Perspectives Weekly - April 18/08

This week Jay discusses the Safe and Secure Internet Gambling Initiative, ePassporte's abrupt departure from funding US players and more......

ePassporte Abandons US Facing Poker Rooms

The rumors began floating around late last week that ePassporte had stopped doing business with Cake Poker and Full Tilt Poker.

GamingIntelligenceGroup is now confirming the story on their website;

"ePassporte confirmed to Gaming Intelligence Group yesterday that players would no longer be able to use their accounts to fund gaming transactions, but added that players may still be able to use the ePassporte virtual Visa card as a means of payment."

Virtual credit card option not likely to fly for long though...

"By moving to credit card only transactions, ePassporte has shifted liability away from itself and onto its credit card provider, who in all likelihood would also block any such transactions, effectively signalling the end of ePassporte's relationship with online gaming in the US."

Honestly, when is this going to end? It's becoming more and more obvious that the UIGEA is going to be scrapped or at the very least, re-written to exempt online poker within the next year so why is the U.S. DoJ still harassing everyone involved in the business? They must have better (more important) things they could be focusing on.

Important News From Cake Poker

Yesterday, I received this email from Cake Poker regarding ePassporte....

April 11, 2008

To all Cake Poker Customers:

We have received notice from ePassporte today that they are unable to continue to provide CakePoker with merchant e-wallet services. We have since confirmed that this situation is not unique to CakePoker and is, in fact, industry wide.

While we are disappointed with this decision, we want to reassure all players that there will be no impact to either your account balances or your account status at Cake. We are pleased to have launched earlier this week with a new payment processor and have already secured alternative processors/eWallets that we will be launching in the weeks to come. We are also in discussions with other providers that will be making their services available in the CakePoker cashier soon. Players are welcome to inquire with Customer Support for more details.

As always, we value your business and will continue to make every effort possible to make your poker experience a great one.

Regards,

The CakePoker Team