First guilty plea in US online poker case

From Yahoo:

First guilty plea in US online poker case

The American president of a Costa Rica-based company is facing up to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to illegally processing payments for Internet poker firms.
Bradley Franzen, 41, pleaded guilty in a Manhattan court to bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling offenses...

Well, it looks like the fascist takeover of a game of skill that millions of people enjoy is proceeding as planned.

For anyone that is late to the party, the government shut down the 3 main poker sites in the US and issued warrants, arrested people, and seized untold amounts of players money.

Apparently these people are going to go down without a fight either. This isn't somebody associated with one of the sites, however; this guy was, well, laundering money for them under false pretenses. But the point is that this is all ridiculous because a game of skill should not be any of the governments business. If they want to regulate it, fine, great, I would be happy to be shown some proof of legitimacy while they are at it so I feel safe playing. But what they are doing is heavy-handed and unnecessarily fascist and it must stop.

reply to post by HenryPatrick


I have been playing pokerstars, ultimatebet and fulltilt for the past three years and have come to the realisation that theres too many bad beats. More than live hands. Therefore coming to the conclusion its a scam.

I'm never gonna see those 15 dollars again...
Our government has no right to ban online gambling. Seriously, what's their justification of the ban? How is it remotely constitutional?

reply to post by HenryPatrick

I'm lucky i had my big pay out a week before they shut down pokerstars. I've been playing poker for a very long time. And aldough i agree with some form of regulation, I don't agree with the shameless money grabbing stunt the USA is pulling now.

Poker is a game of skill, if it was a game of chance I wouldn't pay out a profit every month.

Glad I'm in Europe, greedy bastards.

OnlyLove

reply to post by lestweforget


The reason you experience more bad beats online is simply because you play a greater volume of hands. Live play you can only play about 30 hands per hour at an average table. Online you can play up to 75-300 depending on the number of tables you choose to play. It only feels like more bad beats because you play more hands.

reply to post by Isildur1


Its a game of skill and luck when playing live.

Online is a whole different ballgame.

There are bad beats and then there are programed bad beats, which is what happens at poker sites, it is programed so that no one person can have a wining streak as per say, the program sees you win a big hand and then it will give you a good hand , say 3 8s or some such and gives the other player 3 9s etc. So unless you are aware that its the other players turn to win a big hand you will put in a ton of chips on that said hand. The program goes against you until most of the other players have won back some chips unless you were able to bluff them and win a hand that you were not supposed to win.

I used to play alot a few years ago , I tested this by playing every hand for 10 to 20 hands after I won a big pot no matter what cards I got. Very rarely I would win any hands after that and I would get lots of hands that were good hands but would always come in second.

How can anyone seriously say that a programed computer game cant be or is not programed to keep as many players playing as possible, and the only way to do that is too even out the playing field.....

I feel like there is a good chance it could be rigged as well. I am a consistent winning player, but I always feel like I am trying to beat a rigged game. Much of my gameplay revolves around knowing the tendencies of the RNG (random number generator), and laying down big hands is imperative on a regular basis. Of course, at the low levels there are so many donkeys that it is still possible to win, even when AA loses twenty times in a row.

Meanwhile the "approved" (read: the ones who paid the people in power) are setting up their own games. This one guy did a pretty bad mistake thought. If other poker site owners now see this they might be inclined to plea guilty as well. They should instead crush this in court which I'm fairly sure they could manage just fine with a proper team of lawyers.

reply to post by Isildur1

Thanks for your attempted help but your simply pointing out the obvious. I have a solid game, understanding the outs=percentages tells you on average how many times you should get beat by that percentage every one hundred games.
While i agree the speed of the game can influence your judgement in such matters, i have noticed a distinctive difference. It got to the point where i started to make note of the percentage each time i was out drawn and compared that to how many games i had played.
Simply too many low percentage cards on the river, i only play live games now but i do miss the fast game.
Thanks anyway.