Online Poker in the US Still Thriving
For the last 10 years, the enjoyment of Texas Holdem and poker in general has grown exponentially in the United States. This can be largely attributed to the availability of online poker websites and television networks such as ESPN broadcasting the annual World Series of Poker. Millions of Americans have gotten involved with online poker.
The legality of American poker online was ambiguous. But on September 29, 2006, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) was passed. This law made it illegal for online poker destinations to transact with US banks. During this time, PartyPoker was by far the #1 poker website. However, on October 2, 2006 PartyPoker announced that it would back out of the US market.
Not every online site decided to shut down their American poker online. Two notable sites were PokerStars.com and Full Tilt Poker. Soon after the UIGEA was passed, PokerStars.com released a statement to their customers. They had come to a decision that they weren’t affected by this new law and that they were committed to their customers.
There has been a long argument in the poker community about whether poker is game of skill or a gambling game. Party Poker apparently decided it was a game of chance and so packed their bags and left the country. PokerStars felt that poker was a skill game, and therefore the law did not apply to them.
The result is that PokerStars is now the #1 online poker site in the world with several players making a poker deposit every day. At any given time, about a quarter million (250,000) people can be found playing poker on their site. This is a lot more than PartyPoker enjoyed when they were at their peak. Full Tilt Poker is also doing extremely well and averages about 100,000 people online at a time. It appears that even with the passage of the UIGEA, online poker continues to expand. Commercials advertising a PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker download can even be seen on TV.
Anyone interested in poker should try playing some poker hands at one of the many popular US friendly poker sites. A majority of the poker community still consider PokerStars.com and Full Tilt Poker to be the best US poker sites, though.
