Why is online poker illegal?

[Donal]

When did I say that?

My bad, you didn't. I got you confused with a couple other posters. However, my point about the Absolute story proving that fraud can indeed be tracked and investigated still stands. The players on Absolute really had no one of authority to turn to.

If this had happen with an American company, they would have had more options.

Has anything like that happen with the UK run sites?

 

[Fredrik]

I agree with all of that. In particular, I'm pretty sure that at least one of the players that A.J. Green stole money from would have reported him to the police if the site was in their own country.

Nothing that even comes close to the AP and UB scandals has ever happened at a site that isn't owned by Joe Norton. There have been a few smaller incidents though, e.g. players at Party Poker and Full Tilt Poker using bots. That was also discovered by other players.

 

[technoextreme]

I like how Fredrik claims that fraud over the internet is impossible to track, yet his big example is of the players themselves discovering the fraud.

Actually, that is a perfect example because they only discovered the fraud through sheer dumb luck. If Im not mistaken they were actually sent logs of the players that they have no idea how they got a hold of.

 

[Blackadder]

I guess it comes down to how much you can win per hour, and how reliably.

on a hour to hour basis, it's a lot of luck. Same goes for days, or even weeks. Only measured in months I was able to make a steady profit. But even then I would have negative results some months.

I was lured in because of some friends, claiming good winnings. Also I was into pro magic the gathering at that time and I saw a few magic players cash big in poker. Some of those players I had played against on the pro tour and won against, so if they could do it, why wouldn't I be able to do it?

The results in the first month were pretty good, that's why I kept playing. but in the end I had to conclude that A. I didn't like the game enough and B. I was never really good at it. Yes good enough to win $50 from a few dudes that are probably a lot richer than me and play for fun... enter enough of those guys and it was good money for me... But not good enough to go beyond that level...

But that skill is huge in online poker, that's a certainty for me. I am not skilled enough

 

[Donal]

Actually, that is a perfect example because they only discovered the fraud through sheer dumb luck. If Im not mistaken they were actually sent logs of the players that they have no idea how they got a hold of.

No, because the documentation was there. That was the point. The fraud was able to be tracked. The fact that a player got his hands on it was luck.

What that player did with the documentation was simply math.

A licensed and regulated gaming website operated in the US could be required to make all of these records public or send them to a federal auditor for inspection.