Black Friday – Two Year Anniversary In The Online Poker World

Black Friday – Two Year Anniversary In The Online Poker World April 16, 2013 April 16, 2013 Tim Glocks https://www.poker-online.com/author/tim
Posted on  Apr 16, 2013 | Updated on  Apr 16, 2013 by Tim Glocks

Black FridayThe 15th of April, made it officially two years since the United States made online poker illegal. Before the ban, online poker and other online gambling activities was legal and a thriving business in the nation. A number of college kids as well as middle age men and women, played online poker and some of them became multi-millionaires.

However, all that was taken away from them two years ago, when the US Justice Department shut down the entire gambling industry. Three of the top poker sites were raised by the US Justice Department and they were completely shut down in the country. Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars and Absolute Poker were ordered to stop their operations and five domain names along with seventy six bank accounts spread across 14 countries were seized.

Since then, the online poker scene in the United States has been relatively low key. A large number of poker enthusiasts have actually left the country and settled down in countries like Panama, Thailand and Mexico where online poker is still legal. The online poker community in the country are doing their best to launch campaigns and push for it to be legal again.

In a statement, John Pappas, director of the Poker Players Alliance said

April 15, 2011 was truly a dark day for Internet poker that reverberated throughout the entire poker world. But, over the succeeding two years, the poker community has been taking back what was snatched away… To use a poker phrase, there is a full house of activity on the legislative front.

The last couple of months, there has been a considerable push at the state level for online gambling to get back its legal status. Recently, the states of New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware confirmed that they had legalized online poker at the state level. If the momentum continues, it will not be long before other states like New York, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania also follow suit.

Popular Poker Player Chris Moneymaker and the first ever world poker champion recently posted on his twitter account “Driving to gym and hear 3 lottery commercials but online poker illegal!” A number of Poker forums and online poker communities are encouraging players to come together and show their support in order to make a bigger impact and show their respective states that there is strong support to make online gambling a legal activity
once again.

Tim GlocksAuthor

Tim Glocks is a retired professor, he currently contributes to Poker-Online.com. Tim enjoys playing poker and has taken it up as a hobby since his retirement. He has taken part in many online tournaments and has become a veteran in a short space of time. Visit Tim’s google + page here