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Grinning_Dragon 
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Nov. 03 2003,4:59 pm |
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Any of yooz' guys play online games? If so what?
I usually play Unreal Tournament 2003 and the original one too, Tribes2, and a few others.
If you are into UT2K3, I have a dedicated server that runs non-stop, with a 1024/1024 connect I can usually host around 32 players, on a good day, but as we all know about net congestion.
The servers name is Sic_Semper_Tyrannis, and it usually hosts Invasion.
So come on and join in on a good ol fashion blood lust.
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 2
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hoosier
Group: Members
Posts: 1476
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Nov. 03 2003,11:58 pm |
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I play Unreal Tournament 2003, Americas Army, great game, developed by the U.S. Army, pretty realistic. Used to play Rogue Spear a lot, but it is an older game, not as good as the others. Cant beat Unreal though, thanks Grinning Dragon for the invite, I will take you up on it. I usually use Hoosier as my name in games, if you see me, be gentle, LOL. 
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The power of accurate obsvervation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
George Bernard Shaw
The devil begins with froth on the lips of an angel entering into battle for a holy and just cause. Grigory Pomerants
We have crossed the boundary that lies between Republic and Empire. Garet Garrett
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| Post Number: 3
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nattiejean27
Group: Members
Posts: 54
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Nov. 27 2003,2:58 am |
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Speaking of online gaming, I love to play poker. The other day I tried to play poker online for money and the bank refused my transfer to the website. Where does the bank have the right to refuse my authorized purchased? Is it "right" to dictate what I want to spend my money on and where?
I work hard for my money. If I want to drop $10 onto a website for my source of entertainment to play games, why in the heck shouldn't I be able to? Of course, I figured out to use a "neutral" site to deposit my money into and transfered it from there to this site, but that was an extra step that was unnecessary - in my opinion.
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"Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please." -Mark Twain
"The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced." -Frank Zappa
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| Post Number: 4
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Nov. 27 2003,4:35 pm |
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Welp- the only thing I can think of why the bank refused the transaction is they are protecting their infrastructure against crackers who would get a list of bank account #'s. Other than that they have NO RIGHT, to tell you what you can and cannot do with your money. Even if they find gambling objectionable, or the many other sins, would be the same if you went and bought a pack of smokes or a case of beer, and denied your transaction. Guess you will have to speak to some bubblehead idiot at the bank and inquire why this is so.
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 5
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mallrat
Unregistered
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Posted on: Nov. 27 2003,6:32 pm |
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I do believe its called "cover your ass(ets)"
Onlne gambling in the state of Minnesota is against the law.
http://www.unc.edu/courses....mn.html
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| Post Number: 6
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Grinning_Dragon
rideo draconigena
Group: Members
Posts: 3095
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Nov. 27 2003,6:54 pm |
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Well, that answers that, and I did not know that.
So the state has determined how anybody can spend THEIR money, and whether or not they should be able to gamble it away. Seems kinda UN-CONSTITUTIONAL to me.
When did they pass that BS law anyways? Never heard a thing about it. I really don't give a hoot if someone has a gambling problem or not, it their money not yours theirs or anybody elses.
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*SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS / MOLON LABE / Se Defendendo
memoria of cado frater ,Semper fidelis
*The object of war is NOT to DIE for YOUR Country, but to make the OTHER BASTARD DIE for HIS...Patton
My Constitutional Rights trump your dead.
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| Post Number: 7
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minnow
Group: Members
Posts: 2243
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Nov. 28 2003,8:39 am |
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Yes, the state has made it illegal for everyone but THEM!
It's OK to gamble as long as the state is the house.
So...it's not a moral thing..it's a money thing. The house wants your business so it makes all other gaming illegal.
Just more insanity and selfishness in the good old USA...
...not the USA that I grew up in, know and love though.
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| Post Number: 8
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ko
Unregistered
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Posted on: Nov. 28 2003,9:24 am |
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Might it be that they have to protect Indian gaming? The legislatures would have to get by with a few less Christmas presents if they allowed open gambling. The Indian lobbyists have paid dearly to keep themselves as a monopoly.
