November 2008 US Updates
November 30
8:12pm – Ultimatebet has begun blocking players from the state of Kentucky because of the domain seizures. No reports of their sister site, Absolutepoker, blocking players from Kentucky have been reported.
November 29
6:20pm – This week I’m letting J. Todd go over what happened in the weekly Perspectives Weekly video review. I’ve had the worst flu. The first 5 minutes is old stuff so just skip to about 5:00 for latest news. He talks about the UB/AP 60 minutes report coming out this Sunday about the cheating. Other than that it was a very slow news week, not much happened. Everyone must’ve been eating Turkey. 
On a side note, Bodog is reportedly having better deposit processing for US players because of new processors. More are expected to come….but that’s what everyone always says.
November 24
7:34 – According to Beanie (who used to work for UB back in the day) at alwaysbluff.com, the Absolutepoker and Ultimatebet merger onto the new software platform of Cereus is expected tomorrow. The combining of players will make it the 3rd largest US accepted poker network. You will be able to play at UB or AP just like before except you’ll be playing against each other. Im not too sure if there will be any major software changes but the Bad beat jackpot will definitely get high.
November 21
4:46am – J. Todd covers the Global Gaming Conference in Vegas and does some interviews with the AGA and the PPA about online gambling and also online poker in California. Here is the Perspectives Weekly video.
1:57am - According to a couple forum posts I read, the entire Cakenetwork sites are blocking players from Kentucky. I have a buddy that lives in Kentucky so I’ll have to call and confirm this tomorrow. Support at Cake sites are worthless, they don’t even know what Im talking about when I ask if players are allowed to play from Kentucky. If anyone out there is from Kentucky and plays at a skin and is having trouble feel free to email me, info@NOSPAMcompatiblepoker.com.
November 17
8:50 – Just taking a quick look at poker site traffic for the major rooms it looks like Pokerstars gained the most players because of the WSOP main event TV coverage. The week before the WSOP coverage and the week after they gained and are sustaining quite a large percentage of new players during their peak times, almost 15%. Other sites didn’t do all that much except for an expected increase the day of the event. Pokerstars is now about to hit 30,000 real money players at one time. According to pokerscout, Microgaming only dropped 4% in poker market value after not accepting US players. Not too suprising since their poker network was never that big….their casino side will be a different story.
November 14
2:27am – Yesterday several parties filed briefs for the Kentucky domain seizure. The Court of Appeals will review them on November 17. In addition these parties are also asking that the December 3 date be extended. This is the date domain name owners had to block players from Kentucky or have their domain permanently seized.
November 13
3:12am – Mr. Rose just finished up his legal review of the finalized law. Here it is titled, “The New Internet Gambling Regulations: Nothing Changes“. In brief, the main thing banks will have to do is add an additional coding function to credit card deposits made for gambling….which most sites work around now anyways.
2:01am – Mr. Rose should have the UIGEA interpreted article within 30 minutes. Also players from Kentucky are reporting that Cake Poker is IP banning them. This was verified by a screenshot. I’ve heard no reports of sites not on the 141 domain list, and on the Cake Network ISP blocking players from KY yet.
November 12
10:18pm – The finalized regulations have been released and are to be implemented 1 year from now, December 1, 2009. Because this legal jargon is over my head I am having Mr. Nelson Rose, Gambling Law Professor write up an article for us tonight. The regs are 66 pages and he is sifting through them as I write this but hopes to have the article finished tonight. Stay tuned….
3:02am - Gambling Law Professor, Mr. Nelson Rose from gamblingandthelaw.com will be drawing up an article for us once he gets to read the finalized regulations. So far he did say that the government insiders who have read it say, “there are no suprises”, probably meaning not much changed in the re-draft.
November 11
3:15pm – Well it’s officially offical. Doylesroom emailed affiliates this morning to let them know it was a move by Microgaming to stop accepting players….obviously, just not sure why someone didn’t officially say it sooner. Anyway, Doylesroom is seeking out a new platform to move to, likely Cakenetwork or the Merge Network.
