Online Poker Gambling - The Year That Was - 12-30-05

December 30 - 2005 marked the busiest and most lucrative year for the online poker gambling industry to date. The online poker industry was highlighted by huge corporate activity, new entrants and some very controversial stories...

Party Gaming without any doubt created the most news in the online poker industry. After a somewhat shaky start of its public debut, the online poker monster kicked into action. It first rejected an offer from Empire Online, its biggest "skin" to buy them out. A couple of weeks later, it announced that it was moving all its own players (90% of the network0 to an upgraded platform. The skins, including other high profile names like Coral Eurobet, were left out in the cold. But the saga continued, with Party making a much lower offer to Empire, which Empire now rejected, threatening to take Party to court. These threats were subsequently withdrawn, but this story is set to continue into 2006.

The second big newsmaker in the online poker industry was Ongame, the owners of Pokerroom.com. Poker Room showed significant growth this year, and in a move that shocked the industry last week, was sold to European betting giant, betandwin.com. This will probably leave some skins out in the cold, most notably Coral Eurobet, who will again be left in the dark after the Party Gaming fiasco.

Then onto yet another hair raising story. Excapsa software, which licenses Ultimatebet.com, granted a license to Pokershare.com, a very innovative poker concept. But after only two months, Excapsa pulled the plug on Pokershare.com, closing all of its US customer accounts. Pokershare spent a fortune on marketing, and their model was based on players receiving a "share" in the company. A mass exodus of Ultimate Bet players to Pokershare followed. Needless to say, Ultimate Bet was not amused, and after repeatedly  exerting pressure on Excapsa, Pokershare was no longer able to acquire North American customers. Now I am not here to judge, but what exactly was the agreement between Excapsa and Pokershare? How could a software license agreement allow this top happen? This is a classic case of the big guy calling the shots, and Excapsa buckled under the pressure from Ultimate Bet. Shocking.

Next, a couple of big names entered the p0oker madness. ESPN and Virgin both launched poker rooms that would not take real money play from US citizens.

"Texas Dolly", Doyle Brunson himself, launched an online poker room, Doylesroom.com. A consortium involving Doyle made a failed bid for the World Poker Tour, and are under investigation by the SEC.

Betfair Poker announced that is was to leave the Cryptologic network in the new year, and apparently have purchased Poker Champs, part owned by poker pro, Gus Hansen.

And finally, yours truly isn't losing as much player online poker any longer!

I hope the poker gods shine on you in 2006!

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