2007 - Another Weird Year in Online Poker - 01-23-08

January 23 - I don't know what gave me more of the shits this past year - the mass withdrawal of so many poker sites from the US or the Absolute incompetence that Absolute Poker displayed when someone clearly cheated and did what can only  be referred to as a back alley mugging or worse on the beleaguered poker site.

Ok so I am finally getting time to sit on my hind parts and write this so don't for a moment think we here at Online Gambling Insider neglect the wondrous word of online poker! No sirree. We are all aspiring bracelet winners. Just you wait and see this is the year. Yours truly has every intention to burn up the real and virtual felt so beware!

What a roller coaster year it was thought. Here is my take on the events that really stood out in this past year. Scanning back over all the poker stories we wrote in 2007, these are the ones that really stood out.

Online Poker received a punch in the guts - you guess it, the effects are UIGEA are still being felt but the initial backlash was enormous. Following the spectacular arrest of Neteller's founders, the company locked up all US players funds leaving players and merchants stuck with millions of dollars being inaccessible. The effects were far reaching as many people used Neteller to transfer money, and even to draw regular cash from ATM's in the US. This was followed by a mass exodus of online poker rooms from the US, initially causing a lot of confusions and leaving thousands of players in the dark. Many rooms gave people a limited amount of time to cash out money and unfortunately there were a few unethical rooms who saw an opportunity to take the money and run. The vast majority of players managed to get their money though. Rumors started spreading like wild fire: people who had played poker were going to be arrested and have their assets frozen, all poker pros who endorsed poker rooms were going to be arrested and who knows what else. Fortunately they were largely untrue. A year on and there is some light at the end of the tunnel with some poker sites like Doylesroom.com returning ti the US, charges being dropped against certain poker sites executives, and a lot of upbeat talk about the reversal of the insane laws (which you have to be nuts to believe).

The Jamie Gold lawsuit dragged on - yeah that's right, he got sued for half of his 2006 winnings remember?  I recently watched a few episodes of High Stakes Poker and quickly remembered why he isn't the world's most popular poker player. The lawsuit was finally settled in February for an undisclosed sum and Jamie Gold outs it all done to a great big misunderstanding....yeah right.

Someone won the 2007 World Series of Poker Main Event in what must have been the most boring final table to date. Well played to Jerry Yang. At least the most deserving player won it. He played all the poker and won and seems like he ould do good things with some of his cash.

Someone tried to extort money from poker pro Phil Laak. Some dude claimed Laak was in business with his and put a price of $30,000 on this dude and his wife's heads.   I don't know Phil Laak but thee is rumor that Laak paid the shut the dude up. What else does Phil Laak hide under that hood of his?

The rise and rise of Full Tilt Poker and Pokerstars.com. UIGEA has been good to some. There two poker rooms keep on breaking the records for poker traffic. The tournament prizes are getting larger and its pretty easy these days to find the game you want no matter what your time zone. Stars recently broke the record for the most plays online at any one time - over 30K.

Layla Kayleigh became the new host of the WPT. Do yourself a favor, watch the WPT.

Will the democrats miraculously abolish the dreaded UIGEA? Will Barney Frank push a new regulation bill through Senate? Will a recognized pro win the WSOP? Will I make it to the WSOP? Who knows, but 2008 is bound to be even better than 2007.

Last but not least, hats off to all the people working tirelessly to lobby on behalf of online poker and gambling in general. We will continue to support and meaningful initiatives.