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October 31, 2006
An Interview With Me
A college student emailed me with a list of questions for a paper he is writing, and I thought I'd post them, with my responses (with his permission) here for y'all to read.
1. How has the passing of the UIGEA affected you so far?
It seems to have decimated the action at limit hold'em tables above $10/$20. It's dropped the total number of tables in every game to be sure. It hasn't made it any harder to play per se, but it's definitely reduced the number of places to play at.
2. How do you think it will affect you in the coming years? Do you feel it will unfairly affect your livelihood and the livelihood of many of your friends and other poker professionals?
It remains to be seen. Personally my guess is that online poker will soon be legalized and regulated, I'd say in the next few years, but in the short term how detrimental it will be is anyone's guess. I'm pretty optimistic though because the bill is actually somewhat impotent. If it criminalized playing poker online I'd be much more concerned.
It certainly has already had some effect on my livelihood, by virtue of reducing the number of available tables, and it might have much more of one in the future. Whether or not the sites can find easy ways for people to get money into and out of accounts and whether or not they can advertise to potential new players will be what determines the future.
People haven't been able to use credit cards for quite some time, and they've always been willing to expend a little effort to work around that. And because of the amount of money involved I'm pretty sure they'll find ways in the future. This bill might make it a little harder to get money into an online card room, but not much.
The advertising is the part that I think is the biggest concern. All poker rooms, online or off, have a large churn rate. People go broke or tire of the game and stop playing all the time. To maintain current levels of action card rooms have to constantly bring in new players. The bigger sites seemed to have hit the wall months ago, getting to the point where the influx of new customers was roughly equal to the rate at which old ones stopped playing, and the level of action stagnated.
So now it will be interesting to see if poker sites are still going to be able to place ads on television and billboards and in magazines. If not I think we're going to see a tremendous drop in the level of non-professionals playing the game and along with that a lot of the professionals will go broke. Personally I and most of my friends who play for a living are very far up the food chain, but a lot of people in the lower and mid levels might soon be looking for jobs. And everyone who survives might find themselves earning significantly less money.
3. Dumb Estimate Question: How many online poker pros do you think their are out there?
I've thought a lot about this. It depends on your definition of a pro, but I'd guess 250-500. I'm defining a professional as someone able to make the bulk of their income from playing poker and maintain a decent standard of living over a long period of time. There are probably tens of thousands of people for whom it is a side income, but I think, at most, only a few hundred who can earn a healthy living at it.
4. What got you started in online poker?
Efficiency. I started playing back when there was really only one site, Planet Poker. They were pretty poorly run, but eventually Paradise Poker opened and revolutionized the industry. Living in Ohio I didn't have access to many games. We had Vegas Nights, charity games that alternated venues around town, four nights a week, and at them there were maybe three or four tables. Once online poker started picking up steam (about 5-6 years ago) I was able to play any game at any time. It took me a long time to adapt to it, but once I did I realized that the profit potential there was just so much higher than in brick and mortar games that I never really went back.
5. What other business ventures has online poker opened up for you?
I've gotten into rakeback, which is referring players to sites and receiving a cut of the profits, then giving some of those profits back to the players. I've given over a million bucks back to players in the last couple years that way. I also have the exchange site, TheStarsExchange.com, where we exchange w$ and t$ for cash and vice versa, which I'm guessing must be a little out of the scope of your paper.
And there's my blog. I sell ads on there. I don't make any large sum of money from it but I make some. And the main benefit is the writing practice and the people I've met through it.
6. What is your favorite thing about being an online poker professional?
The freedom. Just last weekend I decided that I wanted to go visit some friends who live in New York, so I did. I travel a lot, which I love, and mostly to Las Vegas, my favorite place in the world.
There's also working for myself. I like knowing that every cent I earn goes directly to me. When you work for someone else some of it goes to them. I don't have to deal with malicious coworkers, corporate politics, and, my biggest pet peeve, being bossed around by people less qualified than me.
7. What is your favorite poker experience?
I guess I would say the first two days of this year's World Series of Poker. Being followed around by ESPN, playing my best and working magic at the table, having a three day break and knowing that I was going back with a huge stack and in a position to do something. That was a blast. The ending was as anticlimactic as they come, but the first week was a lot of fun.
8. What negative effects has online poker had on your life/lifestyle?
Well, playing poker for a living certainly has a lot of negative effects. You lose any sense of the value of a dollar when you routinely win or lose thousands of them in a day. The inevitable losing streaks are beyond depressing. And watching unskilled players get lucky in tournaments and win millions can make you bitter. But that's all poker in general, and not really online poker.
