Let’s consider for a moment the effect that “poker prohibition” has had thus far. The goal of the UIGEA and the US Department of Justice was to cut off the flow of money to gambling sites, and hopefully bully the US facing sites into closing their doors to US customers. Let’s grade them.
1. Cut off money to online poker sites. Total failure. Just a few days ago I was able to create an Epassporte account, deposit to it with my bank issued Visa Debit card, and have money on Absolute Poker within about 15 minutes after starting the entire process.
2. Bully US facing poker sites into closing their doors to US players. I’d have to give them a “D” here for below average. They got Party Poker to close and a handful of smaller sites. The fact that Poker Stars, Full Tilt, Absolute, Ultimate Bet, Bodog and others remain open to US players, is concrete evidence that legal issues facing online poker have not had the desired effect.
So what has the ban accomplished?
1. They made it hard for us to get our winnings in our pockets. You can’t pay taxes on my if you can’t get them to your bank.
2 They caused the most respected and reliable e-wallet, Neteller, to shut down it’s US operations, thereby giving room for scam operations to pop up. Wonderful.
The vast majority of US citizens believe that online poker should not be banned. I guess government by the people and for the people is an outdated slogan. If you’re a citizen here and want to get your online poker fix, there are still plenty of Poker Sites that accept US players and Casino Sites that accept US players. As noted above, if you’re looking for a method to get money to a poker site, Epassporte looks to be a good option at least for funding your account. Withdrawal times are a bit slow, but I suspect if they continue to work with the USA customers, this e-wallet will become much more efficient.
