Maybe Tiltware should not be focusing on Phil Ivey’s lawsuit and instead focus on paying players their money back. They should also be focusing & getting their affairs in order because they’re going to be spending a lot of time in a U.S. Federal Prison. Get you priorities straight, Tiltware. We all know your going to file for bankruptcy, or you would’ve paid the money back already.

Although this lawsuit may be in part to protect himself, Ivey is attempting to force the hand of FTP to make payouts as agreed to with the Justice Department. Why hasn’t CEO and co Founder Howard Lederer stepped up and made a statement?????????

I understand how cryptic all of this stuff has become, but I think what Ivey is trying to do will help get Americans their money back. It may take a very long time, but it will be substantially less than trying to get the government to flip their actions AND get Americans their money back. And Tom Dwan’s outlandish statement that he will pay off players out of his own bankroll, substantial as it is, is absolutely absurd. Dwan, like everyone in the poker community, is a capitalist, and he knows better than many in the poker world that “He who has the most wins”. It’s posturing in the other direction because of Ivey’s stance to not play and because he has so damn much riding on the WSOP.

I don’t like it as much as the next guy, but crowing about it online won’t do us any good.

Don’t get mad at Ivey, Hellmuth, Duke et al, for getting ripped off. Everything was just fine until your DOJ got involved (in violation of WTO agreements). Get in touch with your representatives and maybe they will re-instate Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld and perhaps they will launch some missiles at FT headquarters. Just remember that this legislation is connected to the war on terror and GW Bush said the terrorists hate us for our freedom. All Obama’s doing is performing a pre-emptive strike on our freedom. A mission truly worth losing your bankrolls over.

There’s not single person involved in online gambling or online poker at any level, who doesn’t specifically remember exactly where he/she was when the news of the passing of the UIGEA broke. September of 2006 will probably be forever etched in the memory of not only US players and online gambling operators, but many website owners and regular players all over the world too.

The reactions following current UIGEA were diverse and ranged from upheaval to joy and back again. Most of the people expressing opinions about the new legislation (which was passed as a package deal with the Safe Port Act) had no idea about exactly what it contained, and how it would eventually impact the world of online gambling. All they knew was, that the U.S. had been the primary market for the industry, and it suddenly came under attack by legislators from Washington. Panic soon ensued, and in the media chaos created one idea emerged: online gambling and online poker had become illegal in the U.S. due to the UIGEA laws, a piece of legislation passed in a not exactly trust-inspiring manner, promoted by a group of individuals who may or may not have been pushing their own more or less shady agenda.

The truth however, was a different one. The UIGEA had not placed gambling or poker outside the law per se. Its most obvious effect was the one concerning financial institutions. Banks and credit card companies were required to block any sort of funds transfers towards offshore online gambling operations and poker rooms, thus making it theoretically impossible for U.S. players to spend American money ‘abroad’. Had horse-racing and other forms of gambling been not exempted from the law, it would’ve actually made perfect sense, and would probably have indeed created economic advantages for the U.S. The exceptions however, betrayed the true purpose of the undertaking, which was to provide domestic land-based casinos and other gambling operators an unfair advantage over their online competitors. The protection of those exposed to gambling addiction, a goal so readily invoked back in 2006, has obviously taken a back seat, and now, two years after the UIGEA we can safely affirm that in that respect, laws like the UIGEA has failed miserably.

The morality of the issue has also been subject to debate. Many pro UIGEA entities claimed that besides being harmful for the economy online gambling was also immoral, and it was the moral duty of the government to make sure it was stomped out. Certainly, many people may feel that way about it, and if one finds gambling a morally questionable activity, I can respect their views. Being given the right to formulate one’s own moral principles is an entirely different thing from forcing one’s moral principles upon other people though. That is something that should never happen in a nation which claims to cherish personal freedom.

Two years after the UIGEA law it is now clear that it has pretty much failed to attain any of the goals it was meant to cover. Gambling addiction hasn’t been influenced at all, the prevention of underage gambling has failed, and the much hailed economic advantages have not only not come about, the UIGEA law ended up creating havoc and causing losses in that respect to.

One of the main reasons for the utter failure of this bill was its ambiguity. Even lawmakers admitted it was much too ambiguous to ever define clear lines in any of the aspects it concerns. The other reason was that it placed law-enforcing responsibilities on the backs of financial institutions that were completely taken by surprise by this turn of events. In order to be able to ever enforce the UIGEA, current financial institutions would have to spend billions of dollars to set up infrastructure and train personnel. Add to that the compensations that the U.S. was forced to pay to WTO member countries, and the revenue the state is missing out on, and you’ll see why the UIGEA is not a cheap undertaking at all.

Bottom line is, in addition to costing the state big money, this legislative dead-end failed to achieve any of its objectives. There are scores of online casinos and poker rooms out there that still accept U.S. players, and apparently, in its attempt to lock offshore operators out of the industry, Uncle Sam only managed to lock himself out of the equation. Don’t be an ignorant yourself, and give up financial advantages where you don’t have to. Sign up to a rakeback deal and collect the money that you’re entitled to. A 30% rake rebate is not something you should pass on, regardless how big or small volume a player you are. the gov.doj fbi has no right telling us what we can do inour own homes. they have no right telling us what we can do with our money that we worked for.land of the free. that statement in itself is a joke. we are not free. they have not gave us freedum but they have taken our freedums away. we have the right to play poker just like anyone else in tis world dose, give us back our fulltilt and pokerstars and the other sites.