ILX Poker Players Unite

I guess if checks are bouncing, I'm probably fucked on the money I had on PokerStars.

Part of me thinks I should cancel this PS cashout until the situation is a little more stable -- right now, there's a run on the bank, so to speak. After things settle down a little, Stars may put some more resources into covering cashouts so they don't freak out their remaining legal players. Y/N?

most of the advice i've heard is to just sit tight with stars and fulltilt, and try to get your money later after this blows over

kind of a long read, but Ron Paul is definitely OTM with this:

Hearing on HR 2267: the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act

July 20, 2010

Ron Paul: Thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing on HR 2267, the Internet Gambling Regulation, Consumer Protection, and Enforcement Act. While it is out of character for me, to say the least, to support a bill that regulates private transactions, I support HR 2267 because it repeals the ban on Internet gambling. The bill does not create any new federal laws; it merely establishes a process to ensure that gambling sites can comply with existing laws, and thus offer their services to adults who wish to gamble online.

The ban on Internet gambling infringes upon two freedoms that are important to many Americans: the ability to do with their money as they see fit, and the freedom from government interference with the Internet.

The proper role of the federal government is not that of a nanny, protecting citizens from any and every potential negative consequence of their actions. Although I personally believe gambling to be a dumb waste of money, American citizens should be just as free to spend their money playing online poker as they should be able to buy a used car, enter into a mortgage, or invest in a hedge fund. Risk is inherent in any economic activity, and it is not for the government to determine which risky behaviors Americans may or may not engage in.

The Internet is a powerful tool, and any censorship of Internet activity sets a dangerous precedent. Many Americans rely on the Internet for activities as varied as watching basketball games, keeping up on international news broadcasts, or buying food and clothing. In the last few years we have seen ominous signs of the federal government’s desire to control the Internet. The ostensible reasons are to protect Americans from sex offenders, terrorists, and the evils of gambling, but once the door is open to government intrusion, there is no telling what legitimate activity, especially political activity, might fall afoul of government authorities.

The ban on Internet gambling also forces financial institutions to act as law enforcement officers. This is another pernicious trend that has accelerated in the aftermath of the Patriot Act, the deputization of private businesses to perform intrusive enforcement and surveillance functions that the federal government is unwilling to perform on its own.

Mr. Chairman, while I am willing to support HR 2267 as a means to repeal the total ban on internet gambling, I urge my colleagues to oppose any attempt to tax internet gambling. Taxing any commercial transition, including gambling, is an unwarranted expansion of the taxing power and will cripple the development of internet commerce. Furthermore, since the power to tax is the power to destroy, imposing taxes on internet gambling could simply morph into a backdoor way of banning gambling on the internet. If opponents of the internet gambling ban are serious about expanding individual liberty, they will oppose restricting the freedom of internet users to do what they want with their time and property by imposing taxes on the bill.

In conclusion, I urge my colleagues to support Chairman Frank’s HR 2267. While not perfect these bills will take a step toward liberty by restoring the right of Americans to decide for them whether or not to gamble online.

I'll be honest and say that I only paid taxes on my gambling winnings one year. The first two years I didn't even think I had to pay in on that, my taxes were super simple and I was young, so yeah whatever. I paid the next year, then the UIGEA came and fucked everything, since then my profits have not really been so high (maybe like $7-8k a year?)

My problem with taxation on winnings is that current laws are completely ass-backwards on this - it's not just "how much did you net, pay taxes on that", it's "record every winning session as income and deduct the losses". Essentially you're asking me to report an extra $300k in income with a $293k deduction, which moves me into the highest tax bracket, wiping out all my profits. Of course my position on this is that the money has ALREADY been taxed; I mean I pay 30% or so income tax, so do my opponents...if he wins from me why does he have to pay taxes on money that was already taxed?

btw just to clarify I'm talking about doing it the proper way, as opposed to my recent method of "guess"

