This is right in my wheelhouse — getting to act holier than thou without any required certification.  Well, I’ve got my Alderney GC license but you know what those are worth.

No need for me to recap or pontificate.  Its all been done.  We won’t stop elaborating but it really is done.

Frost’s The Road not Taken ends:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I –
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

It isn’t about Frost; it is about a friend that went to war.  I don’t know that outcome. I did channel surf a bit of PBS during commercials last night that talked about a platoon home from Iraq and the mayhem that followed them home.  A shrink told one of the guys, “You aren’t insane.  You are having sane responses to the insane situation you were in.”

People get into situations.  They may or may not be of their making and may or may not end up sane.  They’re very definitive moments.   We don’t see the real outcome until we can look back.   For some, what seemed sane moments before can be destructive with something as he simple as an amendment to a complaint. Then is when the sanity test occurs and becomes ongoing.

There are a lot of losers and the list will always grow.  Most of us are lucky; it isn’t as bad as it could have been.  Others receive the knowledge that greed is not always good but can be life changing and they will never walk or be the same.  Sad business.

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The LA Times has new news.  It says that the sale of Full Tilt has been accomplished and reports that the 150M in U.S. player accounts are a bit better off.   A consortium of European investors — not Binion — is prepared to take a majority interest in the trouble site.

Against the 150M that FT cannot cover is an overhanging portion of the 3B shared by the three sites listed in the government’s case.  Of course, that is what is sought.  How successful that will be is down the road.  That’s the investor’s gamble.  In the present situation, 150M seems chump change.   So, we chumps look like we might get our change.  And, the grinders and high rollers will be better able to make next months mortgage payments.

ADDENDUM:

There has been a market in the money held in FT accounts with folks offering cents on the dollar.  Not sure how many have made the trade.  But, that looks to be the next scandal.   If FT doesn’t re-enable  player to player transfers, it will compound the transfer problem.  And, some of the amounts will tempt the gentleman’s side of such agreements. Should make for some interesting discussions on 2×2.

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1. Slowing to the speed of light

Here is a quote from the article:

From late 2009 through mid-2011, ICE HSI ran an undercover operation in which it operated a fake online payment processing company in order to catch online gambling companies transmitting money to and from the United States.  The ICE-run payment processor, named Linwood Payment Solutions, processed over 300,000 transactions totaling over $33 million between December 2009 and January 2011, all for the two companies named in the indictment.

Don’t most site require a minimum withdrawal of $100?  If we go with that and do the math, the withdrawals were $110 per transaction.  Deduct the minimum and that 3-mil distributed among the 300,000.  That won’t account for that many “click your mouse and lose your house” players.  Looks like player’s like you and me were the norm.

And, I always thought money laundering involved big drug dealers or assorted guys with bent noses and funny nicknames.  Silly me!

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2. He said; She said
3. UB dooby doo

The PPA seemed like an amateur act from the start.  We all ‘joined’ for free and got a pat on the back freeroll from Full Tilt for doing so.  That’s hardly the way to build a viable organization.  Politicians aren’t smart but they are told the importance of the constituency  that might affect them.  In this case, they saw smoke and mirrors and that’s what it was.

The PPA was the product of the fear that the online sites had with the UIGEA.  To try to counter it, they decided they should lobby and they threw some money at it to make it a quasi-legitimate entity.  Obviously, it didn’t work.  They brought on board a second rate Senator with a tainted history. Al D’Amato.  The senate normally takes care of its own.  That assumes they played the game well.  Al didn’t.  So, he was a marginalized force.  He didn’t have any clout.  Wikipedia sites his involvement with the PPA and their best citation of his efforts was appearing on Howard Stern.

I’ve no idea what he got from the funds the sites posted.   Anything over a buck-ten was wasted.   The board included Howard and Jesus — well, it was their money in large part.   They didn’t realize that when they sat down at that board table with the pro they didn’t recognize the fish.  Surprise.  Surprise.

The PPA is now only a footnote to the UIGEA.  It was never a factor.  The big boys of online gaming weren’t the pros at the table and the results are as obvious as it gets.  They were the drunken tourists.

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I can’t say Calvin was poker’s original bad boy.  Bad boys in poker has been a cast of thousands back to the days it was spelled with a Q.  But, he did grab attention announcing his billionaire status and lifestyle to be among the poker’s first to get Federal Attorney attention.  That brought with it profiles in the slick paper press. That is our Calvin version– the self-promoting nouveau riche boy that never grew up.

One of the beefs about his poker site has always been the software.  Clunky doesn’t do clunky justice.  So, you may or may not love his professionally maintained, rococo site called, modestly, calvinayres.com.

But, he does chime in to give his version of the winners and loser in the poker scene.  I’m sure he’ll make your day just like he promised in the old days when Bodogers got to share the Calvin lifestyle; even if it was via crappy software.

