Home / Poker News January 2012 / The Poker Grapevine – Pokerroom.com Back in Business
The Poker Grapevine – Pokerroom.com Back in Business
Posted by: Mark Baldwing - Sun, 2012-01-08 10:28
All veteran online poker players remember Pokerroom.com with nostalgia. The site, which had been a mainstay of the online poker landscape, went under about 3 years ago. It has apparently been revived now though by the Ongame network, which re-launched the site on Thursday. Pokerroom.com will offer real money online poker to players outside the US.
The statement released by the Ongame network following the re-launch of Pokerroom.com took aim at Pokerroom.com’s old players, scores of whom may indeed sign up with the new site out of nostalgia.
The original Pokerroom.com opened in 1999 and it managed to take full advantage of the online poker boom of 2004, before being forced off the map by the 2006 UIGEA. The site closed in 2009, but it was part of the merger deal between
PartyPoker and bwin.
In other news: California Governor Jerry Brown said that while he did see tax revenue potential in legal intrastate online poker, he was highly skeptical of how much funds such a deal would bring to the state coffers. A budget deficit of about $9 billion looms for the Golden State, but legal intra state poker is only projected to generate about $1.4 billion in state revenues over 10 years. This doesn’t mean online poker is not a viable tax source. All it means is that California’s financial woes are truly humongous indeed.
In still other news: while most of the Nevada brick and mortar operations have thrown their support behind legal online poker, there are a few holdouts who refuse to embrace progress. Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson has made his position clear in the matter a while ago. He was now joined by M Resort President, Anthony Marnell III, who said a couple of days ago that he too opposed online poker on account of the inability of the operators to keep minors away from the tables. According to experts, Marnell’s real concern is that his company has fallen behind its competitors which have already secured online partnerships.
