Poker winnings confiscated

Poker winnings confiscated

pokerati.com

Documents obtained by the AP show that a judge in the district issued a seizure warrant last week for an account at a Wells Fargo bank in San Francisco, and that a federal prosecutor told a bank in Arizona to freeze an account.

In a letter dated Friday and faxed to Alliance Bank of Arizona, the prosecutor said that accounts held by payment processor Allied Systems Inc. are subject to seizure and forfeiture “because they constitute property involved in money laundering transactions and illegal gambling offenses.” The letter was signed by Arlo Devlin-Brown, the assistant U.S. atto

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I cannot believe what this country is coming to. Why not make the poker legal and tax it? The Govt. is now looking for any way it can to steal money that does not belong to them. I don't play on-line poker for money, since GWB declared it "illegal" It is just another money grab from Big Brother...

pokerati.com
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It is legal as long as you go through an off shore poker site. They aren't saying you can't do that. What they are saying is the money held by Allied something or another is being held because they are laundering money.

I play online poker all the time for real money, playing right now as a matter of fact and I cash half my winnings out each month to pay my bills and what not.

Before playing for real money you should find out who the site uses for transactions or use popular sites to play at. That way things like this won't happen.

edit to add- If you win enough money you still have to pay taxes on it. You can't win 100,000 dollars in a year through online poker and take it all home.

[edit on 10-6-2009 by jd140]

It is not legal in the U.S. You cannot use a credit card from a U.S. Bank to play. You have to get a C.C. from a foreign owned bank. Then you are taking your chances that the Govt. doesn't confiscate winnings. Do they allow you to write off money you lost as an investment? By confiscating winnings they haven't given you the chance to pay any taxes.

Originally posted by Oatmeal
It is not legal in the U.S. You cannot use a credit card from a U.S. Bank to play. You have to get a C.C. from a foreign owned bank. Then you are taking your chances that the Govt. doesn't confiscate winnings. Do they allow you to write off money you lost as an investment? By confiscating winnings they haven't given you the chance to pay any taxes.

Not true! I make regular deposits (wish they were withdrawals) from my US Credit Card, and from my US Checking Account! After some legislation last year, they cut stuff off for a little while, and many credit card companies limit all online purchases, but it is not based on geography.

I have a Bank of America account and a local Credit Union account, and they both work just fine!

Edit:
You can't write off losses (my accountant says), but you do have to declare winnings! (You can deduct your losses from your winnings however.)

I am more scared of being pulled over after a big win in cash! It happened to me a few years ago in Kansas City. I won several thousand dollars, and I had a 3 hour drive home through many known speed traps. I have heard that all US cash contains traces of coc aine, and that if tested, it can be seized by the police. I was a nervous wreck all the way home!

[edit on 10-6-2009 by getreadyalready]

Originally posted by Oatmeal
It is not legal in the U.S. You cannot use a credit card from a U.S. Bank to play. You have to get a C.C. from a foreign owned bank. Then you are taking your chances that the Govt. doesn't confiscate winnings. Do they allow you to write off money you lost as an investment? By confiscating winnings they haven't given you the chance to pay any taxes.

I use my Bank of America card to play. I might have to reload 3 times a year and my winnings are direct deposited into my checking account.

It is illegal to GAMBLE in the US. As long as the site you are playing is an overseas site, you can play. When you deposit money onto these sites it goes through a pay pal like company and then is deposited on the site of your choice. When you want to withdraw your winnings it goes through the same site and then back into your account.

To my knowledge Doyles Room is a U.S based company and I've never had a problem with Deposits or Cashouts. Same goes with Pokerstars. Never any problem with either.

Originally posted by The Undertaker
To my knowledge Doyles Room is a U.S based company and I've never had a problem with Deposits or Cashouts. Same goes with Pokerstars. Never any problem with either.

Doyles Room was initially an US based company, but the law making internet poker illegal ruined that. Eventually Doyle found a company that would take Doyles Room over and keep him on as a partner while making his site perfectly legal to gamble on. This is a link to their company that is based in the Neatherlands.

www.cakepokernetwork.net...

reply to post by Oatmeal


Poker already is taxable... in fact when you fill out your taxes you can opt to be a "professional gambler" and report income from gambling as your main source of income, which will not exceed the maximum income tax percentage.

Even if it's not your main source, there are forms you can fill out to claim winnings..

These however, where online-gambling monies.. which takes money from vegas, which donated to the Bush Administration and many Congresscritters and thus, had banned online gambling ... because... they took advantage of Americans. yeah right. "For your own good".

It's just another case of fascism we can put a tally down for. Wonder who's getting the confiscated funds... well, the judge did need a new car, and it's a tough economy and all..

We can't make a few bucks gambling with each other, but Wall street can gamble peoples lives every day, and get free money if they bet the wrong way.

