The morning after the US Department of Justice launched its weapons of mass destruction at online poker.

Where we are, where we’re likely to be going and what’s it all mean.

Right now the sites affected include PokerStars, UltimateBet renamed recently to UB.com, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker.  As of this moment all of these domains are coming up with this DOJ web page:

PokerStars has blocked all US customers from playing on their site and Full Tilt Poker has reported that it will make a similar block sometime in the very near future.  There has been no comment from UltimateBet/Absolute Poker. 

It seems as though this insta-blocking of US customers is an attempt to dissuade the DOJ from going after all the poker rooms assets and using Interpol(!) to arrest the lead people from all four sites.  Obviously if this occurs it will mean a giant shakeup in the online poker industry not just for US players but for people worldwide.  Online poker will survive of course but the landscape may look very different in six months then it does now.

Obviously this affects a lot of people not the least of which is MellowYellow (the PokerStars player this blog tracked through most of last year and who finally achieved SuperNova elite status though hardcore 24-table poker playing). They are now unable to play in the US and may in fact lose all the value from their efforts last year.

We are recommending that if you disagree with this DOJ action you immediately contact your congressman and senators.