Goodbye to being a poker affiliate...

I am pretty sure the charges won't stick. FTP is too big of a brand to go like this. Or atleast I hope so.

BTW anyone here actively promoting FTP?

EDIT :-

Just visited the FTP site only to find out that the domain has been seized by the FBI.

Actually, there was an existing law in place prohibiting online casinos from taking any money from US players. They found some kind of loophole around it that enabled them to continue taking money from US residents, and now the government's trying to drop the hammer on all of the large online casino sites that are doing this.

Thanks for the replay Chazz. There are about 5 or 6 companies out there offering training videos out there for a subscription fee of ~$30/mo. for access to their videos. These sites are now well established w/ many well known pros making videos for them.

There are also ebooks within the poker community that sell for anywhere from $500-$3000. These are written by top level pros and are geared towards high level play. I could write an ebook geared towards the public, but i would need help on how to market it. Is that something that i would set up a site around and market and sell directly?

It's sad to see people with this type of fearful and paranoid mentality making ignorant predictions like this - no wonder there are so many impressionable people out there who get their chains yanked by the Gurus and their words.

Some good reasons here on why it's so important to have a good sized, responsive list. If all else fails it's a way to weather the storm.

Actually, the Wire Act is from 1969, I believe. In 2006, they passed the Safe Port Act, which had the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) embedded into it.

James, you're absolutely right. The real issue with these particular online casinos is that they have a substantial US presence, and I'm sure that the authorities also discovered that they were somehow skirting around the rules and accepting money that originated from within the US. Once this occurs, the authorities are able to easily crack down on them.

Many of the online casino and poker affiliate programs are incredibly lucrative, but obviously they've been crippled considerably by the fact that you can't market to players in the US anymore.

Paul

:rolleyes:
And I wish you knew more about this topic than what you learned browsing Google for 2 minutes, but I guess we're both gonna be dissapointed.

The fact of the matter is, the VAST majority of ALL of these companies assets are located well outside not just US legal grounds, but the REACH of the US government. With millions being funnelled from US banks and lending houses to these companies, its inevitable that some of this money will remain in the US(and thus be subject to this seizure) but the companies themselves, and more importantly the INDUSTRY and medium will be completely fine.

Where there is a multi-million dollar industry with prospects begging for an outlet to spend their time and money, there will ALWAYS be companies finding a way to get it. These giant companies probably know a bit more than you do, so I'm not too worried.

Your sarcasm notwithstanding, you should know that there are REAL victims and IM ties to this case. In December, the FTC sued Jeremy Johnson, 10 corporations and 51 SHELL companies in a case that alleged a massive continuity billing scheme and a scam to extort customers into not filing chargebacks.

"Defendants have employed a variety of stratagems to continue and expand their scam, thereby causing unreimbursed consumer injury to mount to more than $275 million since 2006," the FTC charged in its complaint.

"They have also attempted to drive down their chargeback rates by threatening to report consumers who seek chargebacks to an Internet consumer blacklist they operate called 'BadCustomer.com' that will 'result in member merchants blocking [the consumer] from making future purchases online!' And they have attempted to counter the large number of complaints about their conduct by flooding the Internet with supposedly independent
positive articles and other web pages."

At least two of the defendants arrested Friday have ties to Johnson or companies referenced in the FTC complaint. One of them is a Utah banker whose small bank was ordered by the FDIC in November to stop doing business with the Johnson-related entities. The other is a purported business partner of Johnson in a payment-processing company that allegedly was among a group of companies "that obtained accounts at U. S. banks for the Poker Companies."

Friday's case is not merely a "poker case"; it is a bank-fraud and money-laundering case that alleges the operators created illicit conduits to keep an illegal scheme intact -- up to and including masking gambling payments "as payments to hundreds of non-existent online merchants purporting to sell merchandise such as jewelry and golf balls."

It also is worth noting that five U.S. banks failed Friday. One of them -- a small Georgia bank now in FDIC receivership -- once held funds linked to the alleged AdSurfDaily Ponzi scheme, which gathered $110 million after being peddled globally by folks who called themselves Internet Marketers.

There is a "big picture" here that, for whatever reason, many IMers refuse to see: No business -- brick-and-mortar or virtual -- can be confident of bright futures if the money-launderers continue to pollute banks with proceeds from illegal schemes. Florida, for example, is bleeding out into the Caribbean -- in no small measure because of online fraud schemes that have sucked away billions of dollars of wealth.

Patrick

Luke you are quite obnoxious. Per your request, here are the things you said that are wrong...

"I'm glad the FEDs thought it was a great plan to waste tax dollars on these investigations and seizures just to result in a temporary half-day annoyance for online poker players and companies"

Kelly was right, the feds dont issue an indictment like this without having their ducks in a row. This will be a long fight that has had immediate and severe consequence to not only the American market, but the industry as a whole.

"The sites are already back up, and I highly doubt much will come of this."

No, they're not. The sites are not allowing americans to play leaving players and affiliates scrambling. Also, hundreds of millions of dollars of players money is stuck in limbo, not knowing when or even if we'll ever get it back. I've accepted that my money is likely gone.

"...that doesn't mean that the DOJ can seize the company, legally fine them billions with just cause, and send everyone to jail etc like all of the panicked people in this thread seem to think."

They seem to think they can. This is exactly what will be fought in court.

"The fact of the matter is, the VAST majority of ALL of these companies assets are located well outside not just US legal grounds, but the REACH of the US government."

They just froze $30 billion of Libya's assets, i dont think they have a problem w/ a few poker companies. Also, interpol in the states is run by the department of justice. They have been contacted regarding this.

"These are not US-based sites or companies, and as such are not required to submit to US laws."

This is your opinion on the way things should be and has nothing to do w/ actual law or the way things work.


Now stop insulting people and acting like you know more than anyone else here.