News

Tuesday, 10 May 2011 00:41

The final group of Microgaming powered online casinos that were still taking bets in the US have finally pulled out amidst the latest poker site seizure.

Online casinos and poker sites that are powered by Microgaming software and are similarly grouped under its banner remained doing business in the United States for some time after the 2006 UIGEA law was passed. At that time, there were no offshore online gambling operators being hounded and it was business as usual for the online sites. The companies all knew that their days were numbered in that market and slowly, one by one they parted company with their US customers.

In 2008, when the state of Kentucky took it upon itself to declare war on online gambling and seized around 20 online casino domains, Microgaming saw the writing on the wall and officially withdrew its business from the US market. While many of their affiliated casino sites closed their virtual doors to US customers, not all of them ceased doing business there. Some hedged their bets and only withdrew from the states that had explicitly made online gambling illegal. In the states where it was still a grey area, they stopped accepting new US customers but continued to allow existing US customers living in those states to place bets.

However, with the latest federal crackdown on three of the most prominent and high profile poker websites, those Microgaming casinos remaining in business have taken a step back to rethink their position. In fact, there is a growing spread of messages appearing in forums from affiliates and players alike that all Microgaming online casinos are closing up shop in the US.

The closures include online casinos from the Fortune Lounge group which include such popular casinos as Royal Vegas, Platinum Play, 7 Sultans and Vegas Palms. It also includes those from the Jackpot Factory casino group which includes All Slots and All Jackpots as well as many other well known names in the industry.

Their departure from the American online gambling market will be sure to create a wide gap that could be filled by online casinos run by other operators. It may include those from the software company, Vegas Technology or perhaps Real Time Gaming.

There is no certainty to who will step in to fill the void. It could be that ever more of the respectable online casino operators become reluctant to continue doing any business in the US for fear that they might be next on the hit list of Federal prosecutors. This will leave the door open for less reputable operators to step in and take the rich spoils, which is bad news for players as they will have less protection and be more vulnerable than ever.