As far as online poker specifically there's this strange tendency we players get to view our time as money far too often. We know that at any time we could be online earning money. I've talked to a lot of people about this and it's nearly universal. For instance whenever I'm doing something I dislike I think something like "Let's see, I could clean the house for three hours, or I could pay someone $100, which is half of my hourly rate, work for 30 minutes, and then spend the other 2.5 hours doing something fun." Which wouldn't be that bad, except I then hire the maid and don't work at all.
9. What are the most positive effects?
Never having to set an alarm clock, the ability to make insane amounts of money while still in a robe and slippers, and the freedom of working for yourself. In fact even most self-employed people that I know can't just pack up and leave for weeks at a time if they want to. There's a level of freedom you get from online poker that just can't be found almost anywhere else.
10. What is your opinion on how online gambling affects American families and values?
I don't think it has any effect whatsoever. Somebody who wants to gamble away their mortgage can just go to a gas station and buy scratch-off tickets until they are in the poor house. 48 states have some legal form of gambling. Millions of people visit Las Vegas each year and most of them come back poorer but not so much so that they can't pay their bills.
People like to gamble, it's what separates us from monkeys. But, like anything other than breathing, moderation is the key. I certainly believe there are gambling addicts, but online gambling just saves them a trip to the convenience store. We as a country should have learned long ago that making something illegal doesn't at all combat addiction or any other social ills. It just makes it harder for the sufferers to get help.
11. Assuming you think so, why should online gambling be legalized in the United States?
Here's a list of reasons in no particular order:
A. Making it illegal is a clear violation of our agreements with the WTO. It's unfair to foreign countries. We've signed treaties and have an obligation to live up to them.
B. It will make it easier for addicts to get help and for sites to prevent minors from playing.
C. It will provide tremendous tax revenues.
D. Regulation will make online gambling safer and more convenient for players.
E. Making it illegal is an attempt to legislate morality, which should never be the purpose of a modern government.
F. It can't really be stopped without violating many civil liberties. And if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.
12. Any other general comments on the subject of online poker/online gambling and the UIGEA bill and the people involved with it?
I think that adding this legislation into a port security bill makes a mockery of the idea of representative democracy. I realize that stuff like this happens all of the time and I find it just as insidious regardless of topic. Online gambling is an issue that needs its own careful research and debate. The stakes are high and the civil liberties of Americans are too important to bypass discussion in that manner.
Posted by themaroon at 3:18 PM | Comments (7)
October 25, 2006
November
Well, my resolution to play some serious hours this week lasted about as long as one of Jennifer Lopez's marriages. I found too many other things to do during the weekend, including moving customers over to Full Tilt, household chores, etc. I'm going to New York City on Thursday, and the last thing I want to do is have a couple losing days and then go on a trip in a bad mood. So I'll get back to work next week.
November is going to be a busy month for me. I'll be playing poker a lot. For real this time. I'll also be doing a lot of writing, since Matros convinced me to give NaNoWriMo a shot. It sounds like a good idea, and to be honest I can pump out 2000 words a day with little trouble if I'm not concerned about quality. It might mean a little less blogging (not here of course, I really can't cut the blood supply here anymore without it dying completely) but I'm already probably pumping out 1,000 painstakingly edited words each day (many of which die a slow and painful death in my recycle bin) so doing twice that much unedited should be easy. If anyone else here is involved feel free to add me to the buddy list.
I'll also be spending 5 days or so in Vegas for the Comedy Festival. I snatched up some tickets to that a few weeks back when they went on sale and am looking forward to it. That should be fun. I hope the new laptop gets here before that. I'm very tired of lugging 12 pounds through an airport and the new one weighs about 3. Also my current laptop's keyboard is no longer functioning properly, and that would make typing up my sloppy novel unbearable while on the road.
As far as poker goes I may give no-limit ring games a shot. They seem to be all the rage these days. Full Tilt and Stars still have a very small supply of limit games above $5/$10, but a pretty decent number of NL games in the higher stakes. Maybe it's worth the time it will take me to learn.
Posted by themaroon at 11:13 PM | Comments (7)
October 22, 2006
The Party Is Over
One of my friends asked an interesting question yesterday. He went to cash out his remaining balance on Party Poker and had $24 left. The minimum cash out amount on Party Poker is $50 and they no longer accept deposits from US customers. They also don't allow people to transfer the last $50 in their accounts. So that basically means that he has no way whatsoever to withdraw his $24. It's now Party Poker's.
