News

Monday, 07 February 2011 01:48

Online Poker Rooms are becoming as scarce as hens teeth in Washington State. Now two more have left and more are set to follow.

Part of running a successful business is in knowing where your strengths lie as well as where the weaknesses are. When you're succeeding, it's natural to promote the areas that are doing well. But when something goes wrong, it pays to admit that you're beat and move on to fresh pastures to lick your wounds and bounce back in a more suitable arena. This is the problem facing many online poker rooms that were once welcome in Washington State. Since the laws were tightened up in that state to mean that anyone caught playing poker online could be charged with a Felony C Criminal Offence, the big poker operators started leaving town like rats deserting the sinking ship. Along with them, it seems many professional poker players are also looking to jump ship and move on to pastures green.

First to go were Poker Stars, leaving behind them many thousands of players to change allegiance and find a new online poker room in which to play. Unfortunately, the next biggest poker room in the State to whom many flocked, Full Tilt, left soon after. There was one concession in that any Full Tilt player who had an address outside of Washington State could continue playing. The writing was already on the wall for online poker players. Now those two online poker giants have been followed by VIP Sports and fellow poker room website Matchbook.com who have similarly closed down operations in that state.

In an email to all matchbook customers that thanked them for their patronage, they were advised that they should no longer make deposits to their accounts as transactions would no longer be processed for residents of Washington State.

There have been attempts in Washington State at overturning this unpopular gambling law, but all have come to no avail. In 2010, the decision made by the Supreme Court was that the gambling law was not in violation of the constitution by allowing for the severity of a Felony C criminal offence. That more or less destroyed any hope of further attempts to have the law changed.

Now it seems that all remaining online poker rooms will leave the state pending a change in the law, which seems unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. This will certainly leave professional poker players with the dilemma of upping sticks and moving to a different state so that they can keep playing. I hear that New Jersey might be a nice place to set up home…