Poker Boycott?
This guy and This guy have both posted about an Online Poker Boycott. I'm not sure how I feel about the idea. It would be great if we could send a message to the poker rooms that they need to do some more work standing up for the players in the US, but I just don't think poker players are that organized.
Michael Craig noted in his book that while many poker players don't consider what they do "gambling" per se, poker players are almost always taken from the pool of gamblers, in other words poker players are a subset of gamblers. Basically we are all degenerates. We don't just play poker because we want to. Somewhere in us there is a NEED to play. Why there is a need is different for every player, usually a combination of the need for action, stimulation or the lure of easy money. It might be a very subtle need, but you can ask just about any poker player who hasn't played in a few days if he feels the occasional tug towards the online felt. Most of us will say yes.
But I might have to boycott poker involuntarily. With the untimely freeze of Neteller, I have a bunch of money trapped in there. There are other ways to get money into your poker accounts, like Prepaid Credit Cards or Credit Cards via ePassport, but there are more fees involved and withdrawls are much more of an ordeal, if possible at all.
It's kind of ironic that I recently advocated withdrawing your money from poker sites and not keeping it online because it wasn't safe there. Now that scheme is out the window as depositing and withdrawing are MAJOR hassles.
I have some small amounts of monies on a few poker sites, but not enough to warrant a big "cash out and quit" event, but not so little that you can just play a couple of MTTs and go for the big score or blow it. I'm not sure what I will do with it. I've used some of it to stake another player, but that doesn't solve my problem. If he wins, he'll just transfer my half of it to me and I'll be in the same boat.
I think it's the whole demotivational factor of not being able to easily cash out. If I'm just winning money that lets me play more and there's no light at the end of the tunnel of a big cash out for a trip to vegas or a wasteful purchase, I have trouble getting excited about playing.
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1 comment:
You nailed it. Exactly. As much as everybody's done a fantastic job of getting the PPA as far along as it is, I agree that the poker community (not just the players, but the sites as well) is not as cohesive and organized as it needs to be. And that's a big part of what Falstaff was saying (haven't read Bill's post yet).
But I am in the same spot as you, having small amounts at a couple of different sites, and not being able to do much with them. I looked at ePassporte, but I'm still not sold on it, especially with all the transaction fees. Whoever can step up with an Instacash-type interface, and isn't stupid enough to set foot on US soil, is going to be a hero. In any respect, it should be interesting...
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