The Poker Chronicles

"He also seemed to think that Western Union will remain an option. I have no idea how the hell that could be either. How hard would it be for Western Union or the FBI to put a stop to that? You just sign up at a casino, tell them you want to Western Union them money, and see who the recipient is. Then you tell WU to no longer allow transfers to that recipient."

I think the online sites change the recipient daily/hourly. For instance I cashed out $ from bodog to Western Union a few days ago and the person that was sending me money was "Lulu Sanchez". Other people withdrawing the same day or next were told some other random name.

They must have 100s of names and change them often. I think it would be too hard to keep up a list of names to restrict $ to and from.

Although maybe I'm not understanding the WU system correctly, as this is the first time I've used it.

I'm using Epassporte right now. I do wonder why FT and PS, etc. don't take a page from Party Poker and use the pre-paid calling cards.

I agree with you Matt the most likely long term solution is the foreign bank account. If the sites figure out a way to make it easy for random guy to setup one, it's check mate and game over for the UIGEA.

Do you think the following would work: set up a Canadian PO box and address with mail forwarding services (can be done cheaply and over the internet.) Change your Neteller account address to this Canadian address. You could even set up a foreign online savings bank account with this same address and route the money through it.

I am not sure if it is necessary to change the address at whatever card site you play at. Can Neteller identify if the recipient's account is U.S. based? If so, is there any risk to using a legitimate foreign mailing address at the card site if it is not your legal permanent address? I suspect not, but it never hurts to ask. Thanks for the info you have provided to date and providing a forum for discussion on this topic.

I'm using Click2Pay, haven't had any problems. Service wasn't great to begin with.. I'm going to try and use that feature as little as possible.

Just made a $200 deposit to FullTilt last night to see what happened.. it went through, but I haven't seen any indication of it coming out of my bank account yet.

I'll try to withdraw that money back to my account after the 48 hour window.

Be careful with a foreign bank account.
If you're a US citizen with over $10k at any time in a foreign bank account during the course of a year, you must file form TD F 90-22.1:
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/article/0,,id=148849,00.html

Penalties for not filing can be severe. $10k fine, possible jail time. Anecdotal evidence suggests filing this form greatly increases audit risk.

There was a lot of talk about Neteller possibly qualifying as a foreign bank because it fell under UK banking regulations.

As you point out, there are numerous ways that you and I can get around the rules...but in the end, they're irrelevant. If the "Joe Schmucks" can't quickly and easily deposit into PokerStars (and other sites), they won't. The poker economy is bottom-up based: the people at the bottom donate to support those at the top. Cut off the bottom, and eventually the top starves.

I'm very pessimistic for the near-term. As Bill Rini correctly pointed out, the US can quickly eliminate all ACH transactions to online gambling; after all, their network runs over 80% of the ACH transactions. The government does not have to cut off 100% of the transactions; 80% will do just fine to starve the poker economy. When the UIGEA regulations come out, ACH transactions to entities such as Click2Pay will be banned from US banks. The only hope here is that the Federal Reserve and the IRS work at their normal glacial pace in drafting the regulations (i.e. they come out in 2009).

A foreign bank account is fine, and there's nothing illegal about having one. However, if you fail to follow the reporting rules you can find yourself in trouble. As to the scheme of wiring money from a US bank to a foreign bank, and then using an ewallet from the foreign bank, that's very doable. But Joe Schmuck won't make that effort.

In the long run, prohibitions don't work. But I doubt any of our politicians (from either side of the aisle) care about that in the least.

I'm a Canadian living in Chicago so I'm able to use a Canadian Visa card to deposit to poker sites and then use Neteller to cash out. Doing it this way I avoid Neteller's fees.

However, getting money from a US bank account into a Canadian one is a real pain in the ass. To transfer from Chase to CIBC I have to go to the bank and spend $20 to wire the money which takes about 2 days. It's ridiculous that they can't do an instant electronic transfer.

Admittedly I haven't really looked into any alternatives but if someone hears about a simple way to send cash back and forth across the border I'd love to hear about it.

I always wondered why some third party (funded or subscribed to by poker sites) did not set up proxy servers in Canada, Costa Rica etc. and have US customers log on to the proxy then log on to the main site. We could call it Third Party Tech Solutions or some other non descript name. They could broker the action for really small amounts (5% of the rake would be worth it to both they and the poker sites, Party for example). It really would not matter as 95% of a lot beats 100% of nothing. It could slow the games down a small amount, I suppose. I am not tech savvy but this could not be too difficult as technology grows.

Funding the sites could be done in the same manner.

Also Ewalletxpress just notified that they wont be allowing payouts (Bodog and I think Bugsy Rooms have deposit options with them). This was after the trouble of myself setting up an account with them and deposit just to find out they recently stop taking payouts.

I signed up for ePassporte last Thursday. They send a (very small) charge pending to your Visa. I am supposed to get the amount and tell them what it is. This is to verify who I am.
The charge pending has not shown on my Visa yet, so I cannot complete the process.
I am guessing that ePassporte's backlog is so great that they can't even do the first (simple)step of the process.
Bottom line: things are going to get harder. While this won't stop me, it will discourage the casual player. The casual player is the bottom of the food chain and the repercussions will be felt upwards. I'm not saying the sky is falling, but it isn't a pretty sight right now.

Dave,

That pending charge may not show up on your Visa. At least it didn't for me. I believe you are supposed to call and ask Visa how much the charge is (it will be between .01 and 2.00 USD). I recently setup my ePassporte account and this is how I found out how much the pending charge was. I actually called five minutes after I signed up and Visa was able to help me identify the amount of the pending charge. Hope this helps and goodluck with your account.

Mike

I setup my account last Wednesday (through Epassporte) and today received the small deposits in my account. I use Bank of America.

I had the same experience as Mike. I called my Visa provider within minutes of registering the card, and they gave me the pending amount. ePassporte never actually charges your Visa, so the amount won't show up on your statement, although it may be reflected in your available credit.

As to the idea of setting up proxy servers in Costa Rica, that's entirely unnecessary. Party Poker hasn't been blocking my US IP address. Give them a foreign mailing address and apparently that will satisfy them. Of course, Neteller is another story for that you'll need an actual foreign bank account.

Today on click2pay's web site, I see:

Please note that we do not accept registrations from the US.

So much for that.

I made a deposit using epassporte, I used my check card from bank of america, so how am I supposed to withdraw the money? will they transfer it directly to my card or what?

Washington Mutual doesn't accept the small deposits for credit card verification. You have to fax epassporte a copy of your ID and both sides of your credit card in order to verify and make deposits. i am not willing to fax them that information.

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