Who will be next?

First of all a little introduction: I am 26yo from Germany, I have been playing poker for roughly 5 years and got into the poker scene when I won a package on a European based site and also cashed in my two live events. Afterwards I worked as freelancer for a poker site to design promotions and do translations, until I basically took over the community management for a Canadian poker forum. In general, you can say that I know the business from pretty much all sides and understand the pros and cons.

Surely the development on the “Black Friday” came to all as a shock, but it was not totally surprising, because if you see the traffic and all the US players on the sites, you always kinda asked how the money actually got on and off the poker sites. It may also very well be an important step towards the regulation of online gambling in the United States, even though it does feel like a slap in the face right now.

Obviously I am worried as admin and player, because so far we don’t know the full extent of the whole story yet and if they also have evidence to pursue other poker sites and networks as well that currently still allow players from the US. The first panic was pretty big and all you could do is tell them to wait, because they can only make it worse right now. 

The biggest problem I see in the current development is the effect on new players, because they are discouraged from playing poker when they see the news. They are scared and similar to the existing players have no idea what would actually happen with their funds. This insecurity is not good for the business in general, even though the US government might not be able to freeze all bank accounts. 

Also, the timing is kinda remarkable since just recently the law about legalizing online gambling passed in DC and it does now open the door for the government to take a step into this business, because they simply removed the biggest “threat” for them. Of course this is no justification for the money laundering and this will have to be taken care of, yet they are really fortunate … or was it just well planned?

The same tendency can also be seen at Europe as well, even though the ban of online gambling would be against the EU law, some countries still go ahead such as France where poker sites can only operate with a specific gambling license … of course just available for a certain fee. There have been similar ideas going around at Germany in the past as well and it remained as grey area, but they have yet started another attempt.

Three years ago they wanted to ban online gambling and approached the 25 biggest internet providers to block the domains, but have not been successful. The so called “Glücksspielstaatsvertrag” is similar to the UIGEA in the US and they want to enforce another and stricter version, but all 16 states will have to agree to it, otherwise it will not go into effect.  

Lately I heard that Germany was the 2^nd biggest online poker market and quite a few poker sites started advertising on TV, there are still weird restrictions to get the permission for live events and thus most go to Austria instead to host the events there. But what will actually happen when this new version will be enforced? It will pretty much take the same direction as the development in France.

Poker is no crime!  I understand that they are not necessarily after the players, but they make it next to impossible to still play, because you can barely get funds on or off the poker sites. And why does all that happen? Sure, the money laundering has to be investigated ... but it is also a fact that the governments currently don't get any piece of the cake either and that seems to be enough reason if you take a closer look. It is not the first time that this happens, just look at all the "dictators" and the oil - a very similar story.

So the big question now is: Who will be next? And is my money still safe on the poker sites? Of course they all assure that the funds are safe … but with the recent actions in the United States, we don’t even know yet if they have more sites and networks on their black list. Fingers crossed, because we can only win this fight together … because all over the world we share the same passion for this difficult card game.