Another victim of the United States’ iGaming attack as PowerPoker announces that it’s now shutting out all new U.S. players.
“Due to recent movements by the U.S. government concerning online poker, PowerPoker is no longer accepting new U.S. players,” the company announced in an email received late last night.
That message went on to explain that PowerPoker.com had “decided to pull out of the U.S. market fully and indefinitely,” specifically citing the “Black Friday” shut-down of major online poker sites as the cause.
Existing U.S. accounts “will remain accessible as normal,” site reps stated, while asking affiliates to “kindly amend the PowerPoker review on your website to coordinate with this announcement.”
The big picture
This change in policy could pose a significant setback for the site. Although positioned largely to appeal to European players, the site does also market to Americans. But most of the site’s marketing is European-centric, largely centered on Finnish poker pro Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies.
PowerPoker is also available to poker players in the UK, Israel, Germany, The Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, and Spain.
Piece of Cake
PowerPoker runs on the Cake Network, which, so far, has issued no network-wide policies regarding the U.S. market.
Globally, the Cake Network ranks only at #25 on PokerScout’s listing of poker sites by number of players. But in the U.S. market, the Cake Network is #3 on that list, with around a thousand players logged on during its peak periods. Other Cake Network sites include BetUS, Cake Poker, and Only Poker.