New Side Effects of US Federal Crackdown on Online Poker

Apr 21, 2011
More and more companies and individuals affected As if the indictments themselves weren't enough, the side effects of the US federal action seem to be bigger than anticipates. The latest ones to be revealed include a report that two popular poker television shows, the “PokerStars Big Game” and the “PokerStars Million Dollar Challenge,” have both been pulled from Fox TV, following an agreement by both Pokerstars and Fox. In addition, the indictments also resulted in lower prize pool guarantees on Sunday's tourneys by the leading internet poker companies, some of which were cut down by almost fifty percent. In case of PokerStars, the guaranteed prize pool of its Sunday Million was reduced by $500 000 to $1 million, whereas its Sunday Warm-Up was cut down by a third to $500 000, the Sunday 500 was reduced to $250 000 and the Sunday Second Chance to $125 000. Another aftershock is the lower entry fields, with 6 475 players entered for the Sunday Million, which is a significant drop from the previous week's 8 200. On the other side, at Full Tilt Poker's, the guarantee on the first event in the XX FTOPS had to be reduced from $3 million to $1 million, even though almost 7 000 players entered for the event. Similar was the case with the Sunday Brawl whose guarantee was slashed by half, and the Sunday Mulligan, which was cut from $200 000 to $50 000. The situation wasn't any better at UB.com. However, according to latest reports, non-indicted US-friendly networks, such as Merge, Bodog, Cake and Everleaf saw a significant improvement in their traffic, just like the non-US facing sites in Europe - Party Poker; iPoker Network, PKR and 888 Poker. However, that's not all. Another side effect reported by the US players today is that they are being turned away from at online casinos where they were previously welcomed. These reports include Platinum Play and 7 Sultans casinos, from which the players received the following notice: "As you may be aware, certain unfortunate circumstances have recently affected the ability of parties to process online gaming transactions in certain regions. "This means that we will no longer be able to accept deposits from you. "Even though our ability to accept and transfer funds has been severely impaired, we will endeavor to honor all withdrawal requests as soon as possible. "Your account will remain open for the time being should you wish to play through any remaining balances." At the moment, no further information or press release has been issued regarding this development.
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