Wednesday, January 30, 2008

How safe is your money?

Do you ever just stop and think "How safe is my money?". I admit that I don't. I just hand my money over to a person and trust they will keep it safe for me. This includes depositing my pacheck in the bank. How do I know the teller making just above minimum wage is going to enter my deposit into her stupid little computer? I don't.


When it comes to online gambling, I'm taking an even larger risk. I carry larger balances on the poker sites than I do in my checking accounts. My bankroll is not huge by any means. I also only have like $150 invested in it of my own money. The rest is income that I've made on that $150 investment. Still, it's mine and I want it to be safe. If I had that kind of money in my pocket and someone took it, I'd be very ticked off. So why is it that I trust some overseas account to handle more money than I trust my local bank with? Good question.

Lately, there have been a lot of stories about shady practices, scamming, and outright cheating going on with the online poker world. Every week, I skim through 2+2 to see some other poor soul with $50K locked up in Full Tilt for seemingly no particular reason at all. Sometimes they unlock the account, sometimes they don't. Sometimes I don't follow the thread long enough to see the end result. The funny part is that they all start out the same way. User logs in, gets message that account is locked. User contacts Full Tilt and they say the account is under investigation. User gets no more details and has to sit on his or her hands wondering what the fuck is happening with that signifigant sum of money.

It's not just Full Tilt either. You have douchebag guys with superuser priviledges over at Absolute reading your hole cards and scamming you out of money. You have Ultimate Bet allowing you to log in multiple times from the same account, just inviting users to cheat. Just read your most popular forums. This shit goes on every day. And we deal with it? How about the whole Neteller fiasco not too long ago?

Getting the government involved is never the correct answer. However, we need to lay all our cards out on the table and quit pussyfooting around. We need to legalize poker in America. It's all over our TVs these days. Yet we still have to jump through hoops to play even from the comfort of our own home. We have to deal with these shady people if we want to play a fun game. It takes all the fun away from the game in my opinion.

Whenever there is money involved, liars, cheaters, and theives will come around for the quick buck. What can be done to stop this? It doesn't matter if you're talking poker or the local bingo game down the street? The scum of the earth can surround these types of places and stalk their prey because they are not worried about the police getting involved. These activities are less than legal. If Full Tilt locks my account and drains it dry, what can I do?

It never hurts to be safe, so I'm going to do all the research I can and see how to best protect my money and myself.

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