Top Rated Poker Casinos

Last week, in a torrential blow to the online poker community, the US government at last completed and declared implementation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA), originally passed in 2006. While many questions float in the air about the future of the online poker industry, hundreds of thousands are pondering whether PokerStars.com will relinquish its presence from the US market.

PokerStar.com is currently the world’s largest online pocker room, in part due to its unwavering commitment to US player acceptance.  According to the guidelines of the UIGEA, however, it is unclear what exactly the effect will be on playing online poker for real money over the Internet from within the United States.

The UIGEA guidelines state that all online gambling operations, as well as financial institutions that facilitate monetary transfers to/from online gambling sites, have until December 1, 2009 to comply with the newly implemented regulations.

Does this mean PokerStars will exit stage left by the end of next year, leaving behind a substantial number of its clientele; those being US online poker players? No statement has been released from any of the major online poker brands – PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, etc. – but thousands upon thousands of Americans are left with the burning, as yet unanswered, question.

FullTiltPoker.net is already the second largest online poker room in the world in regards to active player traffic, but the prospect of the 10th Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS-X), worth a guaranteed $15,000,000 over 25 events, has brought those numbers to record heights for 2008.

According to reports from independent poker traffic statistic trackers, Full Tilt Poker averaged 9,704 players per 24-hour period last week. The online poker room is nowhere near catching the number-one spot, held for quite some time now by PokerStar.com, but is surely proud to reveal its highest traffic rate of the year. PokerStars is currently averaging near double the traffic of Full Tilt Poker, at almost 18,000.

FTOPS-X kicked off last Wednesday with Event #1, a $1,000,000 guaranteed prize pool NL Hold’em tournament hosted by Mike “The Mouth” Matusow. A field of 5,124 turned out for the grand opening of the 10th Full Tilt Online Poker Series, eventually won by “davin77” who earned a massive $195,757.30 for the impressive win.