The Poker Bus

Online Poker - Game On!

I’ve been holding back a lot for the past few weeks, just waiting for the dust to settle with the new gambling legislation. While it’s still far from over, I think it’s much easier to speculate on what’s going on the future of poker now.

The day after the bill passed, PartyPoker and 888 immediately announced they were pulling out of the US market. The small to medium sites like Poker.com, Bodog, and Absolute are jumping on the opportunity to become the next PartyPoker by announcing they will continue to take US players, and advertising twice as hard.

Full Tilt Poker is also one of the sites that have announced that they will continue serving USA players. I’m not sure how good their latest marketing approach is going to be in the long run though. They’re basically telling rakeback affiliates to promote that they can give 27% rakeback to existing players. This is bad for two reasons: 1. It’s filling their room up with 8 tabling poker tracker grinders, who strive to always play +ev poker. 2. It’s pissing off a lot of affiliates who are getting their referred players stolen from them by rakeback affiliates.

For the past 10 days I’m just thinking that as long as PokerStars accepts US players, it’s game on for poker. Lee Jones commented on two plus two that they have the best lawyers going over the gambling bill and haven’t made any decisions yet. The good news came last night, when pokerstars made the official announcement that they will continue accepting US players

- http://www.pokerstars.com/legislation/uigea/
Therefore, our business continues as before - open to players worldwide including the US. You may play on our site as you did prior to the Act.

PokerStars believes that poker is a game of skill enjoyed by millions of players and we remain committed to providing you a safe and fun environment in which to play. We value your loyalty to PokerStars, and look forward to continuing to serve you with the best online poker experience, as we have for the past five years, six billion hands, and 40 million tournaments.

I’m feeling great about online poker at this point. PokerStars has almost everything I can ask for from an online poker site. I hope they take all of party pokers players, come out with better promotions, and continue having the best customer support.

We’re still not in the clear yet though. If neteller pulled out of the US market like firepay, it would be a pretty big step back. Also, who knows how far the US government is going to go to try and enforce this bill. For now though, it’s looking pretty good.