|
Internet Poker: Playtech owned Tribeca Exits US Market |
|
|
|
|
Written by Thomas Jensen
|
|
Thursday, 15 February 2007
|
|
 Tribeca Tables, which is owned by Playtech, has decided to pull the plug on US players starting February 28th, 2007. Several popular online poker sites such as Doyles Room and Golden Palace were caught off guard by the news and both will be hit the hardest by the move.
Gambling911.com was the first to break the news about Tribeca pulling out of the US market.
Tribeca Tables will not allow any new US poker players as of today. The poker rooms affected will continue to take on customers outside the US until a new poker network is in place.
In a press release dated November 11th, 2006, Erik Ahlberg, newly appointed president of Tribeca Tables said this about exiting the market after UIGEA was signed into law, “We are now initiating this policy and will work closely with our customers to ensure as little harm as possible to their overall business”.
I guess Erik Ahlberg believes the word "closely" means "no advanced warning". I guess Ahlberg believes the words "as little harm as possible" mean "complete destruction of business model".
While I do feel sorry for all the operators stuck on the Tribeca Network, they should have migrated sooner. Most operators have a tendency to react to problems instead of anticipating them and putting emergency back up plans in place.
"We got totally caught off guard with this move." stated one angry marketing director of a popular Tribeca poker website. "We knew this was coming but we thought we had more time."
It has been rumored that the people behind Doyles Room, Golden Palace and others are in the process of developing their own poker network with an anticipated launch date for next month. Industry insiders expect this network to launch much later than one month assuming everyone in the network can put aside their egos to get it off the ground in the first place.
"Even if we do launch it next month, that would be too late!" stated a high level executive at a popular Tribeca poker website. "If everyone pulls their money from us on or before March 1st, before the new poker network launches, we can't launch the network!"
Point-Spreads.com believes StraightFlush.com will be the least affected poker site on the Tribeca Tables network because the site has just launched and has yet to gain critical mass.
The primary beneficiary of Tribeca's exit of the US market is PokerStars.com, AbsolutePoker.com, UltimateBet.com, Calvin Ayre and Bodog.com.
|
|
Last Updated ( Thursday, 15 February 2007 )
|
