It's barely even been in the news here in the UK, but Friday 15th April 2011 will forever be known as 'Black Friday' in the short history of online poker. For those who aren't in the know, last Friday the US Department of Justice and the FBI released a press statement indicting the executives at 3 of the biggest online sites - PokerStars, Full Tilt and Absolute Poker/UB, for illegal gambling, bank fraud and money laundering.
Along with many of my poker friends that I've talked to over the past few days, my initial thoughts were that this was some kind of practical joke. But then I saw the twitter feeds from top pros and respected names in the poker world, alongside the many many threads on twoplustwo forum, and reports from Reuters confirming the news, but it still didn't feel real, and I'll explain why.
Since December of last year, lobbyists in the US have been trying to get online poker legalised and regulated. As recent as last month, the announcements of Wynn Resorts partnership with PokerStars, and Station Casinos partnership with Full Tilt were viewed as significant positive steps towards legalisation. Now both Wynn and Station Casinos have terminated these agreements. US players are now banned from playing at PS, FT and Absolute. So you can see why I was so optimistic that the poker economy would improve over the next few years. There was no forewarning of this event. It just happened.
Even just the day before, I met up with many of my former work colleagues, and was telling them that I was doing well this year, after getting Supernova Elite last year. My focus this year was getting SNE again, and improving my game so I can crush the tables. Now all of that is doubt - I don't even know if I'm gonna be able to continue playing on PokerStars in the weeks to come, nevermind getting Elite again, or going to play in the WSOP Main Event in Vegas in July. Funny how one day things can be going good, and then the next day everything is thrown into doubt.
So what now? Well, as of Friday I started trying to cashout my bankroll from Stars - there was no official response from their reps until Saturday, so I assumed the worst and acted how most people would - cashing out my bankroll. So far I've had one withdrawal approved, and one is pending, leaving me with a small amount to continue to grind in the meantime. Whilst I don't keep a massive amount online, I certainly can't afford to lose that amount. Such is the trust that I placed in PokerStars, I'd have said pre-Friday that the money was safer there than in any UK high street bank account.
I'm also so close to releasing 6.6k of bonuses so for the time being I'm continuing to play poker whilst I can, and I need to get a minimum of 50k vpps this month to keep my current SNE status. Whether I'll be able to continue on as a poker pro for the remainder of this year in light of recent events, its out of my control for now. All I do know is that the immediate future for online poker is at best, uncertain.
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