A Splash of Good News

As some of you know, my good friend from high school, Brian (the one who was a groomsman at my wedding) has been in town for the past few days with his girlfriend Andrea. We spent a good part of Friday on the golf course and spent all day Saturday, wine tasting in Napa. As a result I've been a little out of the loop and will probably remain so until Tuesday. But, I did get some good news today in the form of an e-mail from Fulltiltpoker.com. This is what it said:

Dear wes1279,

Full Tilt Poker is here to stay!

As an online poker player, you have probably heard about the new legislation passed by the U.S. Congress earlier this week that attempts to prevent you from being able to transfer money to online gaming sites.

While this new law has prompted some sites to announce plans to abandon the U.S. market in coming days, we assure you that Full Tilt Poker will continue to provide all of its players - both inside and outside of the United States - with a full complement of real money ring games and tournaments for their enjoyment.

After consultation with numerous legal experts in this field, we want to make you aware of the following:

* Legal

The new U.S. legislation does not in any way attempt to criminalize the act of you playing online poker. By playing online at Full Tilt Poker, you are not breaking any U.S. Federal laws.

* Full Access

The passage of the new Internet Gaming law will not have any impact on your day-to-day experience at Full Tilt Poker. We will provide all of our players, everywhere in the world, with full access to all of our games and tournaments.

* Easy Deposits and Withdrawals

We will continue to provide our players with all of the safe, secure and convenient methods for transferring money to and from the site. In fact, in recent discussions with our payment processors, we have been assured that this new law will have no immediate impact on their day-to-day business. And as always, any monies that you have on deposit with Full Tilt Poker remain completely safe and secure.

Furthermore, we firmly believe that online poker is not encompassed by this new legislation. In any event, we will continue to lobby for an express carve-out for online poker and for your right to play a truly American game from the privacy of your own home and computer.

We are excited about the future here at Full Tilt Poker and in the coming weeks and months, we plan to roll out many new features designed to enhance your online poker experience.

We appreciate your loyalty to our site and, in turn, want you to know that we will remain loyal to our valued players in the United States and throughout the world.

We look forward to seeing you at the table.

Sincerely,

Full Tilt Poker


This is good news for me. The biggest danger with the recent law was that the websites would block US users of their own volition. Full Tilt is one of the 5 biggest websites and probably my third favorite. Furthermore, a group of about 10 of the top 100 poker players in the world own a big piece of this website (apparently they own the software and marketing company that the website uses, but effectively they own it). One of the reasons why this website is good is they have all these great players to consult with about the best way to opperate. Along those lines, I'm sure these insanely smart people will figure out a way around the law if it is possible (if that's even necessary). Most importantly, I could easily continue to earn my living online playing soley on Full Tilt.