More Reactions

Wow.  I don’t even know where to start.  It’s been interesting reading the various reactions to the new online gambling ban.  And by interesting I mean depressing.  There’s not a whole lot of optimism out there.  

I certainly don’t have any answers, but I figured I’d pull together a here’s what I do know type post so at least I have it one place.

First off, I’m fairly certain that if you have money in various online gambling sites, your money is safe.  If you have heavily deposited in some new smaller lesser known sites you might want to consider cashing out, but no one’s going to steal your money and in the very likely event that US players are banned from whatever site, I’m confident that they will allow you to withdraw whatever funds you have.   That being said, I wouldn’t recommend making any more deposits in the immediate future.

So here’s what else I know.

Bill Rini posted a letter from Nolan Dolla, former media director for the WSOP and until yesterday Director of Communications for Poker Stars.  If you read one of the following links, read this one.  He has some really well reasoned analysis of the current situation.

Party Poker plans to pull out of the US market if (when) this bill is signed.  See this press release for their full statement.  That certainly can’t be good.  The largest online poker site pulling out of the largest market does not bode well for the industry as a whole.

I think 888.com aka Pacific poker/poker-on-net is also pulling out as well as any other publicly traded company.

For now PokerStars and FullTiltPoker are taking a wait and see approach.  FullTilt has posted their comments here.

For those casino and poker affiliates out there, I received an email from the folks at PokerShare.com talking about their new affiliate protection engine.  There’s not exactly an abundance of details on the site, but I think they win the first-site-to-try-to-set-up-a-sneaky-work-around award.  

Have you joined the Poker Player’s Alliance yet?  What are you waiting for?  The new laws banning the sale of playing cards, circular discs, and felt tables?

There is one piece of good news; according to PokerBlog.com banks will likely still allow Neteller transactions, since they aren’t necessarily gambling related.  Plus most banks don’t have the technology to track deposits like the new law requires.

Finally I would predict that while things don’t look so great now, there is waaaayyy to much money involved to keep the big players away for long.  I’m hoping they retreated momentarily so that they can regroup and start fighting back.  There’s no way they are going leave billions of available dollars sitting on the table without more of a fight.




Oh, and someone else mentioned this, I forget who, but now might be a good time to take a shot at the various daily/weekly/monthly guaranteed tournaments. Since people are panicking and cashing out there will be less competition, and since the prize pool is guaranteed that pushes the EV more in your direction.

Originally posted at blog.pokerwords.com