What the sites plan to do about the S.627

[jek187]

I have taken the liberty of emailing the following sites to see what they have planned to deal w/S.627. The sites are:
Party
Paradise
UB
Stars
ICP
Pacific
Golden Palace
Planet
True
ThePokerClub
WSex
ACR

Here is the email I wrote:
Dear Poker Site,

As a professional online poker player, I am very concerned about the Senate bill S.627 or the "Unlawful Internet Gambling/Funding Prohibition Act." Should this bill pass, does your site, or the industry in general, have any backup plans in place to avoid losing a large portion of American customers? If so, can you divulge what they are? Thank you for your time,

jek's name (jek's screen name)

I've had 3 responses so far, which I'll post in a seperate post.

[arod4276]

Jek, thanks for taking the time to do this. I am very interested to see the replies you got. Please post them for our perusal. Thanks,

arod

[jek187]

Paradise response: 10 minutes:
Hello jek,

We're in the same boat as you in that we don't want to see this bill passing, but it looks to be progressing. Over the next few months I'm sure more will develop in this area, but for the time being we are still pressing ahead as per normal.

Best Regards,

Craig
Paradise Poker Support

Well, how boring, but it was a prompt seemingly knowledgeable response.


Pacific Response: 13 minutes

Dear jek,

Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.

I have forwarded your message to the relevant department, they will look
into this matter closely.

They will contact you as soon as possible.

If you require further assistance in this or any other matter please
feel free to contact us. We are here for you 24 hours a day, everyday.

Kind Regards,
Lydia
Member Support Representative


I hope the "thank you for bringing this to our attention" line is just a standard response from Pacific. Although it wouldn't surprise me if Pacific support really wasn't aware of this. We shall see what their follow-up response is like.

Jacob from Poker Stars responded in an astounding 2 minutes. Although all he simply had to say was:
Hello jek,

I will forward your question to management.

Regards,

Jacob
PokerStars Support Team
I look forward to the "real" Stars response.

Planet Response (just in while I'm typing this): 42 minutes
[b]Hello jek

Reference Account #XXXXXX

Thank you for your comments and concerns. We have forwarded your e-mail to management. Please expect a reply within 24 hours.

Deborah W
Planet Poker Customer Support

Email
support@planetpoker.com

Phone
US & Canada: 1-866-50-POKER (1-866-507-6537)
International: 1-678-460-0111
9:00 AM to 11:00 PM Eastern Time

[jek187]

Update from Jacob:

Hello jek,

Just to update you, I have forwarded your message to management and we are
discussing various possible things we may try in reaction to this. Rest
assured, we do realize the seriousness and consequences of this possible
legislation. Once we have studied the exact wording and implications of the
legislation, we will have a better idea of how to react.

Management should be in touch with you in the next couple of days with a
more detailed answer.

Regards,

Jacob
PokerStars Support Team


Such a stark contrast between each of the site's support teams. Of course we haven't seen the real response, but I personally think Stars edges out Para if for no other reason than I've actually seen personality from some Stars personel. Anyways, enough OT rambling.

[yct]

imho, stars has the sharpest and the best support staff. they know their stuff and get things done. they should get the credit that they deserved.

[jek187]

This is a response from Lee Jones that came in this morning via PM.



Hi -
You may be aware that I'm working for PokerStars right now. We are working on a reply to you. I want to make sure that we tell you everything we know, but without saying anything that could be construed as legal advice.

I think you've done everybody a wonderful service by contacting all the sites with your question; I want PokerStars to give you the best response yet. Give us a day or two to come up with the most intelligent answer we can.

Thanks, Lee


While I'm certainly getting very excited to see this response, I can be patient on this. I *know* Stars will give us a response, and the periodic updates that they haven't forgotten us are nice.

[Hung]

This is a response from Lee Jones that came in this morning via PM.

You see that the sites are waiting for each other. Everyone wants to say something, but they wait and see what happens to the other responses. Stars has done well. They sit back and watch and now they're gonne steal the show.
Yesterday I thought about this. What am I going to do if there's no online poker anymore? I could still play, but there're no fish anymore.
It's gonna be so weird.

[jek187]

Dear JEK187:

Thank you so much for contacting PokerStars regarding the Unlawful
Internet Gambling/Funding Prohibition Act (S.627). We are concerned about
this too, and are reviewing the potential implications of the Act should
it pass.

Before I go further, I should note that I'm not an attorney and this is
definitely not legal advice. Our legal counsel is reviewing S.627 as
well, and that, of course, will influence how we respond.

First, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. This kind of legislation
has come up many times before, and has never been agreed to and signed.
Needless to say, we hope that that trend will continue. We encourage you
(and all of your online poker playing friends) to contact your Congressmen
and Senators. Tell them that you don't think it's any business of theirs
how you spend your recreational time (or pursue your living). You're not
laundering funds for terrorists; you're playing poker. You would be
astonished at the power of a well-written and polite letter to an elected
official, and I hope you will write such letters. When you write your
letter, you might remind your representative that PokerStars donated
$25,000 to St. Jude Children's Hospital in Memphis in celebration of
Chris Moneymaker's World Series of Poker win. We are part of the community
and give back to it.

There is also a small, but finite, possibility that with proper lobbying,
we can get poker excluded from this bill. Other states (such as
California) have excluded poker from gambling bills because poker contains
a strong element of skill (as you well know). We would love to see such
an exemption in whatever passes the U.S. Senate.

That said, should S.627 pass, I believe there will still be ways to
legally transfer funds between you and PokerStars. You will just have to
wait and see what they turn out to be.

Be assured that we are taking this matter seriously. As we learn more
about S.627 and its implications, we will pass that information on to our
customers.

Also be assured that we are financially prepared for any contingencies
should S.627 pass. Your player funds are safe. We keep enough funds in a
liquid and a completely segregated account (that is not used for
operating expenses) to cover all players deposits at any time.

Finally, we are also working with other online poker sites to see what
we can do as an industry to keep online poker legal everywhere.

I want to thank you again for contacting us, and hope you'll continue to
do so any time you wish. And, of course, thank you for playing at
PokerStars.

Best regards,
Lee Jones


I think this is an excellent response and worth the wait. I'll leave it to others to comment further.

[yct]

very professional response. you can see at least they put a lot of thoughts before answering your question.

i guess i'll do their 20% bonus now after reading their excellent response. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[jek187]

Dear jek,

Thank you for contacting us.

Your question was brought to my attention, and I am happy to assist as
good as I can.

To my knowledge this bill refers to US payment methods only, which would
be restricted for transactions with gaming related industries, in case
the bill passes of course.

I can assure you that this is not related to the legality of our
business, and I also want to point out, that we are licensed in
Gibraltar (South of Spain).

In any case we are always looking into offering alternative payment
methods for our members around the world, and as you might know, many of
the methods available in the US are actually based in Canada.

Also, if I was a US citizen I would contact my senator directly, and
definitely not vote for this bill to pass.

I hope I was able to address your concerns.

If you require further assistance in this or any other matter please
feel free to contact us. We are here for you 24 hours a day, everyday.

Sincerely,
Benjamin
Manager
Member Support Department


While I thank them for the geography lesson (but where is Spain? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]), and the helpful hint to contact my senator, there is precious little in this response. They're "always looking into offering alternative payment methods." I think this is another site that can be chalked up to not being too concerned.