Online Poker Sites: Who's in and Who's out?A List of Which Sites Americans Can Play onby Allyn Jaffrey Shulman | Published: Oct 16, 2006 | |
 
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I have received numerous letters from apprehensive Card Player readers who are concerned about the sites where they play poker. Today I will try to address some of those issues. In matters where I have little or no information, perhaps we can help inform one another.
PokerStars, Full Tilt, Bodog, Absolute and Doyle's Room: These sites are booming and enjoying the success of many new players. Not only have we heard no complaints whatsoever, but customers are praising these sites for their loyalty to the US player and also for the fine selection of "good" games. Noble Poker & Royal Vegas Poker are out.
Full Contact Poker: Some of you are frustrated because you are having problems at Full Contact Poker (FCP), Daniel Negreanu's site. I personally spoke with Daniel last week and he informed me that FCP would remain operational even after the president signed the Enforcement Act. FCP has been a "skin" of a company called "ongame." What Daniel didn't know last week was that at the last minute, the Ongame Network, owned by bwin, announced that it will block service to players with US addresses. Of course, this left FCP and a number of companies scrambling to find a new poker network provider. I personally know Daniel and I know his team is diligently working on it. We will inform our readers of any further developments.
PartyPoker: We all now know that PartyPoker is not doing business in the US. Regarding PartyPoker cashouts, I personally requested that my money be cashed out from PartyPoker and that was accomplished the very next time I checked, which was two days later. PartyPoker is a public company with honorable managers who can be trusted. You will get your money back! PartyPoker issued the following public statement: "By adhering to the law and as a public company listed on the London Stock Exchange, with a market capitalization currently in excess of $2.5 billion, we continue to offer our US customers a robust and secure processing system, which means your funds are safe with us and can be withdrawn at any time."
Many of you have asked about the PartyPoker Monster Tournament. I must claim ignorance about the tournament or its structure. However, Party has issued the following statement regarding its Monster Tournament: "Unfortunately, the structure of the PartyPoker.com Monster made it untenable to continue with the tournament once the act became law, and it was discontinued. We have converted pending Monster Freerolls into equivalent cash amounts. If you had any unused Monster Freerolls, you can log in to your PartyAccount to convert them into cash and see how the amounts were calculated." Party has also decided to convert freerolls into the cash equivalent.
Jetsetpoker: Yesterday, we reported that jetsetpoker had closed shop and left its players out to dry, but one of our readers wrote in to tell us this was incorrect. Zaid wrote to tell me that some Card Player readers got it all wrong regarding jetsetpoker. He received the following information: "JetSetPoker shall remit remaining balances via cheque. Please respond to accountclosure@jetsetpoker.com and provide your accurate name and mailing address to initiate the cheque disbursement process." My humble apologies to jetsetpoker.
NETeller: NETeller is in and FirePay is out. NETeller is going strong. It is quite simple to set up an account with this public, overseas company in order to fund an online account. Of course, wire transfers are still an available means to transfer funds as well as myCitadel and moneybookers, which I learned about at UltimateBet.
Ultimate Bet: UltimateBet is still doing business in the US and the site is accepting new US customers. I understand it has some new and exciting plans on the horizon.
Hollywood Poker: Card Player has been informed that Hollywood Poker will no longer accept new US customers. As for the current loyal Hollywood Poker players, the following information was just received by Card Player: "US players have been provided the opportunity to play through current balances, earn out bonuses, use player points, etc. for approximately the next 30 days. Players can at any time within that period withdraw funds. Past that time, HP will cut a check for any remaining balance not withdrawn above the minimum check amount required by the bank."
I have not purposely included or excluded any site in today's article. It is our goal at Card Player to keep our loyal readers well informed and we will surely pass along any news as soon as Card Player receives it. I invite players and site owners alike to write allyn@cardplayer.com with information pertaining to the status of any online poker site.
Card Player is also working with several sites to provide deposit bonuses to our readers. Click on the following names to receive bonuses: UltimateBet, Bodog, Absolute, and Full Tilt.
12 Comments
jmgvl
over 3 years ago
Nice Freudian slip -- "Who's in and ho's Out?"
omegam
over 3 years ago
Pacific Poker or 888.com is no longer available for US customers. All monies are being cashed out and returned to US customers
mkersche
over 3 years ago
I'm still playing on Pacific Poker and am currently not able to deposit any money. However it is my understanding that they are working on that. Also I have been told by Noble Poker to leave.
Spuncken
over 3 years ago
Why are so many players blaming the sites? Should you not blame the government you yourselves voted? Just vote for sanity next time instead of repuplican.
dbronson
over 3 years ago
I blame the sites, because they did not act. They have the big dollars and could have hired lobbyists to kill bill.
also
Royal Vegas is only blocked to players from certain states, not all USA players.
sheA_K47
over 3 years ago
I just received an Email from pokerroom.com stating that they will be shutting out US customers on November 6. I am a mac user, so it looks like it will be full tilt for me.
viva la fult tilt!
sp8815
over 3 years ago
I can't believe the # of sites that decided to shut down the ones that stick it out will make a killing, greater than they had before, I personally played at pokerroom and have moved my $$$ to pokerstars b/c it seems as if they won't give in to this pressure. As has been said before the bill does not restrict "playing" poker but merely money transfers from US domiciled banks. I would imagine this is opening a very large opportunity for an entrepreneur to set up an off shore bank, not difficult in places like Turks & Caicos and serve as a middleman as long as poker and other funds are commingled I believe this law would have a lot of trouble reaching such an entity.
pokerfreaky
over 3 years ago
I believe that much of the onus falls on the poker sites to help fight for U.S. rights to continue playing on-line poker. The poker sites make huge sums of money, and they should fight for the right to continue to make that money. The poker sites should be lobbying their own governments to put pressure on the U.S. It's incredulous to think that these poker sites want to make hundreds of millions of dollars without fighting for the right to do so.
There are a few sites out there who are willing to fight for our right to play on-line poker, and I feel that they should enjoy our support. I feel betrayed by my poker site. I have been faithful to them for many years, I won a seat to the WSOP at their site, paid countless $$$ in rake and tourney entrance fees, and now they're shutting me out!?! They won't even respond to my e-mails. Their customer support is either off-line, or they don't feel the need to respond to U.S. customers because we'll be banned next week. I am talking of Paradise Poker. They plan to shut out all U.S. players by the 13th of Nov.
Hopefully, this "LAW" will not live long, and upon its death, I will pop open a bottle of bubbly, turn on my computer, un-install Paradise Poker, log onto one of the few sites who are fighting for U.S. rights to play on-line poker, and forever boycott the sites who cut us off!!!
I think that you, at cardplayer magazine, should keep track of the sites willing to continue servicing the U.S. so that we can endorse them once this "LAW" dies.
I call upon ALL AMERICANS to forever boycott the spineless sites who refused to spend some of the money they got from us to fight for our right to continue to give them money!!!
Studley1723
over 3 years ago
Why is WPX not mentioned? Rake free poker is the future of poker - I hope.
Studley
maxima191
over 3 years ago
Full-TiltPoker has always been there for it's players-FULL-TILTPOKER RULES
Richenough
over 3 years ago
These sites that are closing down have been many; The first site i was denied from was gus hansen's site - pokerchamps, others went like wildfire -pokerheaven, pokerroom, paradisepoker, noblepoker, and soon to be others i heard. I hope doylesroom & fulltilt stays.
Sickofitall
over 2 years ago
Is this even for real? We our stuck in a war we get get ourselvs out of but we find the time and energy to pick on poker? Nice kobs to our genious wrold leaders LOL