Yorky Pud

A full week has now passed since the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the American Department of Justice (DoJ) indicted PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker on a number of charges relating to the violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) of 2006.

When the UIGEA was passed in the United States of America the vast majority of online poker sites, Betfair Poker included, immediately stopped offering their services to American customers and are therefore not caught up in this latest development. The main effect we have seen since the indictments is that the three sites in question have now stopped allowing American citizens playing for real money.

At one point the FBI and DoJ had seized the “.com” domain names of each of the sites and 75 bank accounts associated with them, which prevented American-based poker players from gaining access to their funds and made it impossible to withdraw them. Thankfully this has since been resolved and American players can now withdraw their money. This scenario would never happen on Betfair Poker as 100% of funds are ring-fenced from operational funds making it one of the more safe online poker sites.

It is not only American poker players who are suffering but the upcoming World Series of Poker will almost certainly see a massive reduction in numbers for all their events, particularly the show-piece $10,000 No Limit Hold'em World Championship, better known as the Main Event. Last year's bumper field of 7,319 was made up of more than 2,000 satellite winners from the three sites under investigation and although they will send send a large number of players from other parts of the world the number will be drastically reduced.

Also, there has already been some fallout to do with televised poker, with a number of broadcasting companies distancing themselves from the likes of PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. ESPN have confirmed they will be covering the 2011 WSOP but I have a feeling there will be strict rules on logos being on display if a player is representing one of the three sites especially as ESPN have already dropped their coverage of the PokerStars sponsored North American Poker Tour (NAPT) and removed all material that could be linked to the three sites from their advertising and their website. If television companies decide they will not allow PokerStars and Full Tilt logos to be worn then I am sure these sites will be reluctant to buy their sponsored pros into the larger buy-in events such as the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship because they will receive no airtime, which is what the sponsorships are generally all about.

You also have to take into consideration that although PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have agreed a deal with the DoJ to release player funds they are currently struggling to process the sheer number of withdrawals, especially as payment processors are also distancing themselves from the organisations. This could mean that many of the American online grinders who planned to play at the World Series of Poker will not be able to as their available funds are currently tied up. Add to the fact that all the publicity is bound to both confuse and scare off a number of amateur players from playing and that even European players will not be able to access these sites whilst they are in Las Vegas and it points towards much smaller fields.

My own personal prediction is that we will see the smallest Main Event field since 2004 when Greg Raymer bested a field of 2,576 to scoop the $5,000,000 first prize. The following 5,619 players turned out, which is the lowest in the past six years so I would expect a number somewhere in the middle of these two, probably around 4,800 or so. This still makes for a massive amount of money to play for and a poker player's best bet to win the “Big Dance” in recent years.

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