On Friday April 15, 2011 has already passed into the history of the Internet gambling industry, and especially the online poker Poker the nickname of Black Friday; Black Friday Poker.
PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker Absolute Poker and closed its U.S. operations due to charges brought by the Court of the Southern District of New York against the main leaders of the three poker rooms for violating the UIGEA the law prohibiting online gambling in the country. Those who have
poker arrived after 2006 may not may know the genesis of all this history and the UIGEA you are nothing more than an acronym indecipherable. Try to summarize, as far as possible, the sequence of events that have led the the biggest tsunami ever recorded in online poker.
On September 30, 2006, the U.S. Congress, then controlled by Republicans, approved the SAFE Port Act (Security and Accountability For Every Port Act) a law on port security in the country that, at the last minute and Part VIII included UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) or Act Unlawful Internet sports betting. On 13 October, President George W. Bush ratified by signing the law, which came into force automatically forbidding citizens to participate in gambling over the Internet .
In recent days, in Spain we are turns to pass the law that regulates game once and for all the sector after all this time surfing the "lawlessness." The difference with America is that there yeah there was a law about it and was, in principle, crystal clear. Beyond right or wrong of it (that's another story) U.S. citizens could not play online poker for real money, on pain of violation of the UIGEA.
A few days after the passage of the UIGEA, Party Poker closed access to U.S. players. Must be taken into account to understand the depth of the decision at that time, Party Poker was the room number of the world in terms of players.
After PartyGaming were other companies like bwin or Cassava Enterprises (Pacific/888poker) which decided to abandon the U.S. market, while PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, UltimateBet and Bodog decided not to close their services to their customers in States reads as the law, they committed no crime. This decision caused a "new world order " in the field and pulled himself to PokerStars and Full Tilt to international leadership in online poker.
Since then, the discourse of the companies that once dropped in U.S. market has been that PokerStars, Full Tilt and the rest of the remaining offering their services to Americans have been practicing unfair competition and breach of the law. So now we know, and by the news that from time to time, arose from the U.S. to respect the country's authorities were quite clear, the rooms were breaking the law and was concerned time that something like this happen.
An extremely complex case so requires a thorough testing and the Philosopher's Stone of the matter seems to have Name: Daniel Tzvetkoff , the individual allegedly responsible for weaving the fiscal framework and business facilities allowed to operate these funds Americans, and finally had cooperated with the authorities, denouncing his former clients, to avoid or reduce his sentence.
Now what?
Venture with hypotheses about what will happen now with these rooms, with deposits of U.S. players or the market, both in this country the rest of the world, is an exercise in futurology absolutely unpredictable.
At first, the deposits of non-US players in the short term should be guaranteed, as the legal problems of these companies are limited to the United States, but the financial future of businesses will depend largely on its exposure to that market (much higher that of Full Tilt and PokerStars that large in the case of Absolute Poker), the possible penalties they might face after the resolution of the case and the possibility that this episode prevent them from getting a license future regulated market.
Still, the risk that a flood of cash-outs before the general panic could bring more problems to the rooms but for the time and as appropriate to find Poker-network users who comment on the news front and forum, withdrawals for Americans are still not processed. Therefore, called for calm and a reminder of the first council in economic management, "Do not put all your eggs in one basket."
What is clear is that U.S. players will not be able to play online poker in the near future and this really is an important event that will have major consequences throughout the industry and its future in the medium and long term.
Por lo demás, solo nos queda esperar a ver cómo se desarrollan los acontecimientos en las próximas fechas, pero como diría Bob Dylan, y haciendo un balance general de lo que está ocurriendo en las últimas fechas parece que los tiempos están cambiando .
