To most people, Black Friday refers to the day after Thanksgiving. Stores open early and consumers flock in droves in hopes of scoring the best bargains for their early Christmas shopping. It has taken on a more manic behavior with each passing year, with no end in sight. I have yet to participate in these "festivities."
To poker players, Black Friday means something else entirely. It refers to April 15th, 2011... the day the sky fell in. It was an average Friday afternoon at work for me when I got an IM link from a friend with the words, "Uh oh" I clicked on the link and my jaw dropped. A nightmare scenario was playing out on the screen in front of me. I learned that the US Department of Justice had seized the domain names for the three most popular US poker sites, including Full Tilt, the one I played on. Basically the seizure alleged that the sites acted illegally by engaging in bank fraud and money laundering to transfer money to and from their customers. This despite the fact that the sites were licensed and regulated in the countries they operated in. It was a bullying tactic.. and it was successful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Scheinberg
Just one week prior, I had requested a $1500 withdrawal from my account for my impending honeymoon. My wife I were to be married on April 23rd and were headed to Hawaii two days later. I had received an email from Full Tilt's administration department that my payment was held up, and now I understood why. It turned out that they never segregated their funds so did not have the capital on hand to process withdrawal transactions. It was an incredibly awful transgression, a serious lack of good faith and judgement, and it now affected $600 million of player funds. And while the rest of the world was paid back in a timely manner, US customers were treated differently. Hoops, hurdles, deadlines and promises... finally after a 3rd party administrator took over the proceedings and consulted with the DOJ at an agonizingly slow place, people started to get their money back. I did as well.. all $2700 in my account. Four years later.
But online poker was never the same. My bread and butter for bankroll building was no more. The government had now determined what you could and couldn't do in the privacy of your own home. "Land of the Free" was all a facade. Thousands of professional players moved to Canada, Mexico and other countries in order to play the game they love unencumbered. Millions more, like me, didn't have that road to travel down. So we were left wondering why a county that advertises a chance at the American Dream is the one place that prevents it.
Hopefully things will be better down the road. Legislation and regulation on a state level is moving along, albeit slowly. The optimists believe that in a few years, all the big sites will be back in most of the 50 states. The pessimists think banging your head into a wall is going to be a common practice for releasing frustrations as this moves sideways instead of forward. The reality right now is that while a few sites are open for business to US customers, there isn't nearly enough traffic to be exceedingly profitable. Until regulations occurs in most of the states, frustratingly, the landscape will remain the same. Five years ago, we were well fed with sumptuous meals planned out for days and days.
Now we are all left fighting for scraps.
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