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A passport may well not be enough to verify your target, but it will be sufficient to try out in the WSOP. (Image: EatLoveSavor.com)
This summer and you’re visiting from outside the United States, you’ll want to bring a second form of identification to prove your current address if you plan on playing in the World Series of Poker. Exactly why this is the case and essential it is that you have actually this 2nd form of ID has been the main topic of plenty of worry and confusion for players in the last couple of days.
The story started week that is last based on, of all things, a tweet through the WSOP’s official account. It just reported that non-US WSOP players would ‘want a second form of id besides passport to reg for occasions. Need ID proving your residency/current target.’
Panic Among International Players
That request immediately caught the attention of poker players around the global world, that has expected their passports become sufficient to have them to their desired tournaments. Players were especially upset at the timing associated with the announcement: numerous had already left their property countries to travel to Las Vegas, meaning there was effectively no real method to get a utility bill or any other kind of evidence that would have their property address on it.
‘It’s not the World Series of Poker who has placed this rule in place, this is certainly part of a law that is federal process the government of the United States has placed in place regarding money laundering,’ WSOP media manager Seth Palansky told iGaming.org in an interview. ‘All companies involved in big financial transactions received an e-mail about this last week saying that an attempt should be made to verify residency of international customers.’
That statement might currently have clued you directly into how the policy that is new therefore much confusion among poker players worldwide. As Palansky said, the policy that is new asks banking institutions, casinos and other financial institutions to attempt to confirm worldwide residencies, something Palansky clarified later in their statement.
‘It’s not planning to prevent anyone from playing or funds that are withdrawing’ Palansky stated. ‘ That’s without a doubt, but it may prevent them from playing online poker because that does call for a computer program bill to prove your residency.’
WSOP Clarifies Demand
That should have made it fairly clear that players weren’t going to be excluded from the earth’s biggest real time poker activities if they did not have a second form of ID. But the story spread rapidly, with many outlets initially reporting that the ID that is second was to play in the event.
Which in turn led WSOP executive director Ty Stewart to issue another clarification.
‘There is serious misinformation being shared,’ Stewart said in a statement to PokerNews. ‘International players are requested, maybe not required to bring a second kind of identification to validate their address. This will save time…and avoid dependence on follow-up paperwork. Of note, the request to validate an address is no various for domestic players than international players its simply that many US players have drivers licenses with an address while most passports and licenses that are international not. A domestic player showing a passport will similarly be asked to confirm a physical target.’
Equity Poker Network Pulls Out of Regulated US Markets
The Equity Poker Network is respecting the brand casino-bonus-free-money.com new US jurisdictions while renewing its commitment to offering internet poker to US players who inhabit areas with no licensing or legislation.
The Equity Poker Network has become the network that is third as many weeks to announce its withdrawal from the newly regulated US markets. With immediate effect, players in the continuing states of Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware is going to be denied access to real-money play on its flagship site FullFlushPoker.com, and the network has ordered its skins to adhere to suit.
Players in the three states will likely be notified of the alteration in policy and have their accounts closed, the company said, although they will be given enough time and energy to close their balances out. FullFlushPoker said it hoped to operate quickly with players reunite them with their funds.
‘ We now have taken this action in order to ensure that the majority that is vast of customers, who do not reside in New Jersey, Nevada, or Delaware, continue steadily to have access to your site also to enjoy playing the game that they love without interruption or inconvenience,’ stated FullFlushPoker in a statement. ‘Our priority still remains our players, and we are proud to provide our loyal clients from around the globe with a fun and entertaining poker environment that they can trust, and that operates with the greatest values of fairness, integrity and security.’
Cease and Desist Letter
The announcement follows a decision that is similar early in the day this month by the Winning Poker Network (WPN), which operates America’s Card Room and has now the lion’s share of the usa overseas market, too as Bovada’s recent announcement that it will not any longer accept New Jersey players. It’s thought that all the networks’ actions are directly related to a ‘cease and desist’ page that the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement sent to numerous poker affiliate sites in April, warning them away from advertising offshore gambling internet sites that offer games to player within New Jersey.
