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Archive for October, 2011

Carbon back in USA

In an interesting move in online gambling, Carbon Poker just announced that they are welcoming American players again. This new development occurs exactly six months after the US Government started to indict online gaming operators believed to be breaking online gambling laws while offering real money poker games to US based players.

Five operators were banned at the time (pokerstars, full tilt poker, absolute poker, UB Poker and Doyle’s Room), but smaller ones such as Carbon Poker were not accused of any wrong doing. One question is why.

Is it because the DOJ chose to focus on the bigger players and did not build a case against Carbon? Is it because Carbon Poker did not break the law (this seems hard to believe as the law practically forbids any form of gambling related fund transfer through the banking system). Or is it because they cannot at this time find any evidence proving their point (as the April indictment were possible thanks to an insider’s revelations).

Is it hard to tell, but if Carbon Poker has decided to come back, they must strongly believe that it is safe for them. Anyway this is a great news for American online poker players who now have one more option to play their favorite card game on the Web.

Unfortunately all current poker rooms participating in the US market are rather small, compared to the rooms that were shut down such as Pokerstars. These rooms offer good micro-limit or low-limit games, but high stake games have totally disappeared in America as well as large tournaments. So all pros for the most part cannot do much at this time, and their only choice if they want to continue their profession is to move to another country. And some do, to Canada, Costa Rica or Europe.

When will US online poker get finally properly regulated, that is the one million dollar question. And it is not expected to be happening until next year or maybe 2012. Congress should move a bit faster as the major benefit of such a new law would be to raise well needed taxes in a time of double dip recession. This will also create new jobs. So if France or Italy can regulate their own online gambling markets, it is time for the USA to do the same, is it not?

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Saturday, October 15th, 2011 online gambling Comments Off on Carbon back in USA