So the question is, how much will Party make off of that? How many Americans have $49.99 or less in their account that they hadn't yet withdrawn. Considering that Party just had a promotion that amounted to something like 5% rake back, I'm guessing quite a few. I logged in yesterday and was surprised to find some money from that in my account. I had withdrawn the last of my funds a couple weeks back and therefore expected a $0 balance. Luckily my promotional payment was over $50 so I was able to get it, but I bet a lot of people's aren't.
I also should advise all Americans to close their Party accounts. Party deletes all of your information from their servers after 6 months. If they over do reopen their doors to American customers this could have any number of benefits for you later. For one all of your previous transaction history will, I think, be erased. I'm not positive of that, but I'm pretty sure that they quite literally delete all info about you. They've told me that and I know that your screen name and payment methods can be used again.
Also you'll be able to sign up under an affiliate of your choice (hopefully me) for rake back with no trouble. I'm pretty sure Party's glory days are lost, never to be regained, but if they come back they'll probably still be one of the bigger sites. Rake back there won't be as nice as it used to, but it will still be something.
I just wrote them a letter saying "now that playing poker online is illegal in the U.S. I will not be doing it anymore and would like my account closed." They did so within a few hours. It seems that due to the 90% drop in action their anemic customer support is now more than adequate.
Posted by themaroon at 8:36 PM | Comments (10)
October 18, 2006
Back
Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been on vacation in San Francisco and Napa for the last week. It was nice not even thinking about poker for a little while. In fact I'm pretty sure all of the wine eliminated any brain cells that held any information at all on the topic.
I'm back home now and it's time to get back to work. I expect that I'll be hitting some 6 max tables over the next few days. I'm not really even sure where just yet, but Full Tilt seems like a winner. How's the action been?
Posted by themaroon at 10:17 PM | Comments (10)
October 12, 2006
Who called this one?
Posted by themaroon at 1:23 AM | Comments (23)
October 11, 2006
Wake Up Call
I haven't written much about poker lately because I haven't been playing. I had a god awful week two weeks ago, one of my worst on record, and then decided to take some time off. Then all of this crap started happening with our wonderful government and I've spent every spare second trying to plan the future of RakeSucks.
At this point I might as well just go ahead and admit that I was doing rakeback on Party. I was pretty anal about keeping it under wraps, going so far as to reject many potential customers (sorry if I turned you down, don't take it personally) just to keep from being busted. A lot of people did get caught, but I was much smarter than the average rakebacker. I didn't advertise and only accepted long time customers and blog readers, or friends of those people, and instead of using trackers I had a software program to calculate rakeback. It wasn't perfect and was a tremendous pain in the ass, but in the long run most other people who tried fell by the wayside (it's fairly obvious what's going on when an affiliate has 100 different customers each on their own tracking code) and mine persisted for over a year. I had actually gotten the site back to being as profitable as it was before Party spun off all of the skin sites, but of course this new legislation is going to ruin that once again. Rakeback has ended on Party and it's time to move on.
I've been moving what I can over to Full Tilt. They're going to be the biggest site that allows rakeback now that Party is gone, and one of the few I feel comfortable promoting. I've worked hard over the last couple years to earn and maintain a certain reputation, and even though some sites (like Absolute Poker) have offered me better deals I don't want to risk my goodwill on corporations that I don't believe in. A shady site reflects poorly on me if I have its banners up.
¬If there's one thing I know about Full Tilt, it's that they are run in an ethical manner, which I think is important to poker players in this time of uncertainty. And they are, in my opinion, the second most efficiently run organization (behind PokerStars, who truly is the best in almost every possible way) in online poker. So I can feel good about promoting them. And Iif Stars stops taking American money Full Tilt is going to be the biggest site on the net, hands down.
All of these recent developments have got me thinking a lot about life after online poker. Suppose poker ceases to exist on the internet, what's then for me? I've always assumed that I would just play this game into my early or mid 30's, bank a few million dollars, then have a family and quit or at least reduce the number of hours I play. But when Party Poker announced that they will soon no longer accept U.S. customers I found myself thinking that maybe I need a plan B.
I quickly realized that I have no college degree, no marketable skills, and no real world experience. In short I am virtually unemployable. I do have the advantage of having a bit of money saved up, which I suppose is unusual for someone my age, but it's nowhere near enough to coast off of for the rest of my life. It is enough that I could go back to school, but what would I do that for? Nothing really interests me.
