So it looks like the US is charging the founders of Neteller with money laundering (or at least conspiracy to do such). My guess, based on the fact that it seems they were under investigation long before the UIGEA, is that the US is beating them up over the wire act and sports gambling. Unfortunately I’m also guessing that this will expedite Neteller’s exit from the US market. In fact Neteller turned off InstaCash within 24 hours of the arrests. It also sends a message to other money transfer/e-wallet sites that the US has no problem making a connection between the money transfer method used and those committing the crime.
Neteller is the 800lb Gorilla in the money transfer biz and when they exit the market it’s going to be a downhill slide for the rest of the industry. As I wrote about previously, the online poker sites that stay open are going to get suffocated out of the business due to choking off US deposits. Obviously sites like PokerStars will survive but will be substantially weakened. Other sites won’t be so lucky and will eventually collapse altogether.
Of course, I don’t think your money is at risk on Neteller but they could be exiting the US market soon so I would suggest either transferring funds to your favorite online poker site or back into your bank account.
Just look at this map of payment methods available to US players on PokerStars
Neteller soon to be gone
Instant eChecks will likely go away as they are basically an electronic check and are one of the few checking methods that can be coded
ePassporte is a credit card proxy so you can’t withdraw to it and the credit card companies will likely cripple them once the UIGEA regs are passed
Visa is closed to US players
MasterCard is closed to US players
Central Coin is an unknown
Diner’s Club is closed to US players
SWIFT is closed to US players (UK payment solution only)
Western Union has never approved of money transfers to gaming sites and will likely clamp down even further in the future
Money Orders are still possible but a pain in the ass
Bank Wire Transfer will go away as soon as the UIGEA banking regs are passed
Online Bank Transfer is the same as Bank Wire Transfer
PaySafe Card is an unknown
This is the beginning of the end.
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Hi, my name is Bill Rini and this is my poker blog. I've been blogging about poker and the poker industry since around 2003-ish. Like most people I started out playing poker as entertainment in home games whenever we wanted to sit around and smoke cigars, drink beer, and eat pizza, and needed a good excuse. I started playing online shortly after the first online card rooms opened and it wasn't long before I was playing 20, 30, or even 40 hours a week or more. One day I received a phone call about a program manager position at Tiltware which was the company that consulted to Full Tilt Poker on software development and marketing. After Tiltware I spent about 2.5 years working at Party Poker where I was the poker room manager.
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Bill: “I would suggest either transferring funds to your favorite online poker site or back into your bank account.”
Read this yesterday afternoon and happened to do exactly what yr suggestin’ (moving what I had in Neteller back over into a currently low-funded site on which I play) maybe an hour before Neteller shut the door. Much tanks for the heads-up, man.
Much thanks, also.
I do what I can, Shamus :-)