- PokerStars has explained that the company’s strict policy on preventing players playing online poker from the US had been strengthened earlier this year.
- Under the new policy, PokerStars has “been confiscating the whole balance (except when we are convinced that the player was non-malicious and had no knowledge of this restrictions, in which case we only confiscate net winnings).”
PokerStars representative Michael Josem has explained that the company’s strict policy on preventing players playing online poker from the US was strengthened earlier this year.
Josem said that on top of existing measures, “we increased the severity of our punishments because it no longer credible for the vast majority of players to claim that they didn’t know that they can’t play from the US.”
Balance Confiscation
“Our previous policy was, by default, to only confiscate net winnings (except when we were convinced the player was malicious, in which case we would confiscate their whole balance),” he explained.
Following the introduction of the new policy, Josem said that PokerStars has “been confiscating the whole balance (except when we are convinced that the player was non-malicious and had no knowledge of this restrictions, in which case we only confiscate net winnings).”
Josem told pokerfuse explicitly that the policy change was totally unrelated to the acquisition by Amaya.
After PokerStars settled with the US DOJ, the DOJ actively monitored the poker room’s compliance. The monitoring has come to an end, but the measures that PokerStars introduced have continued, and according to Josem, have been enhanced.
Players who do not want to risk the loss of their account balances would be advised to wait to play on PokerStars until the operator is licensed in the state in which they are located.
