Online Poker coming back...where? Read it all here!

Let’s make a deal, OK?

I want to build all of you a house. A place where you can hang your hat, hang with friends, meet new ones and, most importantly, play some poker - but not the kind of poker that you may have become accustomed to since April 15, 2011. In this house, you can experience global action as you face global challengers, interact directly with those you admire (and/or loathe) and go about your business without the persistent, underlying concern that one day you may wake up to find that your financial security has been compromised. How does that sound? What do I want from you in exchange? Well, I’ll get to that.

First I would like to introduce myself. My name is Michael Hajduk. There’s a fairly good chance that I am not that dissimilar to you. Average Joe, wife, kids and a career that was seriously affected by the global recession that left me dreaming of better times and pondering alternate paths. My path to Infiniti was carved nearly two years prior to Black Friday when I noted an inherit gap and deficiency in the overall architecture of the online poker status quo. I contrived a platform concept and when I conducted a successful feasibility study on what I like to refer to as our “secret sauce”, I knew I was onto something special.

But I wanted more. I just didn’t want to present something to market that had some eyebrow-raising new feature. I also wanted to examine and identify old problems in all of the old platforms out there and correct issues that have long plagued the legions of online poker enthusiasts worldwide. Among the top deficiencies I identified was payment processing times. So I took the issue to my development team and presented the challenge. The final analysis determined that in order to eliminate, or at least drastically reduce, payout times, we needed to present an option for players to cash in and out via non-traditional means – in other words, an alternative to regular money. Bitcoin presented the solution.

I had read and heard about Bitcoin in the months prior to our decision to incorporate it as a payment method. Though my knowledge was limited, I knew that it allowed instant, direct payments over the internet. I knew that it was utilized around the world for online purchases. I knew that it was gaining a lot of press. When I learned that exchanges between consumers and vendors occurred in a direct, peer-to-peer manner, without any bank or intermediary having the power to delay, interfere with, or freeze accounts, I got quite excited about its potential. Put simply, through the utilization of Bitcoin, I knew that our customers could retrieve their funds from their personal Infiniti accounts in a matter of minutes. No longer will anyone need to wait days, weeks or even months as has been the unfortunate standard in this industry. Our decision to include Bitcoin among the other traditional deposit methods gives all players the option to benefit from its reliability and expediency.

When Black Friday came down upon all of us as hard as it did, I was just like most of you – just trying to make sense of an utterly confusing situation. The majority of the affected were players just like you, particularly those of you who had considerable sums of money deep within the accounts of the seized domains. My situation, however, was unique in the sense that my vested interest was threatened in terms of how much time, money and creativity we pumped into the Infiniti project which seemed, at the time, destined to become redundant due to the then new market uncertainty. I had some decisions to make. Interestingly, it was the decisions of many of your fellow U.S. players to pick up and move to jurisdictions that would allow them to play in cash games that influenced the course of action that I ultimately took. I said to myself, “If there is a way we can provide sanctuary to those 1.5 million orphaned players, we can make a significant and positive impact”. By then the Black Friday dust cloud had settled, so I rolled up my sleeves and went to work on my investigation as to what happened, why it happened and where our options lie.

Here is what I found. After consulting with our legal team and garnering the opinions of various industry and U.S. legal professionals, the most glaring conclusion that can be derived is that online poker has never been defined as illegal within any federal statute. What shut down the three giants on Black Friday was the Justice Department’s assertion that these sites utilized U.S. banks to process transactions from players, an act which was made illegal in 2006 under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). That’s it. Once they got in the door, they then uncovered the host of other alleged wrongdoings that led to the seizure of their domains, bank accounts and thus, your money. So as it turned out, the same solution that we found in Bitcoin to speed up transactions pre-Black Friday turned out to be the post-Black Friday solution that would also allow for U.S. player participation in a global online poker market by entirely avoiding U.S. banking institutions for payment processing. The decision to move on our U.S. initiative was made.

It wasn’t an easy decision or one that I took lightly. But from my perspective, it certainly seems that if banks are not utilized, laws are not broken. Granted this is a simplistic breakdown of current matters, but it is derived from extensive research and consultation, not to mention a pinch of my gut intuition. As for the risks? If they exist, I will bear the responsibility of taking those on. My intention is to be fully transparent with all authorities and regulators and I will be open to discussions with them if their viewpoints differ from mine. The best case scenario is that I’m right and we collectively create the worlds most robust and exciting online poker platform offered to U.S. players in recent years. The worst case scenario is that I’m wrong and recent dark history repeats itself. The big difference is that this time your funds, in the form of Bitcoin, will always be accessable and transferable because, remember, Bitcoin payments and accounts cannot be frozen. Thus, you can finally rest assured that you will not be at risk of being unable to access your own money. In short, all of you can get back to the way things used to be - with no fear.

Now back to that deal. What do I want in exchange? I want you to give Infiniti a chance. I want you to familiarize yourself with Bitcoin and the processing systems in place that will allow you to be a part of our growing community. I want you to experience our innovative software, social platform and payout speeds. I would ask for your loyalty, as maintaining a solid foundation of regular players is the biggest challenge and the key to the success of any start up organization. I will continue to advocate for your right to federal regulations that will bring the entire online poker market to your front door, but I would ask for your continued support if and when that day comes. In the meantime, I am willing to go “all in” on your behalf and provide you with that house that you can call “home”.

So, what do you think?

 http://www.infinitipoker.com/