no more FT for me.

[melioris]

TP and I have been exchanging PMs about this and I figured instead of answering him in PM, I'd post it.

As introduction, I usually play on FT pretty much exclusively, with RB and a kajillion months of consecutive Iron Man, I figured it was the best deal in town. But then this past spring and early summer have been crazy for me, life-wise. I ended up not making iron-man for a couple of months. I purchased Iron-Man month continuations or whatever they are called.

While I was really busy with other shit and not playing poker, I got to thinking about about FT as a company. In my experience they have always had really shitty help, have been somewhat sketchy when it comes to business decisions (when they implemented RB, it was a clusterfuck of if you can get it or not on existing accounts; have had some weird business practices revealed in lawsuit settlements; etc). The folks that own FT are americans and build a corporate shell structure to avoid breaking any laws. But rumors are abound that some of the principle owners are being looked at by the DOJ.

So I decided to close my FT account and move everything to Stars. Here was my reasoning. Between FT and Stars, I think Stars as a business is more likely to protect player identities if it ever comes down to it. I can foresee a situation in which the principled owners of FT open the company books in some kind of settlement. If that were to occur, I am sure I would be audited by the IRS, if nothing else. Granted, I do not think this is a major risk, but I want to minimize the risk I am exposed to by the online casino. Furthermore, I am not protected as if this were to happen then I would be still exposed to the risk from when I had a FT account. But my hope is that the IRS (and maybe DOJ) would go after active players first.

I am writing all this to get some opinions. Do you all think FT will always be on the right side of players? Do you think Stars is just as bad? Do you think the risk is so small that it wasn't worth losing the Iron Man and RB bonuses? It should be stated that the amount of time I play and the money I wager make it impossible for me to be a supernova elite or whatever that is.

[Talking Poker]

IMO, Stars is slightly better than FT when it comes to player relations and overall trustworthiness. That said, I think "the risk is so small" (of anything at all happening that affects you) that it's still worth playing there.

While they have some info of yours, they don't even have your SSN. I think it is EXTREMELY unlikely that any players would ever be prosecuted by the DOJ/IRS ever due to FT handing over player info... remember, playing poker online isn't even illegal unless you live in one of the states that specifically makes it so, like Washington. Of course, I am assuming you are not evading your taxes from the money you've made playing poker, but that's something else entirely (and I still don't think the IRS would bother going after anyone but the very largest and most obvious offenders and that's only if it ever came ot that and FT handed over playing records).

I've seen it broken down before, and playing the bare minimum to make Iron Man every month to collect the Iron Man Bonuses on top of 27% RB and player points comes out to something like 55% RB. That's for the absolute minimum of 25 200 point days per month earning $1200 in Iron Man bonuses annually. Obviously as you play more and more, this number (the RB%) drops, but still is higher than all of the stars levels except for SNE and possibly SN - I don't remember exactly.

In summary, I'm definitely not closing my account there.

[Reel Deal]

Umm...