Calvin does Black Friday.

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I started blogging with Linda about the time the UIGEA hit.  Talk about timing.  It is in that time frame that an ironworker turned Grand Chief bought Ultimate Bet.  Shortly after the scandal was reviled.  I expressed doubt about Joe Norton being the actual owner.

Five years later, with less than any hope of getting their investments back, a group of investors in the Tampa area are ratting on the rats.  There has been a lot of conjecture.  There has been plenty of gnashing of teeth.  None of that, including Halley’s yeoman work, has really gotten beyond the conjecture we’ve all blogged.

Well, put that behind thee.  The Saint Petersburg Times sat down with people that had their last thought of recovering their investment crushed.  That’s the problem with screwing investors — they can disclose a lot of hidden info.

Here’s the article.

Bill Rini mentioned it in his blog,  Halley’s hinted at it.  The Feds have indited.  The indictment saw the last hope leave the investors and the article resulted.  It is more info than has ever come close to validation.  It the money trail that was probably already in the Fed’s hands.  One of the more interesting parts of the indictment were the names associated with AP/UB.  It was the names from the founders of the operation.

You and I might be gape jawed in amazement at what’s finally coming out.  It has to be old news with the government attorneys.  I’m sure their auditors were perched around the known accounts to see where it might go when the indictments surfaced.  It appear there will be a lot of  “Oh, Shit!” moments ahead for those four fraternity brothers.  It is looking like the only secret they can keep is the handshake.

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I guess the interesting thing is the site ecology with the attack on money flow.  That cheap little Stud8 tourney has a definite ecology in funding.  There are any number of players who are almost always first outs.  A less used tell are the ones that put down a fanciful city. (UB promotes home towns in their stats.)  I you are from “Bumpuck” or “Gotham City” you aren’t getting check from UB.   The money likely flows in the opposite direction.

The tournament wasn’t huge.  A big turnout would have been 50 runners.   Yesterday, it played with 5.  That number was on a constant decline since puce magenta black Friday.

I had a Tennessee payment processor super nice guy help me fund there.  At the time, nothing of mine worked and he went out of his way to help me get a hundred in my account there.   Dumb luck also allows me to report that I took a hundred off the site a few weeks back.  Another one that I tried on Black Friday as an experiment languishes.  So, I can give a transfer either from a paypal transaction or making you my 60:40 horse.   I’d just cancel that withdrawal that might not happen anyway.

But the thing is that the anguish that hit when the UIGEA hit where all the fish would bleed out seems to be finally happening on UB.  Everybody is posting about missing their poker jones.  I’d bet a good half of them have a UB account that they could try to reactivate.  But, the ecology seems toxic.  I am wonder if those of you that are still playing on a facing site are seeing the same thing.

ADDENDUM:

I have been watching the Decorah Eagles.  No that isn’t a bush team in the Southern bus league.  It is a nest of real eagles with 3 chicks.  I should have done it a few weeks ago when they’d just hatched.  They have gone from white to grey furballs.  Anyway, you can give them the occasional gander here.  You can listen to them chirp or watch the parents feed them if you watch for a bit.

Grubby’s Back

In case you haven’t watched for him, he is back with his tales of the seamy side of Las Vegas.  Something there seems redundant — or is that a rare double negative oxymoron? 

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It is a decent read.  Wouldn’t call it great but certainly decent.

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2. Reason

Well, I have followed the Queen of Hearts BWoP and The Made Hatter CRAAKKERS explanation of all things legal.  Talk about being over educated. Lincoln read for the law by reading a few books from behind a store counter and a bit of OJT.  Many members of the earlier courts hadn’t even done that.   But, after reading the dead Greeks, they all found their way to English common law.   The Dutch managed to span the world with the East India Company using contract law.  Then along came the Kingsfield crowd and Lewis Carrol.  This brought us to the current condition and the following brief:
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

I have read the mussing of our crack legal team and want to put their blogs up to a mirror to see if they then make sense.

Not to toot my own horn but I am a legal expert qualified for the bar — well, Mr. Lincoln’s bar.   I had B101 and B102 — Business law.  That’s about what he had. I remember the one in summer school by a recent attorney. He had a passion for it and it still resonates 50 years later.  This was mostly contract law with the Business code and his genuflecting to the English Common flavor.  In all his overriding theme was the test of time and change at your peril.

Now Grange regales us with quote from the law.  One today comes compliments of the 7th circuit.  If you read him, it starts to equate to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus etc.  I guess I should be grateful that he isn’t quoting the 5th (circuit, amendment, or libation — take your pick) which  generally lists the 5th circuit in legal books as the Sunday Funnies.

