BitCoin Poker Coming: Reddit Reactions

Gambling911.com on Sunday featured an article in regard to the slated premier of new Bitcoin friendly online poker room Infiniti Poker.  The readers of social media behemoth Reddit.com picked up on the story and offered their reactions…

Why can't the base their company outside america thereby bypassing their draconian rules? I know that it wouldnt stop the domain being frozen but it prevents your servers being seized.

[–]neuronstorm 2 points 17 hours ago

So you didn't hear about the Kim Dotcom raids in New Zealand which was done at the request of the Americans? There may be some countries which are still hard for the US to physically raid - but shifting the payment system to a P2P mechanism and bypassing the heavily controlled legacy payment networks is a great way to ensure the US can't completely block payments.

[–]drcross 2 points 17 hours ago

I may be wrong here but the reason ICE could do this was because of Kims previous links with america, or the fact that he stored something on servers in america.

[–]psonik 0 points 16 hours ago

You are wrong- but on the right track (sort of).

ICE's stated purpose is to collaborate with foreign intelligence and law enforcement to enforce protection of US copyright and patents everywhere in the world- even if its not in their jurisdiction.

If it's not in their jurisdiction, they lobby (read bully) foreign governments into making it their jurisdiction through treaties and trade agreements.

There are benefits to being the world economic leader. The US can say "Enforce our laws in your land or you can't trade with us." That's essentially what they do.

[–]drcross 0 points 16 hours ago

america has turned into a monster

[–]psonik 1 point 15 hours ago

The U.S. Government =/= America.

America is the land and the people. The U.S. is a corporation and federal government which rules over America.[–]themvf 2 points 20 hours ago

As someone who has their funds frozen, fool me twice, shame on me?

[–]FyslexicDuck 3 points 19 hours ago

Who could freeze your bitcoin funds?

[–]themvf 1 point 18 hours ago

The DOJ. At least for us US players. If we have our funds on that site, then the DOJ will freeze the funds we have.

The fact that we are using bitcoins/euros/anything else does not matter.

I don't see how we are protected.

[–]neuronstorm 8 points 17 hours ago

Bitcoin transfers are quick enough that it's practical to deposit and withdraw just for a few games. No need to store coin on their servers for any appreciable period.

[–]themvf 4 points 17 hours ago

That is true, and what I and most other players will probably do. In fact, there shouldn't even be accounts. If you want to play a game, you send BTC to a certain address. Therefore, the site can't claim they even have US accounts. However, I still believe we are not protected from the govt.

[–]MoanOfTheGale 3 points 18 hours ago

From the article: “In the worst case scenarion, if [the DOJ] seize our domain name your Bitcoin will be safe because there’s no central authority controlling the currency and thus it cannot be frozen by any third party.”

[–]themvf 2 points 18 hours ago

Yea, I think that is a misstatement of the law, and a way to instil confidence in the site.

[–]joshiee 2 points 17 hours ago

So what happens when they seize the servers with the private keys to their addresses? Bitcoin frozen.

[–]neuronstorm 4 points 17 hours ago

Sure - but presumably people would withdraw after each gaming session, so you're generally only risking what you have on the system at one time. It's much easier with Bitcoin to pull your funds back to somewhere completely under your own control.

Also - there are new features coming in Bitcoin which allow 'multiparty' 'm of n' keys. By distributing the key, any one datacenter raid won't cause the coins to be lost. Hopefully services at risk of raiding will take advantage of this.

[–]cbeast 2 points 12 hours ago

Exactly. m of n security will revolutionize everything.

[–]7trXMk6Z 1 point 14 hours ago

Not necessarily. Bitcoins are actually STORED in the blockchain, which every user who uses it has. When you have bitcoins, what you really have is a short string of text which acts as proof that you have the right to transfer bitcoins from one address to another. So it's possible to hold your bitcoins without even a computer. I have many of mine in my head. I know a passphrase and a sequence of transformations I do to it which will yield a string of hexidecimal text that can be used as a bitcoin private key for an address that holds my coins. That isn't stored anywhere. Similarly, after a few months, Infinity Poker could determine that they have X amount of bitcoins that people are leaving on their site and that they don't need to have on hand for daily cashouts, except on rare occasions, and they could move the bulk of that amount to a similar offline wallet, or encrypt it and put it in the cloud somewhere. That way, the bitcoins may be inaccessible for a bit while they are being raided or in jail, but the money isn't gone forever at least.

[–]FyslexicDuck 0 points 15 hours ago

How can bitcoins be seized? Banks don't take them.

[–]themvf 2 points 14 hours ago

Either: 1) Bitcoins will be sent to one bitcoin account and held there. 2) The Govt doesn't seize them per se, but does not allow the site to distribute the funds until the matter is closed.

[–]abc523 4 points 20 hours ago

I don't see this ending well.