Written by Thomas | Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

The hits just keep on rolling in for online poker – and hell, internet gambling in general – lately…

After the recent news of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, Absolute and UB.com being shut down in the USA by the Department of Justice, it looks like another mega brand of sites is now pulling out of the market as well.

Due to the mounting pressure put on many online gambling companies, popular sportsbook and poker sites like Sportsbook.com, PlayersOnly and Superbook have made the decision to move out of the U.S. government’s crosshairs officially on May 1st, 2011.

Players are still more than welcome to still deposit on these sites, but just know they will be stop accepting NEW American customers as of May 1st.  Existing accounts made prior to then will still be allowed to play, deposit and withdrawal accordingly, it’s just that no new players will be accepted to any of these sites once May 1st comes around.

Sportsbook.com, which has been one of the world’s most trusted sportsbooks brands out there, had been thriving in the North American market for nearly a decade now.  In fact, their poker skin was probably one of the fishiest poker rooms to play at and was a favorite for small to mid-stakes grinders for a little over a year now since moving from the Cake Network.  The site also featured one of the best live dealer casinos out there, and had some of the highest clearance rates for credit card deposits anywhere.

The move will no doubt kill most of their gambling traffic for the foreseeable future, with PlayersOnly most likely to also feel a brunt impact from the decision to not accept USA players.  As most poker players already know, PlayersOnly was one of the rising stars of the smaller-network poker websites. With great low and mid-stakes games, as well as a sportsbook and casino attached, PlayersOnly always offered great promos and had a great player base that had been growing nicely for the past 2 to 3 years.

Overall, the decision for Sportsbook.com and PlayersOnly to kill off traffic from the United States was probably one that didn’t come with a grain of salt attached.  However, with the recent crackdown of the “Big 4” earlier this month, many gambling sites have been re-evaluating their stance on the US market.  In fact, within the last week, Rival Gaming announced they would be pulling all of their smaller white-label casinos out of the USA, leaving only their bigger and more established brands like SlotoCash and Box24 still in the mix.

 

 

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