prospect of being pursued by the US Government for years (some of them borderline paranoid), and no doubt they have been salting away all the profits and scheming of ways to protect their assets from the inevitable.

3. See the stock price of BWIN/Party Poker (who pulled out of the market years ago) . It crashed by 30 - 40% following the news. If Party crashed by 30%, how much did Full Tilt's value decline by?

[sjay2k]

Amazing: "To begin with, the defendants employed“fraudulent credit card processing,” in two specific ways.

The first method was by creating phony companies (flower shops, pet stores, etc.) that would initiate the credit card charges. (The indictment specifies that Full Tilt and Absolute employed this method). Becuse the credit card companies usually caught on after a while, the defendants relied on a supply of stand-by phone merchants (twenty or more).

The second method (by each company) was to use pre-paid cards (including phone cards). They would load those cards with funds from the gamblers, without using the necessary code. They even created fake web sites and reviews of the cards, to make it appear that the cards had other legit purposes."

[Reel Deal]

SJ,

Thanks for the link. Very interesting read.

And, if anyone is interested, here's a link to a copy of the complaint as filed in the U.S. District Court (Southern District of New York):

[Wes]

After April 15th, party/bwin stock went from 130 to a high of 180 (closing at 170). The stock would have been more interesting to see if the news broke before the London stock exchange closed on Friday.

[sjay2k]

[stormswa]

Just look on the bright side.....