In the event of WPN, nevertheless, concerns have been raised over its dedication to staying from the regulated states, with some posters on poker forums from those states claiming these are typically perhaps not being denied access, causing conjecture WPN’s announcement is solely nominal. One poster, based in Nevada, stated he was informed by customer services at WPN skin Black Chip Poker that this new rules related only to new customers from Nevada, and because they could change his location to California on their database that he would be permitted to continue playing. This shows questions concerning the logistics of blocking players through the three states. Operators within the newly regulated markets have spoken of the difficulties they’ve faced and the cash spent in creating effective and complex geolocation pc software. This is certainly technology that the offshore sites simply don’t possess. Or apparently care much about, either.
Debate
The Equity Poker Network is during the center of debate too recently. The system had been launched last year as a ‘poker cooperative,’ which means that it charges its skins a flat fee each month, in the place of demanding a portion of their revenues. It additionally charges the skins a ‘Shark/Winners Tax,’ in order to market a ‘healthy’ player ecology so sites having an imbalance of recreational-to-winning players are penalized, because a network by having a large amount of recreational players is a more desirable and model that is lucrative. This has led to recent claims that at least one site regarding the network, PokerHost.com, has been freezing out players for being ‘too good.’
Whatever the truth regarding the matter, with its withdrawal from the regulated markets, Equity is showing its respect for this new US jurisdictions, while renewing its commitment to offering online poker to US players who are now living in areas without any licensing or regulation. In the meantime, it will likely be interesting to see whether or not the other big players in the offshore market famous brands Merge and Bodog intend to follow suit.
Loophole Could Bring New Gambling Options to Florida
West Flagler may use jai alai as a gateway to a poker room and potentially other gambling possibilities. (Image: Dania Jai-Alai)
One of many major reasons why Florida legislators desired to update the state’s video gaming laws and regulations this year was to clean up a code filled with loopholes and makeshift patches that have made less and less sense as time goes on. It looks like that’s just happened when they failed to pass a comprehensive bill in the last legislative session, that left open the possibility that more loopholes might be opened going forward and.
Florida’s First District Court of Appeal overruled the Department of company and Professional Regulation (DBPR) this week, overturning that body’s rejection of the license for the Miami-Date that is new County alai fronton. West Flagler Associates, which already operates the Magic City Casino, had applied for a summer jai alai allow in Florida City.
A law that is long-Forgotten
The situation began whenever John Lockwood, a lawyer for West Flagler, knew that there is a loophole that is 30-year-old parimutuel legislation that nobody had ever taken advantageous asset of. According to the law, the parimutuel that is lowest-performing in any given county is awarded a summer jai alai permit.
In the 2011-12 fiscal year, Hialeah Park ended up being the venue with the racing revenue that is lowest, therefore it would have been eligible for this exemption. But they turned it straight down, moving it to the following eligible company: West Flagler. They took the license in 2011, but discovered that when they tried to apply for a 2nd permit the next year, the DBPR said that they could only receive that permit once every two years.
But western Flagler argued that the law was supposed to apply to every rolling two-year period, and that no break between permits was necessary something the court agreed with.
‘ The statue plainly provides that the permitholder with the best handle for ‘the 2 consecutive years next just before filing an application’ may make application for a summer jai alai permit, and, if it declines to achieve this, a ‘new permit’ is manufactured available,’ wrote Judge Scott Makar.
The court sided with western Flagler in a unanimous 3-0 ruling, with Judges Brad Thomas and Simone Marstiller concurring with Makar’s opinion.
Jai Alai Opens Doors to Poker, Possibly Slots
Why is this ruling significant would be the advantages that include being able to run a jai-alai fronton, which West Flagler can now do anywhere in Miami-Dade County. As long as they buy property and open at least a single jai alai game, they will then become eligible to open a poker room as well.
It is also feasible that West Flagler might be able to operating a slots parlor as a result of 2009 legislation that permitted Hialeah Park to use slots after Miami-Dade County voters authorized three other parimutuels to take action.
State regulators argued that interpreting the law in this way could cause a proliferation of summer jai alai permits. The court noted this concern, but said it absolutely wasn’t up to them to interpret the rules outside of the way they were written.
‘If the Legislature designed to enable a permit that is new at most, every other year it might have written the statute to say so,’ Makar wrote. ‘And if it deems it a good policy to have this limitation, it could implement it legislatively; but we cannot interpret the language associated with the existing statute to achieve this result.’
