BACK IN THE mid-???noughties??™, online poker??™s rocketing appeal seemed unstoppable. Everyone from inveterate gamblers to betting virgins were logging- on in their droves to go mano-a-mano across the virtual felt. Suddenly, this old cowboy card game had become an office ???water cooler conversation??™, and gaming operators scrambled for a piece of the big juicy poker pie. A gold rush had arrived.
Of course, any boom is usually superseded by a bust. Whilst opinion is divided as to whether online poker is on a downward trajectory or merely stalling on a plateau, the fact remains that 2011 could be classed as the game??™s annus horribilis.
Mitigating factors
The harbinger of impending doom was April??™s ???Black Friday??™, which saw the US Department of Justice (DoJ) seize the domains of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker - the three largest US- facing sites - under the Unlawful Internet Gambling and Enforcement Act (UIGEA). Soon after followed the shock collapse of Full Tilt,...[more]