About a year ago, their was momentum to have the state build a casino next to the Mall of America on the old Met Center lot, with a hotel and a skyway connected to the mall. The rationale was that layovers from the airport would ingest bucks into the economy instead of locals. Also people inbound to the mall would use it. Water Park for the kids, Casino for dad/mom, Mall for the mom while dad lost his shirt.... The forecast on money generated said we could pay for a Viking stadium in 5 years, as well as build a few roads and bridges......it made too much sense though, the lobbyists from Mystic Lake put the kibosh on it and it did not get too far. One of objections brought up was that more gambling was not healthy for the state,,,,funny....in the meantime we have opened 2 more Indian casino's and expansion on the current ones are rampant. Go figure....
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| Post Number: 9
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Liberal
Group: Moderator
Posts: 11451
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Nov. 28 2003,9:47 am |
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Here is a lengthy NY Times article from 2002 that explains why.
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A Credit Crisis for Web Casinos
Mining the margins of legality, operators of Internet casinos assumed their big worry was regulators and law enforcement agencies. Lately, though, it seems that the online casinos have a more immediate problem: the growing number of credit card companies and banks that are refusing to process payments for Internet gambling.
Although demand by bettors remains brisk, whether they are wagering on sporting events or online games like roulette and blackjack, the credit card companies are concluding that the business is more trouble than it is worth. Internet gambling is illegal in many states, and some types of wagering are barred by federal laws. But beyond that, customers frequently deny having placed bets or simply refuse to pay their credit card bills after running up large gambling debts.
That can pose trouble for credit card companies — as when a California woman lost more than $100,000 but argued in court that gambling debts were not enforceable and had her debts wiped clean in a court-ordered settlement. And so, in many cases, the credit card companies and banks simply refuse to approve a transaction if they know it is for a gambling site.
Some Internet casino owners say four of every five transaction requests are now denied. As a result, some gambling sites, particularly those serving the United States market, where 8 of every 10 wagers originate, have seen revenue fall at least 30 percent. Analysts who cover the industry say the liquidity crisis has already forced some operations to close.
"It's excruciating for the casinos," said Mitch Garber, an executive vice president at SureFire Commerce , a company in Montreal that processes credit card transactions for hundreds of Internet casinos. Mr. Garber said that last year 25 percent of the credit card transactions he tried to process for casinos were rejected by United States banks, a third higher than the previous year's figure, he said. "The magnitude of the rejection rates has taken off."
Among the banks that Mr. Garber said had rejected gambling transactions were Wells Fargo , Providian Financial and MBNA.
Visa and MasterCard do not have blanket provisions that prohibit banks that issue their cards from paying Internet gambling transactions. But late last year, Visa USA started auditing Internet casinos to make sure they were accurately identifying transactions as wagers. The idea behind the audit was to make sure that casinos did not try to report gambling activity as another type of transaction — the purchase of a shirt, say — to trick a bank into approving the transaction.
Casinos have increasingly turned to third-party credit card processors like SureFire or PayPal, another major processor of Internet gambling. Processors enable consumers to use their credit cards to set up accounts with online casinos — as well as many other kinds of Internet-based merchants — many of which do not have direct relationships with banks.
MasterCard International has put a crimp in that activity with a policy that specifically forbids the use of its card at third-party processors for purposes of Internet gambling.
The steps by Visa, MasterCard and the banks that issue their cards are catching up with the policies of American Express and the Discover unit of Morgan Stanley, which have not allowed their cards to be used for Internet gambling transactions for several years.
"We do not do business with illegal or very high-risk industries," said Joanne Fisher, an American Express spokeswoman, echoing the views of numerous credit card companies and banks. "We have to be in a position that we know were going to be paid."
Alan Elias, a spokesman for Providian, one of the nation's largest issuers of credit cards, with 18 million card holders, said the company's policy to deny such transactions was "not about us making judgment calls about morals and ethics." Rather, he said, "our company puts itself at risk for large business losses if we allow charges for Internet gaming."
But some casino operators complain that the banks are acting too much like the police.
"People don't like being told what they can and can't do with their money," said Simon Noble, chief executive of Intertops.com, an Internet casino based in Antigua. He said that efforts by United States financial institutions to clamp down had begun to have an influence in Europe, where German customers in particular were beginning to find their transactions being denied. "It's very frustrating," Mr. Noble said.
