European Online Poker Operators Need to Prepare for US Market

The European online poker operators must be prepared to do business in the US market space should it open, perhaps as early as later in 2010.

This was the observation made by the bosses of PKR and PokerStrategy.com this week during an industry conference in London.

Despite its top-of-the-line graphics and name recognition, PKR Poker continues to lag among the bottom 20 online poker rooms in the world in terms of real cash players.  Last week they averaged just 860 players.  Compare that with PokerStars dominance and its average 28600 real cash players.

PKR chief executive Malcolm Graham agreed that European operators could not be expected to be "rewarded for their virtue" by complying with restrictions on taking US players under the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) 2006.

Graham said: "I agree [with Kofert]. If the US opens, the operators which stayed out of the market cannot be confident that PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker will be censured, and it is also not clear that those sites will be precluded from operating if the US opens. They will probably be asked to pay a fine, and be allowed to operate in the US. And as long as the playing field is level, PKR would be happy to go in and compete with them in that market."

Nearly all the European operators pulled out of the US market following passage of the UIGEA in October 2006.  The result was nearly cataclysmic for PartyGaming, which lost around 70 percent of its customer base.  That company was so massive that it still manages to hold the number 4 position in terms of "real cash" players.  Prior to October 2006, PartyGaming's customer base was twice that of PokerStars.

The US Treasury Department agreed to delay enforcement of the UIGEA until July 1, a story first reported by Gambling911.com two weeks ago.

Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com