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Black Friday 14 Days Later

The announcement that PokerStars is now enabling cashouts for all their US players as of yesterday has come as great news for all online players.

PokerStars have handled the situation very professionally and shows that they were indeed prepared for this sort of nightmare situation.

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At the moment everyone seems to be split between what seems like a naively optomistic outlook on the future of online poker and one that is overwhelmingly negative. I remain sort of optomistic over the longer term, while agreeing with others with alot of the concerns for online poker in the US and indeed around the world.

As I posted last week reporting high percentage increases on the smaller sites is all well and good but the loses from the big 3 sites are far higher than any possible increases on other sites. There is no getting away from the fact that the current figures dont backup the overly upbeat outlook broadcast from some sites hoping for a silver lining …

I’m really not sure there is a silver lining but we are definately in for interesting times.

Will PokerStars Cashouts = Deposits at Smaller US Sites ?

This next couple of weeks will be crucial for the smaller US facing sites who are hoping to mop up homeless US players with cashout checks burning a hole in their pockets. However the numbers so far suggest the vast majority of US players have not yet flocked to the remaining smaller US facing poker sites.

Logically the vast majority of players everywhere are recreational and not professional poker players or semi pro grinders. So without their online bankrolls in cash the majority are either unable or more likely unwilling to put additional funds into one of the remaining US facing sites

Players have noticed the influx of new players have tightened up games at previously very juicy sites, making the games a bit tougher. This is really no surprise at all, the profitable players, grinders and above break even players are the ones most likely to be prepared to be early adopters of the smaller sites.

It will be crucial that the remaining US facing sites do get a healthy percentage of those totally recreational players who just enjoy the game win or lose. We should get an idea if that is happening over the next couple of weeks now those PokerStars checks will be winging there way to the homeless players.

More Sites Leave US Market

SportsBook.com and it’s partner site PlayersOnly.com has announced while they will remain open for their exiting US players they are not accepting any new US signups after May 1st.

This maybe a permanent or a temporary declining new signups rather than actually leaving the US market but more about why this might be further on.

Also a few days after the DoJ seizures Victory Poker confirmed that US players will NOT be able to play on Victory Poker anymore although it would be staying on the Cake Poker Network (which is open to US players).

Victory’s CEO is an avid US live player so I guess he just didn’t want to be always looking over his shoulder. Victory had planned to join the Cereus Network prior to Black Friday.

US Payment Processing Capacity a Problem Already ?

The announcement that Sportsbook and PlayersOnly are not accepting new US signups from May 1st has been rumored to be because they’re not able to handle the sudden increased volume of US deposits and the inherent issues of processing them.

Whether this will become a more widespread issue affecting all the other small but rapidly expanding US facing sites like Bodog, Merge Gaming & Cake Network remains to be seen.

There is little doubt none of these sites would be able to handle the level of deposits the bigger sites were handling. Indeed the high volume of transactions required was one of the contributing factors to the downfall of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker & Absolute.

It will remain to be seen if other US poker sites feel it necessary to stem the flow of new US player signups in order to keep on top of things. Trying to expand rapidly on overstretched logistics and falling short on customer support etc would be far worse than putting a temporary brake on US signups for a while.

It’s somewhat naive if everyone thinks that the problems that dogged the bigger sites wont trouble the smaller sites as they get bigger and bigger. Growing pains are also totally inevitable and as I’ve said before I would recommend players stick to the established names like Bodog and Carbon Poker as the most likely to be able to cope.

Online Poker Traffic Update

Player traffic numbers have bedded in a bit more since last week, nothing radically different, its still not a pretty picture but I guess it could be worse.

PokerStars – down 28%
Full Tilt Poker – down 35%
Absolute Poker – down 65%

Merge Gaming Network – up 61%
Bodog Poker – up 32%
Cake Poker Network – up 30%

The net drop in total players online since Black Friday is around 16,000, equating to a 22% drop in the overall number of poker players online. The smaller sites gained around 1,000 new signups but as mentioned last week even these 30-60% increases in the smaller sites isn’t going to bridge the gapping abyss following the forced exit of PokerStars and Full Tilt from the US market.

For European players and the rest of the Non US poker world I think we will have to get used to a 20% smaller universe without US players and possibly a refocusing on Asia as the source of new players.

Will Online Poker In The US Ever Be The Same ?

Put Simply – No

This mess is probably going to take years to get sorted out and by then who wins really wont matter. It’s now fairly safe to say that its very unlikely PokerStars, Fulltilt or Absolute will ever get back into the US even if it ever becomes a clarified legalised and regulated environment which is some way off BTW.

While the DoJ seizures weren’t part of some evil master plan by the land based casinos, they are ultimately going to be the only real long term winners out of all this.

Since the UIGEA came into force all the US facing sites were or indeed still are sailing close to the wind, the fact that US players want to play and therefore are not victims of fraud isnt really the point … Banking is the issue with the UIGEA and that hasn’t changed.

Its still virtually inevitable that this will happen all over again to some sites still remaining in the US at some point – It might be in 2 years time it might be in 4 years who knows.

Its also fairly clear that there will be a push to regulate and clarify the legal status of online poker in the US but this is going to be on the land based casinos agenda – not anyone elses. Ironically that is going to mean they will push for an inter state Federal solution with a ring fence around the US.

IMHO they will effectively keep out the “offshore” sites and IMHO that will include the “good” ones who stayed out of the the US after the UIGEA. Bottom line is these seizures and everything else around it will be used to tarnish all non US sites regardless of their actual record.

While the US doesnt give a cr*p about the WTO and is happily riding roughshod over other countries rights to international trade. Once they have established their sites in a regulated US only enviroment they will be only too quick to want to export their “trusted and reliable” online poker product out to the rest of the world who will “need” their better regulated product.

Ironic really as this all boils down to the US not being prepared to allow other countries regulated products into the US but they will be quick to force their “better” regulated product on the rest of us …

The shame if it all is that by then we will all probably eagerly jump into their pockets.

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