Paradise Poker Delivers Bad News to U.S.

At Paradise Poker, the other shoe has dropped. One of the mainstays of the online poker world, the company announced today that because the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act is expected to be signed by President Bush on Friday, October 13, it will stop accepting U.S. customers. All U.S. customers who currently have money at Paradise will still be able to cash out as normal and will actually still be allowed to play until November 13. No new deposits, however, will be accepted.

Additionally, U.S. players will not be able to make inter-account transfers or transfer money to the company’s sportsbook, Sportsbook.com.

While this is unfortunate, one can still appreciate the closing line from Paradise’s statement. "…[we] remain hopeful that the day will come when the U.S. will join much of the rest of the world in recognizing the sense behind regulating, rather than the prohibiting online poker."

The complete official statement from Paradise Poker is below.

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Unfortunately, on Friday October 13th President Bush is expected to sign into law the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006. The legislation is designed to restrict Americans from being able to fund their online poker accounts and in doing so to prevent Americans from participating in one of their national past times. Full details of the legislation can be found on pages 213-234 at the following link: http://www.rules.house.gov/109_2nd/text/hr4954cr/hr49543_portscr.pdf

Paradise Poker, as part of the SportingBet PLC group of companies, is publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange and is obligated to act in accordance with the new legislation. After much deliberation, our Legal Team has advised that in order to comply with the new legislation Paradise Poker will be required to stop accepting deposits from all US players. In addition we will no longer be able to offer US players the ability to transfer funds to each other using the ‘Send Money To Player’ function or to transfer funds to Sportsbook.com.

Please be assured that all US customers will continue to be able to access their accounts and submit cashout requests as normal. Although we will no longer be able to accept additional deposits, players will continue to be able to play at our real money tables with the funds they already have on deposit at Paradise until November 13th 2006. The only players that will not be able to continue playing at our real money tables are players located in one of the following states, where some form of online gambling legislation already exists:

• Utah
• Hawaii
• Michigan
• Indiana
• Oregon
• Nevada
• Washington
• Illinois
• Louisiana
• South Dakota

Please note that all players will no longer have access to our casino products or sports betting products. Any Paradise Poker players that have open bets at Sportsbook.com will have the bets cancelled and the funds, along with any other funds held at Sportsbook, transferred back to Paradise Poker. The funds will be transferred back to Paradise Poker within 12 hours.

We very much regret the unfortunate environment in the United States that has prompted us to take these steps. Should there be any positive changes regarding the legal landscape, we will certainly inform players immediately.
For those interested, we recommend visiting http://www.pokerplayersalliance.org/ , a group that has been organized to represent the rights and interests of American poker players.

We thank you very much for your patronage over the years and remain hopeful that the day will come when the U.S. will join much of the rest of the world in recognizing the sense behind regulating, rather than the prohibiting online poker.

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Originally published October 12, 2006