The thing makes me harken back to the passion and common sense I encountered in that dry business law class.   We have gone from decades of change at your peril to activist courts and activist legislation.  In no small part that was brought on by the complexities that our current lives encounter.   Activism is the home of unintended consequences.  It allows SDNY to act like Grange’s other love — the Spanish Inquisition.

Let’s reduce it to the basics.   The online poker rooms are not good people.  They have broken laws that have existed for centuries. They deserve a punishment.  They should be sued at tort and probably pay triple damage for the egregiousness of their actions.  There might even be enough fraud to convict them and sentence them to prison.

But, that’s my feeling for using the tools Mr. Lincoln had.   Today, we have RICO and the broad ruling of laundering that Grange cites.   Twenty-five years?   Enough billions to make even a Senator take note?

Grange states, “Thus, if the defendant were guilty of bank fraud, he also was guilty of money laundering based on the same set of financial transactions.“   That is getting draconian.   There are a whole set of remedies used for eons to address this.  RICO and whatever adds in the kitchen sink.

If they took Howard and Jesus’s homes and bank accounts and gave them a year and a day,  I see possible grounds.  Common law support it.   That is avoiding getting into the UIGEA which drove them toward such actions.

What is damning to us all is that if these were drug dealers or a group we hold in greater disdain, many would think it ‘fair’ and just.  That how the activist courts and legislators have managed all this

Shame on us all!

ADDENDUM:

I have a good friend; father of 3 boys; bad marriage that he stuck through until the boys left home.  He’s had his ups and downs.   A good business morphed in the economy to working a so-so job.  Never complained.   One day the son with serious problems signed a complaint.  The cops showed up and arrested him.  Fortunately, he had connected friends and with a legal bill that smarted he made it finally go away.  If he didn’t have friends that went behind the scenes it could have been worse.  He’ might be in the “Registry of Sex Offenders” and viewable on line.

He’s a better man than I am.   He put himself further in jeopardy and managed to reconcile with the trouble child and help him.  That took guts and love.   But, it should scare the hell out of the rest of us over where things can end up.

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The law in my era was less sophisticated.  We had a town marshal named Nate Brown that was a dead ringer for Barney Fife.  His biggest job was making sure the town drunks got home so they could go to work  in the morning and support their family.  Money laundering happened when people forget their pocket change was left in their pants.

Law enforcement has morphed.  The process of returning money to people with a legal claim on said money can be turned into a “crime of the century” kind of crime with abusive penalties. That is the real change — abusive penalties.

Due process, habeas corpus and all those bills of right are supposed to make it hard for government to be abusive.  So, how are they getting away with it?  It is your fault!  Ok, mine too.   We look at thing like RICO, 3-strikes, and money laundering and that the thing is there to protect us.  Well, everything comes with a price and the price here is a bit of freedom.  Each little reasonable step that tilts the field is our loss as much as it is some drug dealers.

On Cops you can watch them pull some druggy over for maybe or maybe not a bit more than that particular state decides is trafficking.  And what does the cop say to the loser that is holding a job and has a family that will be affected most of all?  “We own your car.  RICO allows us to take it and sell it.”  And some court will look at it all and say, “Yes, he is a repeat offender; your work ride is ours.”

Can’t fault 3-striker, right?  Get “those criminals” off the street.  Then you hear the story of the guy who is a little slow getting sent away for life for a series of stupid, little crimes.  The cops and courts used it to get him out of their hair.

The founders were pretty sure they stopped illegal search and seizure and would enforce due process.  The British Lobsterbacks could break into their homes without even a pretext.  So, they really dotted the eyes when it came to right that couldn’t be denied.  They thought they nailed it.  So, this money laundering of legitimate funds we sent in with the expectation they would return our funds to us on request?  Is that evil?  According to the SDNY, it is.

If you think this attack is on PokerStars, Full Tilt, Excapsa or whatever they are calling themselves today, grow up!  You are looking at the double speak that government and courts have available to affect our lives.  And that happens every day in smaller ways that we grin and bear — put on our seat belt — eat our less tasty french fry — see our kids eating a crappy but supposed healthier, less fattening school lunch — and thank you sir may I have another.

Who is at fault in all this?   Mirror available on request.

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Under RICO, a person who is a member of an enterprise that has committed any two of 35 crimes—27 federal crimes and 8 state crimes—within a 10-year period can be charged with racketeering. Those found guilty of racketeering can be fined up to $25,000 and sentenced to 20 years in prison per racketeering count. In addition, the racketeer must forfeit all ill-gotten gains and interest in any business gained through a pattern of “racketeering activity.”

“A Federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a man who was barred from the New London police force because he scored too high on an intelligence test. Judge Dorsey ruled that Mr. Jordan was not denied equal protection because the city of New London applied the same standard to everyone: anyone who scored too high was rejected.”

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