The partial shutdown of online poker in the USA by the FBI and the Department of Justice last Friday has been labelled Black Friday. At the moment there are many rumours and opinions but nobody knows what the outcome will be.
For me, the worst-case scenario is that online poker remains in trouble in its American home. This destroys the world-wide poker boom, even in the many countries where it is explicitly legal, people find other ways to satisfy their card-playing desires, and Poker Copilot becomes irrelevant.
A better scenario is that the American authorities decide a popular activity like online poker can't be shut down. It will keep raising again, and the best approach is to regulate it.
I'll be following events closely in the coming weeks to decide the best course of action. Or inaction.
An event like this was high on my list of potential business threats. I made sure to save well so that I have a safety net.
Posts
3 comments:
I don't understand the issue for you. I thought most of your customers are outside the US anyway?
If so, the online gambling sites switch to different domains and life goes on.
Maybe a blog post on exactly why online gambling is really affected would be useful.
As things are Steve's business depends on FT, PS and the other having huge customer bases.
The problem with the legislation will be that it limit's everything to within a State so that the profit can be taxed. A similar site is already run in my province however they don't stop me from playing elseware yet. It has about 1000 players on a good night and no rakeback. I will move before I bother to play there.
If you potentially get 50-60 different sites software development will stop overnight because of the headache to develop. HEM and PT will cover some of the big ones but not everything.
The other thing is that I bet the ratio of players/HUD's is at least double for American's. It sounds like it was a pretty big hassle to get money on FT or PS for an American so the average person wasn't the one doing it, it was reg's who were.
Steve, If you are placing faith in the US Govt. to regulate, I suggest you find some other income avenues. The climate here today is very conservative, blocking most any fun/vice that comes their way. Our Govt. is in such a gridlock that nearly all legislation gets so hacked up by both sides that nothing is getting done. Canada is looking pretty good.
Post a Comment