Hold Em Authority - Texas Hold Em Strategy and advice for all levels of players

The 2006 Unlawful Internet Gambling Act had a profound impact on online poker and online gambling as a whole. A majority of the online poker rooms no longer accept US players, and credit card companies, along with several e-wallets including the popular NETeller have ceased to accept American transactions related to gambling and consequently online poker.

A very important note is that the UIGEA does not explicitly target individual poker players in any way. The primary motive is to attack the payment methods used to fund online gambling. This has been somewhat successful, considering the number of poker rooms that are now closed to Americans. Not all have been scared into rejecting their U.S customers, however.

There are also several alternative deposit options available to US players. Most of them are e-wallets that work like NETeller: ePassporte, eWalletXpress and MyWebATM still accept business from the U.S. There are also a few slightly more inventive methods, one of them being NUcharge, which is actually a long-distance phone card.

Obviously, the UIEGA has upset a great many people, and even besides poker players a vast majority of Americans disapprove of the new restrictions. In addition, the European Union has accused the US of protectionism, based on the fact that there are huge economic interests in the land based casinos in the United States, and the WTO has deemed the restrictions on online gambling illegal.

One of the groups working towards a healthier poker climate in the U.S is The Poker Players Alliance; an American nonprofit organization, which now has more than half a million members. The PPA is actually working towards regulating online poker in the United States and establishing poker as a game of skill. This will improve the status of the game and establish Texas Holdem Strategy as a factor to be considered.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 10th, 2007 at 11:36 pm and is filed under Poker News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.