November 10
6:14pm – So far the finalized regulations have not been issued nor has anyone commented on them who has read them (the PPA). Barney Frank is urging senior officials in the Bush admin. to not finalize the regulations until Obama becomes President of the US. He called them deeply flawed and wants the new administration to review them before finalization according to the Dow Jones Newswire.
5:57pm – I emailed my friend Greg who works for a site on the Cakenetwork, Cardspike.com as the affiliate managing director to see what Cake’s plans were regarding the Kentucky issue. He said the status hasn’t really changed and worse case scenario would be a domain name change, ie: newcakepoker.com for example. But because they already block players from Missouri and Washington it would not be unlikely they block players from Kentucky come go time.
5:39pm – Eurolinx, a popular poker site on the Microgaming Network issued a statement today saying they will discontinue the acceptance of US players. Once again stating market saturation and unprofitable situations. Existing players will still be allowed to play. Doylesroom is the only other major room on the Microgaming network not to make a comment, but rumors are that they will be switching networks to continue US acceptance from all US states.
November 7
6:00pm – Not much is being reported on about the finalization of the UIGEA regulations and the PPA meeting with the OMB. Pokernewsdaily wrote this article with some interesting quotes from Pappas of the PPA.
“The key date is to finalize the rules before November 19th. That way they go through the standard 60 day review process, after which they can be implemented.” The reason for the date of November 19th is that newly elected President Barack Obama will be inaugurated on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009, just outside of the 60 day review window. This means that he will not be able to intervene in this or any other regulations that are finalized before November 19th.
2:14am – Well that day has finally come after over two years passage of the UIGEA. The UIGEA regulations have been finalized to ban gambling transactions in the US. While the final regs have not been released they have been forwarded, by the Treasury, to the Office of Management and Budget to be reviewed and implemented. The PPA will be meeting with this office tomorrow to try and stop them. It will not be long until they are released. 
Maybe this is why we’ve seen so many Microgaming sites dropping out…
November 6
10:51pm – Playshare affiliated casinos on the Microgaming platform are the next to fall victim to leaving the US market. Again, they stated it was now unprofitable to market to US players and not that Microgaming was forcing them to do so. The only poker site under them was Pokershare.
11:49am – Two more large clients who have a large amount of casinos on the Microgaming Network have pulled out, Brightshare and Referback (still no major poker casualties). The only thing that resembles a reason for this was posted in the referback email which I mention below. A casino representative at casinomeister said Microgaming is not going to make players who reside in bordering states to Kentucky show proof of ID so it still seems each pullout is decided on an individual basis. It is kind of strange how the ones who are pulling out all gave a deadline for Monday.
“Recent experience has seen the USA becoming less and less profitable as market conditions have become ever tighter, to the point that continued activity in the USA has become decidedly unattractive…”
1:23am – According to rumors from casinoaffiliateprogams, gambling911, and casinocity, various Microgaming casinos and poker rooms will be pulling out of the United States completely. This includes poker rooms like Poker Time, and Royal Vegas Poker. There are quite a few casino clients that are on the Microgaming platform that are expected to leave the US as well. The two clients associated with Fortune Affiliates and Vegas Affiliates (casinos only) which use the Microgaming platform issued press releases saying that they will leave the US market November 10th. As of now it looks to be individual decisions because of financial reasons and not that of Microgaming making clients pull out. There is some panicking going on among gambling affiliates but I don’t think it’s necessary. Lots of Microgaming sites have barred US players and maybe this Kentucky issue just was the last straw for these sites. It doesn’t mean Microgaming has any intentions of pulling out of the United States.
November 5
5:12am – Well most online poker players should be somewhat happy that Obama will become the President of the United States, no matter who you voted for. Considering the soon to be Vice President has a son who used to lobby for Partygaming and Obama plays poker…it’s good in that sense.
November 2
3:45am – J. Todd focuses more on affiliate issues in this weeks Perspectives Weekly video.