I think you'd have trouble defending the idea of a clearly defined chunk of money that gets taxed as income and then has done its tax work. What about sales tax when you buy something with your already taxed income? And then the tax that the shopkeeper has to pay, since after all your money is income to him. Then he dies and leaves some to his kids, and it gets inheritance taxed. Then they pay it as wages to the workers in the businesses they run...

yeah exactly, I'm not saying this is the only way in which our tax system is backwards, sales tax I don't mind because it's not much, but IMO this is mostly the same concept

taxing poker accounts is such a weird area because there are so many different points of taxation which you need to look at. obviously, you're hoping the government doesn't want to fleece their citizens and create a situation in which players who lost money on the year would have to pay in. I have a friend who went on a huge run and made about $8000 in a couple of weeks, but donked back $6000 of it and I would think lost about $3000 more through the course of the next year (PartyPoker, lol). Technically he still had to pay in on the $8k he won but can deduct the money he lost next year...however he didn't really have an income then so the end result (had he paid up proper) would be him losing money on poker, then paying taxes on the money he later lost and not really being able to deduct it later; I guess an equivilent for say, stock traders, would be to pay taxes on your "earnings" every time your stocks go up, then deduct every time they go down.

The other issue is that people in general are just not going to freely pay taxes on their winnings if they're not making a living off it. If a guy sells a TV in the paper for $400 I think there is about a 0.05% chance he's actually going to report that as income.

Stars, Tilt domains restored so the operators can start cashing out US players.

smh

how do they expect them to PAY the players exactly

I can't imagine they're not sitting on boatloads of revenue.

nah, i mean in practical terms - like, via the check processors they just shut down?

taxing poker accounts is such a weird area because there are so many different points of taxation which you need to look at. obviously, you're hoping the government doesn't want to fleece their citizens and create a situation in which players who lost money on the year would have to pay in

also: imo all this is going to do, assuming the inevitability of a Notional US-Friendly Online Poker Site run by a casino/state lottery/etc, is either create a huge unregulated black market for person-to-person transfers/Paypal transactions to evade taxation (which was already how tons of people were getting money on and off ftp/stars for years if their bank/CC company didn't honor them) or encourage chip dumping - there's no way this is going to work as smoothly as they think, not with this much infrastructure to support a poker shadow economy already in place

/fills out 1099-misc for winning a $3 rebuy

That's pretty much it. I'd love to see something where you only have to report if you make over $50k a year or something. I just can't see how taxing the casual players is ever going to work out, especially since the tax laws are so sketchy and rely on terminology like "session" which could mean anything in the internet age.

BTW I'm really happy about the news; definitely could use that money now!! My last check bounced but I hope it all gets striaghtened out. Kinda shocked that the DOJ is doing the right thing here!!

Got an email from Stars Cashier about 30 minutes ago, cashout unsuccessful.

Got another email five minutes ago:

Dear (username),

We were very pleased to receive the news today that allows US players to cash out their real money balances.

In response to this update, the Cashout Option in the PokerStars Cashier will be temporarily closed to allow us to prepare the technical solutions and formulate the plan and processes required to allow you to cash out your balance.

In the interim, any pending cashouts have been returned to your account in order to ensure players have the opportunity to cash out orderly. Please be assured, US player balances are safe. We will notify all US players as soon as the cashier is available again.

Providing you with the facility to cash out is our top priority right now, and hopefully all US players will be able to cash out via the PokerStars Cashier in the near future. We apologize for the temporary delay, and sincerely appreciate your patience and cooperation, as we continue working towards providing you with a solution to cash out.

Regards,

PokerStars Support

Looks like cashouts are a go at Stars.

Got my check from Stars in today's mail.

well now

well, crap

ESPN's "live" WSOP main event coverage is 100x more entertaining than the edited Tuesday night packages.

anyone else on here have a big chunk of money stuck on Full Tilt?

really dumb to call this a 'Ponzi' scheme, but damn was that company poorly run

i think i still had like sixty bucks, so no

$102 and change -- I assume it went up one of the main dudes' nose last year

pokers lame

you're lame for not playing

poker companies settle us fraud charges

Saw that last night, good news. I hope the govt. has kept everybody's account details, because I can't remember how much I had down to the exact penny. Should have taken a screen shot on Black Friday.

