At the end of September of 2006, Affiliates Marketing of Major Online Poker Companies took a dramatic turn for the worse as a bill to support the War on Terrorism was passed. Literally, millions of dollars came to a screeching halt as all the major Online Poker Companies - Party Poker, Paradise Poker, Titan Poker etc - began to pull out of the US Market.
Just as reminder, the law that was passed affected mainly financial institutions that conducted businesses with offshore gaming companies. The US government has been trying for years to get a piece of the billion dollar online gaming pie. Since they can’t tax these companies because most of these companies are offshore - england, the caribbeans - they have been trying to pass any law that can shut these companies down to stop the flow of millions of dollars leaving the country. So, if you can’t stop the trucks of cash leaving the country, then go and control the gas stations (banks) fueling the trucks. Companies like NetTeller has been hit the hardest as their founders have been arrested, leading to the complete withdrawal of their services to US Customers.
Of course, NetTeller was one of the first to go down in these “raids” as it was the largest provider of transactions between US Players and the Offshore Companies. As it has been almost 6 months since the law was passed, most of the gaming companies have discovered ways to still let US players play online poker. Companies like Sportsbook.com, UltimateBet.com and Bodog.com are slowly making a comeback using innovative ways of transferring money to allow US players to enjoy the fastest growing online game worldwide. If you were a US Party Poker or Paradise Poker, it’s going to be a long time until you can play on those sites as they are based in England and since Tony Blair and George Bush are best buddies, the two countries have an agreement to allow the United States to extradite anybody from England who violates US Laws. (Isn’t it amazing how fast England has lost all respect for itself?)
So now that the industry is beginning to heal, it is time for the Affiliates to get back to work and start pumping US players back to these gaming sites. The past few years have seen some of the most lucrative affiliate programs in the history of the internet and now that this little bump in the road has passed, it’s time for Affiliates to resume their normal money making sites. I truly believe that there is no way the US government really wants to shut down all of Online Poker, but instead they want to regulate it like they have with horse racing to make sure they get some piece of the action. At the end of the day, past the illusions of fighting the War on Terror and immoralities of gambling, is that it is about the bottom dollar and who gets a piece of it.
Bookmark at:StumbleUpon | Digg | Del.icio.us | Dzone | Newsvine | Spurl | Reddit | Yahoo! MyWeb
Popularity: 11% [?]
- Yahoo Getting Desparate: Launches Online Poker Rooms
- The Future of Videos in Google SERPs
- Blog Review - TylerCruz.com
- Free iPhone Contest and MIA update
- Marketing Tips from Watching John Chow
The Feds are going to shut down FullTilt and Bodog and Stars and everyone else. Then and only then maybe the new US Federal Online Gaming Licenses will be made available to US based (taxable) corporations.
Why is this so unclear to everyone?
Great post. I agree that I think things are about to turn for the positive. As long as the public wants to play they WILL find a way.