Rants & Raves: It's The End Of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

There's an old saying, "Las Vegas is built on implosions." They tear down the old, and build something new. The Dunes was imploded, and the Bellagio was built in it's place. The Stardust was imploded, and the Echelon was built in it's place. (err, nevermind)

On Friday 04/15, the poker world had it's own implosion of the nuclear variety. The US Dept of Justice unsealed 11 indictments against individuals who are running the largest online poker sites that service American players. The charges involve running a online gambling site, and money laundering. The DOJ also started to shut down websites, confiscate IP address that they use, and freeze various bank accounts that sites use. The sites have cutoff Real Money games for US customers, and have stopped all cashouts until further notice.

The story will continue to develop over the next few days and weeks. I've heard that the DOJ wants to shut down Stars and Tilt worldwide. Although, I don't know how they can shut down international companies that are licensed and regulated in other countries. There are some small sites that I think are still open for business, like Cake and Bodog. I'm assuming they're next. There also may be more indictments in the future. None of Team Full Tilt were named, but it's widely assumed that they have some ownership of Full Tilt.

While this certainly was a bombshell, it wasn't a "Bolt from the Blue". The DOJ has been tracking the payment processors and freezing bank accounts for almost two years. Here are three stories about this. Story 1 - Story 2 - Story 3. It was assumed that the events on Friday could happen, but it was not very likely to ever happen.

So how does this affect me directly? Well, not at all. As I've mentioned before, I don't play online poker because it bores the crap out of me. I have around $400 between Stars and Cake, and I have opened up Stars once since I moved out to Reno six months ago. If I ever lost that money, I wouldn't have reloaded, so I'm certainly not worried about it now.

But the effect on other players is much more significant. Someone I played with last night said one of his buddies has $250k on Full Tilt (He played $200-$500 Heads-Up SNGs). Not only do thousands of players have thousands of dollars tied up on Stars and Tilt, but they now have to find some way to pay their bills.

So does this mean there will be a "Brick & Mortar" poker boom? Maybe. I could certainly see some single 21 yr olds moving to a casino town like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or LA. But a Kid who's used to multi-tabling $5/$10 to $25/$50 6-max will have trouble adjusting to one full table of $2/$5 or $5/$10, and that's only if they have enough money offline to play that high.

One part of Live Poker that will be affected is the Tournament Trail, but I'm not sure how. Online tournament grinders are more likely to start visiting more tournament series. But players who were relying on money from Stars and Tilt don't have that safety net in the form of bonuses and buy-ins. They might not be able to afford playing in larger buy-in tournaments, so they might start playing more preliminary events and satellites, or even just going to smaller tournament series (Hello, H P T). Of course, they could always just move to Canada or Europe, and continue to grind online, even though there will be much less money to win without the US market.

One tournament that will certainly be affected is the WSOP Main Event. On Thursday, it was expected that this year's total would be over 7500 players. Today, I've been hearing wild guesses between 4000 - 5500, since players can't satellite in for just $5 anymore. If the attendance will drop that significantly, is it possible that the WSOP might consider cutting back the schedule of the Main Event to just two starting days? If they only get 4500 players, then why bother having four Day 1 and two Day 2?

Many other parts of the Poker World will be affected by what happened on Friday, mostly because Stars and Tilt were investing money in various forms of marketing. Most notable will be Poker on TV. The NAPT was to start airing on ESPN tomorrow night, and I don't know if that will happen now. High Stakes Poker and Poker After Dark are currently running new shows, and The Big Game has already taped shows that were to start running in June. All of these are paid for by Stars and Tilt. How many of them will actually make it to air is anyone's guess.

Another aspect is the Poker Media, which gets a lot of revenue from poker sites. How many magazines / websites like Card Player and Bluff will be able to continue without that money? Poker podcasts like Ante-Up and The 2+2 Pokercast are sponsored by Stars, so will they still be around? Poker Road was barely hanging on before, and I don't expect them to last past the WSOP.

All other poker businesses will feel the effects, as well. What will happen to Card Runners, Dueces Cracked, and the other training sites? How about a staking business like Sheets & Bax? Yes, they do staking of live players, like WSOP champ Joe Cada, but a majority of their staking comes from online. If most of their money is tied up online, are they willing to increase their risk by staking more live players, or will they just call it quits?

However, after the implosion comes the rebuilding. And that's where Congress comes in to the picture. It's widely assumed that there will be Federal Regulation someday, but the question is When? Personally, I thought that nothing would happen until at least 2013 because of the Presidential Election in 2012. But if there is a super conservative President elected, then it may be much longer than that.

But with the events of this weekend, I'm curious to see if Congress will move sooner. If Congress does try to get things moving, then it will have to be this year because 2012 will be all about the Election. In order for something to happen this year, I would guess that there needs to be significant movement before Memorial Day.

Keep in mind, everything that I said and speculated about could change over the next few days, weeks, or months. Either way, I'm gonna sit back and watch the poker world change around me. It's gonna be a hell of a ride.