The Nationalization of Online Poker

With countries like Italy, France, and Switzerland having passed legislation that on the one hand has legalized and regulated online poker; at the same time these measures have limited competition to within their countries borders. Basically poker players in these countries are limited to online poker games against their own countrymen. And it seems the trend might be catching on.

Even in the US there have been attempts, on the state level, to implement these same types of restrictions. States like California, Florida, and Iowa have all examined the possibility of legalizing and regulating intra-state online poker. In the end we may be faced with a number of smaller markets for online poker, with Poker Pros moving to the countries/states with the largest player pools. If the federal government doesn’t go all the way and regulate the industry, US players will undoubtedly see states take it upon themselves, and limit players to sites within state boundaries.

The different online poker sites currently in operation make a good analogy for what poker players in various countries/states would be facing: The US, with its millions of poker players, would have a large pool of players akin to PokerStars; Australia, with a strong poker tradition and player base, would be like UB; and unfortunately poker players in smaller countries, with less population and less poker tradition would be forced to play at less trafficked sites similar to what players at Bodog or other smaller sites are faced with.

The idea of international poker coming to end would utterly change the online poker landscape; without a global market, the smaller online poker sites would find it impossible to compete against sites like Full Tilt Poker, PokerStars, and PartyPoker who already have enough of a player base in numerous countries to warrant setting up shop. Furthermore, poker networks -a group of smaller sites that pool their player base-would become a thing of the past as each site would have to be registered in the country/state.

Without networks, it would almost be an impossibility for new online poker rooms to set up shop; it simply would take too long to build a player base without the comfort and security poker networks offer -There hasn’t been a successful independent online Poker Room started in the past five years. New poker sites are forced to enter the market as part of a larger poker network.

Additionally, poker sites would see a tremendous decrease in traffic at non-peak times. Even the US with its multiple time zones would have little traffic in the early morning hours on the East Coast, from about 5am to 11am. The effect would be downright staggering in smaller countries, which are already trying to overcome the smaller player bases, and compete with sites like PokerStars that have the resources to be registered in numerous countries.