What a joke.

reply to post by Rockpuck


Actually it was put in place for a very good reason.

When you play in a real casino or a brick and mortar you have real chips. It is much easier to get up and walk away because you have the feeling you are playing with real cash. When you play online you just get a number and once that number reaches zero you can reload with a click of a button. So you don't get the feeling that you are playing with real money and people were going broke very fast.

Even now people will sit at their computers and lose massive amounts of money. Online poker is very fast paced and you play one hand every 2 minutes or so. That equals to about 30 hands an hour compared to a brick and mortar where you play maybe 10 hands an hour. On top of that a Casino usually has a 100 dollar buy in at the lowest tables with a 1 and 2 blinds. Online poker you can deposit a minimum of 5 dollars and play penny poker. You don't get the feeling as if you are losing a large amount of money so they keep reloading 5 dollars over and over without thinking they are losing a significant amount.

I played with a guy who reloaded 10 times in 30 minutes at a table where the minimum buy in was 50 dollars. He dumped 500 dollars in half an hour without taking a break. He would lose it all, take a couple of minutes to reload his account and lose it all again.

This law was to prevent something like that to happen. I like the law and dislike it at the same time.

Shouldn't Americans have a right to play on-line poker without the "feeling" of playing with real money? I don't need the Govt. doing things for my own good. I can monitor myself Thank You.

Originally posted by getreadyalready

Originally posted by Oatmeal
It is not legal in the U.S. You cannot use a credit card from a U.S. Bank to play. You have to get a C.C. from a foreign owned bank. Then you are taking your chances that the Govt. doesn't confiscate winnings. Do they allow you to write off money you lost as an investment? By confiscating winnings they haven't given you the chance to pay any taxes.

Not true! I make regular deposits (wish they were withdrawals) from my US Credit Card, and from my US Checking Account! After some legislation last year, they cut stuff off for a little while, and many credit card companies limit all online purchases, but it is not based on geography.

I have a Bank of America account and a local Credit Union account, and they both work just fine!

Edit:
You can't write off losses (my accountant says), but you do have to declare winnings! (You can deduct your losses from your winnings however.)

I am more scared of being pulled over after a big win in cash! It happened to me a few years ago in Kansas City. I won several thousand dollars, and I had a 3 hour drive home through many known speed traps. I have heard that all US cash contains traces of coc aine, and that if tested, it can be seized by the police. I was a nervous wreck all the way home!

[edit on 10-6-2009 by getreadyalready]

I agree. I play on Full Tilt and make deposits on my credit card all the time with no problems. Just pocket change though, I don't trust online play for any big money. If I want to play for serious cash I hit the casinos in Atlantic City.

Originally posted by Oatmeal
Shouldn't Americans have a right to play on-line poker without the "feeling" of playing with real money? I don't need the Govt. doing things for my own good. I can monitor myself Thank You.

You can monitor yourself then that is fine, but alot of people were becoming compulsive gamblers and not realizing it.

Per my example of a guy I played against.

Besides you still can play online poker for real money if you want. So I don't see what the big deal is.

The big deal is the Govt. is now confiscating the winnings...

reply to post by Oatmeal



I don't know anything about Allied Systems Inc. If they operate within the United States then any money going through them can be held as evidence against them.

I have a friend who used to play poker online quite a bit. He won $300.00 USD one time, and told me that he doubted that he'd actually get the money, as he had won with "free" start-up dollars given to new users of the website.

Well, he got the check. It was drawn on a bank in Saudi Arabia. He didn't deposit it, as he's somewhat of a foilhead like me

he still plays poker, but not in the "money" sites. weird.

I'm a professional online poker player based in Canada so I'm pretty close to the subject matter and I'd like to clear up some misconceptions about what is and isn't legal in the US.

In 2006 the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was pushed through which made it illegal for American payment processors to process transactions to Gambling sites. Some states, don't know which ones for sure but you can google it, have a prohibition against internet gambling in place. Yes, it is true Americans living in these particular states are breaking the law when they play online poker.

For most Americans though, it is simply not illegal to play poker on the internet. The Federal legislation in place (the UIGEA) puts the onus of the legality of the issue on payment processors, not individual Americans.

It is not illegal for most Americans to gamble on the internet, no matter how harsh the rhetoric coming from the government is.

Originally posted by argentus
Well, he got the check. It was drawn on a bank in Saudi Arabia. He didn't deposit it, as he's somewhat of a foilhead like me

Your friend is kinda silly for not cashing the check. It is your government's tyrannical policies towards internet gambling that force poker sites to use less mainstream options to pay their American customers. If it wasn't for that, the check would've been drawn on Wells Fargo, BOA, etc etc.

[edit on 10-6-2009 by flybynight]

Former Senator and current chairman of the Poker Players Alliance Al D'Amato talks about the seizure.

www.foxbusiness.com...