What to do next?

I just saw the post the gang at Up for Poker had on Neteller's decision to halt payments to gambling sites. Pretty disheartening. I was using both Firepay and Neteller and had pinned my hopes on Neteller staying around for the fight.

So what is next? Pokerpeaker asked whether the solution was to pile a bunch of cash into your favorite sites while you still can. While that was one of my initial thoughts, I don't necessarily think it is the right one. Just like investing in the stock market, you should always have some money (liquid assets) on the side, to be able to take advantage of opportunities, or any sudden hardships. I think your bankroll should be treated the same way.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to take advantage of PokerStars and Full Tilt's reload bonuses while they are available. Once you put that money in, you better be willing to consider it locked up. Not from a standpoint of you not being able to get your money out- I believe both of the aforementioned sites are very reputable and will not pull anything funny. But once that money is in, you won't be able to pull it back out and get it back in easily, at least as we sit now. If you couldn't tell, I believe in liquidity of some assets. There is very little liquidity here.

I will not be surprised to see some people make a run at "banking" some transfers of funds. It would be like the secondary market for the PStars tourney dollars. I would think some of the bigger bankrolls on their site could start offering to transfer money to players accounts after receiving funds via a peer to peer transfer. For example, once the money hits my Neteller account, I go to Full Tilt and transfer the agreed upon amount (of course, I take a fee to make a profit) to their player account. It would work well for winning players who have the excess bankroll on various sites. Finding a reputable partner in the transaction would be the tricky part.

For now, I sit with money still at Firepay and Neteller. I will move some to PStars and Full Tilt, maybe some to UB. But I will probably keep some on the side or cash it out. I did receive the balance from my Pokerroom account yesterday via check. Took just over one week. Not too bad. It was kind of sad though. Pokerroom is where I first played years ago before the craze started. It was tough closing that account. You never forget your first poker room.