Winners and Losers of Black Friday

Were one day away from the 5th anniversary of Black Friday – the event that shook up the entire poker world. Literally, in seconds, we saw a complete change to the poker landscape. And while the main culprit of the attack was the United States government, their rash decisions had an effect on the global poker community. Not surprisingly, ripples of this event were felt everywhere. Surprisingly, not everyone was effected in a negative way. Believe it or not, some came out on the clean end of the shit stick. Let's first take a look at the losers of Black Friday American Poker Players – Losers Obviously, those hit the hardest were players in the United States. Most were forced to stop playing, others had to find sites still willing to take US players. Some had to go as far as to leave the country. To this day, we only have three states with regulation in place for online gambling. After six years, you would think the American government could get it right. Full Tilt – Losers What once was the 2nd largest poker room online, quickly became the poster child for how not to run an online poker room. The site did manage to make a comeback after being bought out by Full Tilt. But Poker Stars is finally realizing Full Tilt will never reclaim its glory days and are about to shut down the site for good. Poker Stars – Winner and Loser Poker Stars remains the number one poker room online; but not without their own suffering after Black Friday. Their player base dropped dramatically to about half of what it once was. It has grown and the numbers may not be accurate due to Poke Stars having separate traffic stats in France and Italy. It's still clear that traffic is down. They did manage to show why they are the best and most trusted room by paying out players immediately, and making good on Full Tilts funds. Trust me, this went a long way with players. Online Pros – Losers Online regulars are seeing a shift in how poker rooms operate. With almost every room switching to rules that are unfriendly to regulars like increased rake, getting rid of HUDs, and other changes that favor recreational players – the online pros have been forced to adapt to unfavorable rules. Winning Poker Network - Big Winner When Black Friday hit, Americans were forced to look elsewhere to play online poker. Many turned to a little poker network that was called True Poker. Comprised of two sites – True Poker, and Americas Cardroom. This network went from outdated software, a few dozen players and meager offerings, to one of the larger poker networks in the world almost overnight. Americas Cardroom is the flagship site of the network and now has their own line of tournament series that rival PokerStars and other big sites. Live Poker – Winner Casinos saw a nice influx of players at the tables. Many of the top pros began playing live poker more, and some made it a full time gig. We will never see the number of players that flocked to the tables back during the poker boom; but the amount of poker tables in casinos has seen a sizeable increase.