Lrgetrout

It has never been illegal for residents in most US states to play (save Washington, as far as I am aware. About 9 or so other states had other restrictions that put it in a gray area). The illegality was always with the sites offering the games, not the players playing them. The UIGEA attempted to further remove the ability of offshore sites to receive money from US residents. The various Attorneys General of various states have taken enough action under their state laws to drive out the major sites from being able to conduct business with US residents.

I think the term "identification" is being misused here - it's more "proof of residency". Because government. 'Murica.

Glad to see I'm not the only one.

1/10 for the OP, with the one point for persistence, I guess.

Probably not. From the terms:

1/3 of the rake (2% of the 6%) is demanded by law by your government. That's not something Stars can control. Take the portion required by law out, and Stars comes close to parity with other countries' sites. The additional slightly higher rake probably goes to pay the fees Bob notes.

Sadly, this is the expected result. I doubt payouts will begin until at least 2017; I would not be surprised if the funds were never paid. If Pokerstars were allowed to directly reimburse us, it would have taken them less than a week after buying Full Tilt for them to do so. They are that damn good.

500-1 would even be too good of odds, imo. In a 6000 person field, at 500-1, you're effectively saying that person is 12 times as likely to win as the average player. I don't think you can go above 5 times, not even for Daniel or Ivey.

Probably as good as we're going to get. It also heartens me that the summary does not include a "bad actor" clause that seems to be popping up in every bill these days. That said, California is on an opt out track, based on current legislative efforts in the state, which makes me sad.

Two words: Indian tribes. They'll be the biggest player whenever California gets online gaming back. What does everyone suppose the reasoning for this might be? That one seems easy on its face - if you win smaller pots, more of the money is taken out of the player pool in rake, meaning more profits for them. A secondary thought would be to make players "bust" less, if they are able to get more play for their deposit. This leads back to the first point though.

This is one of those situations that is too good even for crocodile tears.

Oh really? Is there something you're not telling us Bob? (joking, of course )

#freecountryproblems

The biggest improvement would be PokerStars coming back to the US. (Yes, I know, they have no control over that. "Land of the free" and all.)

Did you read his post? --- To the OP, all sites will be international transactions, because none are based in the US, for many legal reasons.