Learn, Chat & Jail with the Pros: UIGEA Blasts UB/Absolute Pros!

[gaboonviper]

As I stated last January in my original Learn, Chat & Jail with the pros posts, many top pros being sponsored by the big pokersites would come under more and more pressure post UIGEA. And I stated that arrests could even be made.

Well, no arrests have been made YET but UB/Absolute are FIRING MOST OF THE PROS THEY SPONSOR!! You know...Antonio, Michael Mizrachi, Mark Seif, and the others....ALL GONE! Even Phil Hellmuth will probably no longer represent the UB brand in the US (I guess they cannot fire him beacause he is a part owner).

So the big question is WHY are they doing this? Having big name top pros endorse a site is of course a HUGE advantage in marketing a pokersite. So why just toss away this advantage?? Well no doubt they are planning to pull out of the US market as the full power of UIGEA nears. You do not just dump all of your top pros if you anticipate a positive future, do you?

Furthermore, as was reported in The Pokerbiz; "...company executives were worried that US authorities may attempt to make an example out of one of their players and arrest them..." This is exactly what I was posting almost 3 months ago!

The bottom line of all of this is that the sh*t is really starting to hit the fan. Watch for other pokersites to start dumping their pros as well. And watch for more and more big pullouts from the US as UIGEA gets stronger and stronger.

[hasugopher]

that's probably not a good thing, but doesn't sound like it's time to panic just yet.

[repulse]

This doesn't come close to implying a pullout. It only implies that these sites' assessment of the US market has worsened. An increased likelihood of some sort of new external conditions of "armageddon" (rather than voluntary pullouts) developing might make the sites' sponsorship of pros no longer a lucrative investment. And certainly, even if nothing else bad happens anytime soon, the sites' ability to use the pros in advertising has certainly become further compromised recently (the new WSOP logo restrictions are surely a factor in the big picture of a sites' advertising). Perhaps it's even just a change in social climate not directly related to the law; the "peak" of televised poker is, perhaps, passed, and the advertising value of recongizable pros is lower.

A company cutting back on advertising doesn't mean it plans on cutting back on its operations. There are plenty of sensible reasons why the companies would terminate these sponsorships. I don't see this as cause for any degree of panic, at least by itself.

[Ace0fSpades]

Oh, god! Hit the panic button! Oh, wait...it's just gaboonviper again. I'm still playing online poker, I'm still making money from online poker.

[LeapFrog]

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Oh, wait...it's just gaboonviper again.


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Well no doubt they are planning to pull out of the US market as the full power of UIGEA nears.


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Is this based on your expert analysis?


http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...rue#Post8995433

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Through my current analysis of the legislative/political poker environment I have come up with a date, 3/1/07, when I think things in the poker world will get really, really, REALLY crazy. I call this date The Armageddon Date...



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So mark it on your calendar. Etch it in your brain. 3/1/07. The Armageddon Date.


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[questions]

Most important question is, "source?"

[depokerstar]

Wow, glad to know we have f'in rocket scientists on the board. Gaboon - please post something that a 5th grader can't deduct from reading other sources. Your panic posts serve no purpose, but at least they're less frequent.

[JPFisher55]

Maybe with so few sites serving the US market, the ones still in the US market do not need to spend any serious marketing dollars on the US market. So they drop the pro endorsement deals.

[vinyard]

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Maybe with so few sites serving the US market, the ones still in the US market do not need to spend any serious marketing dollars on the US market. So they drop the pro endorsement deals.

[/ QUOTE ] Please, stop being reasonable and thinking clearly.

[questions]

A couple side questions: 1) with traffic up, why are no new sites coming online for American players; 2) does the reduced competition help explain why there are fewer and less generous bonuses?