As was reported yesterday changes to online gaming laws have already affected live tournament coverage, tournament registrations are next.
Casino’s under advisement from their legal departments can no longer accept direct payment of tournament entries to tournaments from online gaming companies.
Their position is totally understandable, no one wants to put themselves and their business in a position where the full force of the US government could come down on them.
The problem for the involved parties is how do we ensure players still attend these events.
The casino’s have benefitted from the increased patronage brought on by online qualifiers.
And at the same time online poker rooms have benefitted from the huge number of players wanting to qualify for these live tournaments, all dreaming of being the next Chris Moneymaker.
Previously players who won seats to live tournaments had their buy-in paid for by their online sponsor, now since the casino’s can’t accept money from online poker rooms the situation would seem to be that satellite winners need to be given their tournament buy-in in cash and all parties must hope that they player decides to participate.
Just how much this inconvenience will affect registrations probably wont be clear until after this years WSOP. I think all poker related business’ are going to keep a close eye on the 2007 WSOP, its going to be a fair indicator of just how well poker can survive the changes in laws relating to the online form of the game, and the loss of the advertising revenue it provided.
Shane @ CarbonPoker.com
Something is going to give soon I think. The casino industry makes a killing off the juice from these tournaments. They won’t let the money flow out for too long before they figure out a fix. Which could quite possibly be tournaments outside of the US.