I could move somewhere and play brick and mortar poker. Los Angeles and Las Vegas are the only real options for me. They're the only places, to my knowledge, that have a significant number of higher stakes games. I could easily make a living at the $80/$160 games at Bellagio or $100/$200 at Commerce. I have enough of a bankroll to give either of those a go, and I'm more than confident that I can manage it. I hear they're significantly easier than the $30/$60 games on Party. So there's that.
The other option is to start some sort of business. I have one great idea in mind, and I may do that one way or the other. I truly believe that anyone who has had success in poker can have at least five times more in business, and most people who’ve been successful in both seem to agree. So maybe I'll go that route.
The other option is writing. That one is fairly risky. I do have an idea for a narrative nonfiction book that I'm probably going to spend a lot of time on over the next few months. It's a gamble, as to be successful it has to turn out well and then get published. This is the sort of book that I'd want a major publisher for. I do have a few advantages, in that I have multiple friends who are excellent writers and I am already a published author, which makes getting a good agent and having my idea actually considered by a major pub easier. But in the end the most likely financial result is probably $0. And that's fine, I'm OK with putting a bunch of time into something and receiving only intangible benefits.
Either way I don't have to worry about the future just yet. Online poker seems pretty safe short term. We'll see where it goes over the next 9 months and reevaluate. I'll be curious to see if anything changes between now and then. I'm still holding out for two hookers and a midget.
Posted by themaroon at 1:29 AM | Comments (13)
October 5, 2006
Rumors
The one fun thing about this catastrophe as of late is the excitement of guessing which sites will decide to keep accepting American customers and which will decide not to. If nothing else it's fairly interesting. I'm surprised nobody is wagering on this.
As far as I can tell Crypto and Party (both publicly traded) are going to stop. Full Tilt, Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker, and Paradise Poker, I am told, are going to keep going. I'm a little surprised about Paradise because they are listed on the same stock exchange as Party.
The rumor mill says Stars is going to back down, but I don't think there's really any validity there. All of the rumors come "from a source high up in the company," as per usual. Still though, a stopped clock is right twice a day and it's far from impossible that they do so.
I'm also extremely surprised about Full Tilt. They are owned by Americans and have lots of American employees. I can understand why a foreign company wouldn't really care if they ran the risk of being arrested for traveling here. With the exception of maybe Las Vegas a billionaire in some other country really has no reason to care about being unable to visit the USA. But for an American it's different.
Granted, I think Lederer and the gang stand to make a fortune, possibly hundreds of millions or maybe even billions, by persisting. But all of the money in the world does you no good in a jail cell. Well, maybe it does you a little good (lots of cigarettes) but you get the point. It isn't worth any significant risk. I'd rather be an American with $10 million in the bank than make a billion if it meant even a 5% chance of spending 20 years in the slammer. Once you've made your fortune (and I'm assuming Lederer has already made a sizeable one) no amount of money is worth any risk, to me at least. Maybe I'm just not as greedy as others.
Do you guys know if any other sites have made official statements? You are all probably following this much more closely than I am. I'm curious which ones have said they are going away and which will be business as usual. I hope most fall in the latter category, and I think I won't be disappointed.
Posted by themaroon at 1:30 AM | Comments (13)
October 3, 2006
Quick Note
I guess Full Tilt is going to weather the storm and keep accepting U.S. customers. I'm pretty sure that if Stars caves they will be the new Party Poker, so I'm going to offer rakeback there, at least for now. If you don't have an account there and are interested drop me an email.
Posted by themaroon at 9:06 PM | Comments (17)
October 2, 2006
Bill Frist Is A Cat Killing Douchebag
Everyone is wondering what will happen with online poker in the near term so I'll try to guess to the best of my abilities. First it seems Party Poker will shut down its services to U.S. customers, and some other big sites likely will too. I can't see Bush vetoing this law. I think it would actually be within his power to effectively remove the online gaming sections from the bill (Bush has been known to frequently use signing statements in place of the line item veto), but I'm not positive of that and even if I'm correct I can't see him doing it. You never know, a large donation to the GOP from Harrah's who, by the way, has a lot to lose if online gaming goes down (how many entries will next year's WSOP have without online satellites?) might change something at the last minute. But I'm certainly not holding my breath.
I'll guess that PokerStars will keep on taking U.S. bets and will become bigger than Party Poker ever was because of it. Imagine all of their former action plus all of Party's. It'll be 50% bigger and 200% better in terms of software, customer support, etc. They'll move their headquarters to wherever they have to in order to keep doing so.
