One of the primary concerns on and after Black Friday (April 15, 2011) was the ability or lack thereof to withdraw funds from the online poker websites that were forced to abruptly leave the United States and abandon American players. Whether players had hundreds of thousands of dollars or a few hundred in their respective accounts, that money mattered to them, and it was their rightfully earned income. But how were they to cash out when bank accounts and websites were seized by the Department of Justice?
 
The online websites—PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, UB/Absolute—had no quick or easy answers, but PokerStars and Full Tilt seemed to step immediately to the plate and work out an agreement with the Department of Justice to facilitate players’ payments. The agreement specifically pertained to the use of .com websites by the companies and noted that the agreement would not prohibit the companies from issuing refunds to players.
 

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) was founded in 2005 to promote poker and protect the right to play it in all forms. Its official mission as stated is, “to establish favorable laws that provide poker players with a secure, safe and regulated place to play.” The membership-based nonprofit advocacy group has spent its time and efforts fighting at the state and federal level against laws that inhibit or prohibit live and online poker, and lobbied on behalf of regulatory laws and proposals.

Arranged marriages often fail because the couple agrees to the pact to please others. There are ulterior motives, and the individuals often know little about each other before the marriage. Thus was the short-lived story of online poker partnerships with Vegas casino conglomerates.

Did you miss it? Did you find yourself reading this column and wondering when the UB scandal would resurface? No matter your answer, the UB scandal is back in the news, and it appears far from settled.

Travis Makar was investigated by Wicked Chops Poker, and a 2010 exposé revealed Makar to be linked to the UB scandal. His mother was married to Charles “Woody” Moore, a friend of Russ Hamilton. She, along with Makar and his wife, were linked to super-user accounts. Makar was said to have sold the Hamiltons their Las Vegas home in 2006, and owned a computer company that could have been a front for funneling money. Hamilton was said to have called Makar the mastermind of the scandal, and Barry Greenstein claimed Makar was Hamilton’s “assistant” and “right-hand man.” Again, much of this revolves around allegations.

The year 2010 was a roller coaster for those in favor of regulating the online poker industry. Several states came close to passing intrastate legislation, but much of the focus was on the federal level, as Rep. Barney Frank successfully pushed his online gaming bill through the House Financial Services Committee and Sen. Harry Reid considered rushing an online poker bill through the Senate during the end-of-year lame duck session. Both major federal efforts failed to produce results, though, and the year ended with a collective sigh from many in the poker community.

Few people knew what Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) had in the works, but many in the poker industry, specifically the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), urged poker players to vote for Reid in the November midterm election. They did, as did a majority of Nevada voters, and Reid was reelected. Weeks later, it was announced by various mainstream media outlets that Reid was prepared to introduce an internet poker legislation bill during the lame duck session of Congress with the hope of passing it before the holiday recess.

The fight for online poker in Washington State has been a rough one. And after years of fighting a 2006 law that made the game a felony, Washington’s State Supreme Court upheld the law in a September 2010 ruling. With that, the two biggest online poker websites that still welcome US customers made a move that was somewhat unprecedented in its online poker history; they officially blocked residents of Washington from accessing real-money games on their sites.
 

Online gaming regulation has been the subject of many a discussion through the past few years, especially since the passage of the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), which prohibited banks from transferring funds to and from online gaming websites. Several members of Congress have introduced legislation to reverse the UIGEA and regulate online gaming, but to no avail.
 

Security problems at online poker websites are typically found and addressed internally, and the poker world at large isn’t privy to instances in which they are forced to upgrade and close loopholes. But when the sites themselves aren’t the first to find these security glitches, it presents a new set of concerns. UB Poker, as UltimateBet is now called, is no stranger to that situation.

There has been much talk of bots in the online poker industry over the years, as the technology to create computerized programs that can beat the odds is technically possible. And it is a reality too, as artificial intelligence programs at various universities have developed poker-playing bots and pitted them against human players for experimental purposes, as well as for entertainment.