As a result of the clampdown, Christiansen Capital Advisors, a New York firm that serves as a consultant to casinos, recently — and for the first time — downgraded its worldwide growth forecast for the online casino industry. Christiansen estimates that the 1,400 gambling sites on the Internet generated $3 billion in revenue last year and will generate $4.1 billion in 2002, a drop of about $500 million each year from earlier projections.
Besides paying by credit card, gamblers can set up accounts ahead of time using wire transfers or checks. But the casinos say these alternatives are inconvenient and discourage playing.
Whether residents of the United States are breaking the law by gambling online depends largely on where they live and where the gambling operator is situated. I. Nelson Rose, a law professor at Whittier College in California and a gambling law expert, said that about half the states forbid residents from placing bets on the Internet. And in all states, it is illegal to operate an Internet casino, Mr. Rose said, which is why they are usually operated offshore, in Costa Rica or the Caribbean in many cases.
At the federal level, the question is not entirely resolved, legal experts say, although they note that under the Federal Wire Act, it is illegal to operate a sports betting operation over the Internet.
Matthew Katz, who operates Ecasino Solutions, a Los Angeles company that advises offshore Internet casinos, said American banks, while leading the crackdown, were not alone. Mr. Katz recalled the activity of a Singapore resident who logged on a few months ago to eBets.com, a gambling company client of Mr. Katz that is situated in Belize.
On three consecutive days, the gambler tried to deposit money from Visa and MasterCard accounts into eBets, but on 18 separate occasions, his banks in Singapore did not allow him to deposit money. Persevering, the gambler was eventually permitted to deposit $1,500, which he used to play European Roulette. Within three days, he had lost all the money, and his banks denied his subsequent efforts to deposit more — except for a few deposits of less than $10.
Then came the bad news for eBets. A few weeks later, the gambler called his banks and disputed the $1,500 charge, saying he had not gambled.
Mr. Katz said the casinos, trying to help the banks, once regularly asked new customers to fax photocopies of credit cards and drivers licenses to prove that the customer had, in fact, approved use of his card for gambling transactions.
But Mr. Katz said that in recent months, the banks stopped honoring the photocopy evidence, and starting simply siding with the gamblers in such disputes, demanding reimbursement from the casinos. "Nobody looks at gaming as an industry with any respect," Mr. Katz said. "Everybody says it's shady."
Among those seeking to regulate online gambling is Representative James A. Leach, Republican of Iowa, who has proposed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Funding Prohibition Act, which would prohibit online casinos from accepting credit cards, electronic money transfers and checks. The proposed legislation would also impose penalties on financial institutions that knowingly participate in such transactions. Even if the legislation goes nowhere, its introduction might motivate banks, wishing to avoid additional regulation and the threat of penalties, to try to pre-empt passage by stepping up their efforts to reject gambling transactions.
Casinos, meanwhile, hold out hope that new payment options will emerge in coming years that will enable the industry to continue growing. But such options could be limited.
Mr. Noble, the Intertops.com executive, said he had recently received a call from a credit card processor in South Africa. The company promised him that it could have credit card transactions approved, but suggested it would do so in a duplicitous fashion. Mr. Noble said he had inferred that the processor would disguise the gambling transactions as some other transaction, in an effort to fool the banks.
"How long can you do that?" Mr. Noble asked, saying he thought the banks would soon catch on. "I can't imagine it can last for more than a few weeks. But for a lot of people in gaming, it's worth it for two or three weeks."
A Credit Crisis for Web Casinos By MATT RICHTEL The New York Times
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The people are masters of both Congress and courts, not to overthrow the Constitution, but to overthrow the men who pervert it!
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| Post Number: 10
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Ole1kanobe
Group: Members
Posts: 1360
Joined: Aug. 2003
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Posted on: Nov. 28 2003,4:19 pm |
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What it really seems to come down to is the people wanting something, but the government not wanting them to have it, just like drugs.
As long as there is a demmand, there will be people (companies) willing to supply the fix. Regardless what the government, banks, or your mom thinks or wants, people will find a way to get what they desire.
Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
End of story.
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The world is a dangerous place to live, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it.
-Albert Einstein-
Some of what is said here (myself included) is about as tolerable as listening to someone vacuum a cat.
-nphilbro-
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