![Online poker site shut down download Online poker site shut down download](/uploads/1/2/5/1/125158182/859740966.png)
Apr 24, 2011 Online poker sites shut down by FBI This article is more than 8 years old. US attorney charges poker firms' executives with 'profiting from illegal gambling', but action is. Global Poker is a new and innovative way to play poker online. Through our patented sweepstakes model, we give you the opportunity to win real prizes across a variety of great poker games. Defunct Poker Sites - Find out which online poker rooms have closed or been shut down. Discover the reasons for their downfall and the stories behind them.
If you’re trying to find an online poker site to join, this is the page for you. We’ve compiled a list of the best cardrooms on the Internet, ranked them, and listed them here. These are the websites we recommend when our personal friends or family members ask us where they should play poker games on the Web.
When choosing which cardrooms qualify as the “best online poker sites”, we paid particular attention to safety and trust. How the player interface works, the games available, and the level of competition also played a role in our rankings.
Rank | Gambling Site | Deposit Bonus | Get Started | |
#1 | 200% Up To €750 | Visit Site | ||
#2 | 888poker | 100% Up To €400 | Visit Site |
Of course, you shouldn’t just blindly follow recommendations from strangers online, either. Here’s some background about us:
- We have a combined 20+ years’ experience with online gambling.
- All of us play Texas holdem and other poker games.
- We have experience on both sides of the business, as both players and as marketers.
A Quick Online Poker History Lesson and How It Affects U.S. Players
The online poker boom was fun while it lasted, but the legal implications caused significant changes in where you can play from the United States. At one time, Party Poker was the #1 choice in the USA, but they left the market in 2006 to focus on international poker.
PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute Poker, and Ultimate Bet wasted no time trying to fill Party’s shoes. They were all forced to leave the U.S. market, too, in 2011. Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet both shut down completely. PokerStars acquired Full Tilt Poker and renewed their commitment to poker throughout the world, sans the United States.
What’s left for real money online Texas holdem players in the USA?
That’s what the rest of this page covers.
Choosing the Right Online Poker Site
You want to choose an online poker site that’s going to provide you with a great customer experience. How do we define that in terms of Internet poker?
- A great customer experience means being able to play the poker games you want. This includes more than just Texas holdem for many players.
- A great customer experience means being able to deposit and withdraw your funds quickly and easily. The sites we list have been vetted for customer-friendly banking options.
- A great customer experience means being able to enjoy the interface. Clunky, outdated software won’t do.
Even though a lot of poker sites have left the United States market, you’ll still find a bewildering number of choices. That’s why we’ve put together this comprehensive guide to your options. We’re confident you’ll be satisfied with almost every aspect of the player experience at all the sites we’ve listed.
Top Online Poker Sites by Category
Different poker players have different needs. If you’re looking for a 5-card stud game, an online cardroom which only offers Texas holdem and Omaha is a bad choice — even if it scores well among all our other criteria. When you’re shopping around, keep in mind what preferences you have.
In fact, we recommend putting together a list of what you’re looking for from a poker room.
- Are you just looking for low-stakes Texas holdem games?
- Do you want to play in a lot of freerolls?
- Are you a sit-n-go specialist?
- Do you also want to be able to bet on sports or play casino games some of the time?
- Are you going to be playing primarily from a mobile device?
Here are some of the categories we use when ranking online poker sites:
Once again demonstrating the need in the States of America for regulated online gaming and poker if not in the international industry, the online poker site PKR Poker seems to have shut their doors in citing “financial difficulties” as the reason for the shutdown.
Over the past week, there has been some precursors of what would happen over the weekend. On Wednesday last week, the site shut down for what was said to be “regular maintenance” for PKR. That “regular maintenance” stretched out to a full day before the error message was changed to indicate that there were financial issues with PKR that required the shutdown of the site. The problem with this is that, with the site shut down, there was no way for players to access their accounts nor withdraw any money that they had.
If that wasn’t reason to panic, the network supporting PKR’s withdrawal of service sent everyone into a frenzy. The Microgaming Network, who hosted PKR since March of last year, shut down their support of the site, leading to another ominous statement from PKR themselves. According to a statement from PKR, the companies’ corporate entities, PKR Limited and PKR Technologies, had filed “applications” (could be read as bankruptcy proceedings) with the Court for Administrative Orders in the United Kingdom. That hearing is supposed to be heard today.
With the courts getting involved, Microgaming removing their support (the company has stated that PKR held their players’ money, not the network), and the dribble of statements from the site, it doesn’t look good for players who had any sort of funds on the site. For those affiliates who were making some coin from sending players to play at PKR, they have been informed to remove any banner ads or other advertising links from their sites and, as with the players, any monies they are owed could be gone.
The shutdown of PKR is an excellent demonstration of why there needs to be stronger regulation of the online gaming industry worldwide. PKR is simply the latest site – joining such sites as Lock Poker, Ultimate Bet, Absolute Poker, and others – that has shut down operations and left players in the lurch. The supposed “governance” bodies that look over and license the sites – the various Caribbean organizations, those on the Isle of Man and the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, which hosts many of the sites – have NEVER held the rooms responsible for their closure nor their failure to pay back players for the funds they had on the sites.
In the States of America, and in particular the states that have regulated and licensed online gaming and/or poker, there has been a recourse for the players. When Ultimate Gaming shut down – leaving players in Nevada (poker only) and New Jersey (online gaming/poker) with bankrolls on the site – there was a process established for those players to receive their monies FIRST, rather than the normal process of bankruptcy where the players would have been treated as creditors and may or may not have seen their money. To this date, Ultimate Gaming’s calm, orderly shutdown is the epitome of how to treat the customers when a gaming site goes under.
When it came out, PKR Poker was quite innovative in its approach. Advertised as the first 3D online poker site, that stylish delivery of the game never seemed to catch on with the online poker community. Although it has battled valiantly through the years, PKR could never mount up enough momentum to challenge partypoker at first and then PokerStars after its ascension to the #1 slot in the industry. At one time sporting a stable of sponsored professionals that included Sofia Lovgren (LONG ago) and Jake Cody, PKR hadn’t been that active in the poker sponsorship field over the past couple of years.
Online Poker Site Shut Down Online
Players who have funds on the site or other questions are encouraged to e-mail [email protected], but don’t expect an immediate reply, if one is forthcoming at all.