I'm lucky that I mostly moved over to Stars by then but I am a little upset that all those player points I got from endless HORSE sessions are pretty much kaputt

kinda wish there was still such thing as internet poker

Finally got my 108 bucks from Full Tilt.

I've been stimming on zynga poker.

My playing days seem like about 3 lifetimes ago. The last time I really worked hard studying a thing and getting better at it. Fuck you, Sheldon Adelson or whoever made Black Friday happen.

Anyone still playing? I made a deposit on Bovada last month, been enjoying playing there so far. Depositing is a real hassle, you have to get one of those temporary Visa cards and there are a lot of fees - I think they charge between 4.9% and 6.9% due to all the processors they have to use. Luckily they waive it for the first deposit, plus give you a (fairly difficult to clear) 100% match bonus.

It's an interesting site - games are totally anonymous, players don't have names, just numbered by seat position. You can take notes but they disappear after the player leaves. Furthermore you can only play four tables at once, so it's not like say Carbon where the same regs would be at literally every table for a stake. Tracking software doesn't really work, you need a converter and even still you can only really see your own stats. As a result the player pool is pretty weak, I'm seeing some plays that remind me of the old Party days, and the full ring tables are limp city. Getting back into this still feels weird but I'm having fun!

http://www.pokernews.com/news/2016/01/antonio-esfandiari-to-donate-50000-to-charity-23798.htm

^^this is my favorite poker story in forever

lol wtf nguyen doin

man that was a sick hand

after running so good this whole week i got coolered out of this satellite tourney this afternoon. UTG+2 opens, i 3 bet to a good size in hijack with KK, button flats, opener flats. flop comes AK9 rainbow, opener checks, i decide to slow play my set and check, button checks. turn bricks, original opener leads out, i shove, button calls with AA. guy rivers quads just for good measure. maybe 3-handed i should have bet flop to charge straight draws and get value from an ace, but no matter what i did i was losing most of my stack anyway

honestly it was a pretty bad flat by button, you should pretty much always 4 bet aces when there's 2 other players in the pot imo

hi folks,
started playing a few online "home games" with friends on pokerstar on sunday nights (20:30 UTC). Currently get around 5-6 players would be fun to have a couple more! Buy in between $5 and $10

let me know if you're interested in joining in.

http://www.youtube.com/dougpolkpoker/live

my favorite poker player dude is livestreaming a 5k final table, and has a lottery going for 5% of his profit

also he's getting pretty drunk lol

yeah Doug Polk is pretty great, one of the few who's legit fun to watch

any US people still playing? I'm going strong on Ignition, for the time being

The only thing I know about poker that is worth knowing is the old truism, that if you don't know who is the easy mark at the table, it's you.

one thing I've started to gravitate towards is the idea that the four pillars of poker are Position, Hand Strength, Aggression, and Pot Odds, and you need at least two of them to make any hand worth playing

starting to get into PLO a lot more...doing well though I am sure I have no idea what I'm doing. that said I don't think anyone else does either.

PLO is so much fun but so easy to be bad at

polk won that tournament last night btw, 271k

wow good on him. definitely one of the most likeable of the newer crop of internet players.

what's really struck me about PLO is just how much different it is than regular NLHE. its such a post-flop game, you really can't ever be more than a 60% favorite before the flop and you can't win big pots if you whiff on it. thus far my "edge" is just noticing which players are unwilling to bet anything but the nuts and which ones get too gung ho about their low straights and flushes. not to mention sticking to the basic principles of aggression and position which people seem to forget in favor of a "limp every hand" strategy.

doug polk and daniel negreanu seated next to each other at the feature table of the 111k WSOP one drop. doug is wearing a "more rake is better" t shirt

is that online somewhere?