And if not Stars then Full Tilt will. And if not Full Tilt then Ultimate Bet, or Paradise, or Prima. Somebody will. It's currently impossible to say who, but it seems for sure it will be one of the current big guys. There's just so much to gain. I hope it will be Stars because they are by far the most pleasant site to play at. And I think it will because they have the most to gain. I haven't seen anything credible indicating one way or another, just a bunch of the usual internet rumors that aren't worth repeating, but I have a feeling we'll know within a few days.
As far as the financial aspect goes, there's just no way to stop money from going into or out of these sites. Congress can't simply abolish all payments to overseas banks. And they can't abolish payments from overseas banks to poker sites. And when you fund an account now that's what happens, you pay the money to an overseas bank (Neteller for instance) who then pays the poker site. Neteller isn't an online gambling institution, and they have other legitimate uses.
Putting money into poker sites is already a pain in the ass and millions of people do it anyway. The sites will work very hard to ensure that it's as painless as possible in the future. The US can't stop it and they can't make it enough trouble to overcome the power of degeneracy. And given that they didn't even make it a criminal act they may not even scare anybody into stopping.
Regardless I think that this will all be a memory a year from now. Something will happen between now and then to bring online poker back. Whether some bill will specifically makes it legal (perhaps because it is a game of skill) or our government is somehow forced to stop ignoring the WTO (which has already ruled that the U.S. is in violation of its treaties for trying to hinder online poker and will now have much larger nations than Antigua complaining) or courts overturn the bill, or something else I can't foresee happens, its just too much money to leave on the table.
And when that something happens PokerStars, if they continue to take American business now, will have an astounding and insurmountable lead over competitors like Party Poker. Whichever big site keeps the U.S. in action is going to remain the big site when we legalize online poker. And Party and all of the other big sites will be kicking themselves for their overreaction.
So those are just my educated guesses. Far from anything useful. Let's see how it plays out. In the mean time though I think it's wise for all of us to consider life after online poker. For the jobless masses making a living off of this it could mean bad things. Time will tell.
Posted by themaroon at 7:15 PM | Comments (22)
October 1, 2006
Ouija Predictions
Everyone has been telling me to take a look at the forums for more information on this bill. I figured that a poker forum is the last place to look for credible information on anything (especially poker) and now that I've read them a little bit I'm positive I was correct.
2+2 has a bunch of people who are supposedly knowledgeable about legal issues (just like they are about poker, right?) and as far as I can tell their opinions range from "this is nothing" to "this is the end of online poker as we know it". The only real consensus seems to be that this is unlikely to be a good thing. Thanks jackasses, I really needed to read a forum to know that. I think we all agree that this is almost a negative freeroll, with maybe one slightly positive possible outcome. And I'm pretty sure that that is about all any of us really know right now.
Basically what is currently going is the same thing that always happens whenever there is any event that people deem a crisis. People want to hear more about it and they don't care who they hear it from. Anyone who is willing to speak up and has any sort of qualifications for doing so is deemed an expert because it gives us something to worry about. It's kind of like watching CNN whenever anything noteworthy happens, such as a rocket exploding on its way back from space or the vice president shooting someone in the head. They tell you over and over that it happened, bring in a bunch of random "experts" (and CNN's definition of an expert is anyone on CNN) to give you diametrically opposed opinions, and everybody who likes to worry (which is almost everyone, worrying is America's national pastime) watches the same garbage over and over all day long and ends up even more scared and confused than they were when it started.
Right now for most of us the best thing we can do is relax. Online poker sites, banks, and congressmen will start issuing statements. I'm anxious to see what the PPA thinks about this, as they are one of the few not for profit organizations in existence (and maybe the only) with the combined expertise to make any sense of this.
If you have legal experience and have spent some time reading over the bill then I'm curious about your opinion, especially if you have done legal work for banks or other financial institutions. Otherwise it's really nothing but idle speculation. I have plenty of my own idle speculation to last me for a few days (and if I run out there's more on 2+2 than I could read in a year) and mine is likely much more humorous.
For instance I think that this legislation is going to end in every online poker player receiving a free hour with two hookers and a midget in a brothel outside of Vegas to be named later. I came to that conclusion after reading the bill, reading the forums, and consulting my Ouija board. I specifically asked the ghost of Kurt Cobain "will this bill result in everyone getting a free two hookers and a midget" and the needle went to yes. Kurt wouldn't lie.
What does your Ouija board say?
Posted by themaroon at 9:18 AM | Comments (25)