William Hill shuts out US players

[RakeTheRake]

We just received the following:

[ QUOTE ]

I wish to inform you that William Hill has today taken steps to cease accepting Casino and Poker business from US clients for the foreseeable future.

Please note that this decision will not affect any existing US generated commissions you may be entitled to.

All US registered clients are being informed of these changes and will be advised how to withdraw any existing balances they may have on their account.

However should any of your registered players contact you concerning the withdrawal of an existing account balance please advise them they can access their accounts via the following URL: http://www.willhill.com/ They will then need to login, and by selecting 'My Account', they will be able to choose 'Make a Withdrawal'

As usual Rakeback payments will still be made to all players accounts before the 6th of October and players can access these funds by following the instructions above.


[/ QUOTE ]
So the good news is that players will be able to get rakeback for September as normal and withdraw it in a normal fashion. This is definitely a break from the norm of extreme overkill from other rooms where they close your account completely and send you a cheque 3 weeks later. Well done WH on that front.

On the downside this means that there are now only really a handful of 3/4 rooms offering rakeback on the Crypto network to US players. The problem seems to be that people aren't playing on them because they were set up without rakeback, and WH was one of the last real alternative sites.

Contact your affiliate directly on how to solve this problem if you are one of those unfortunate souls with a rakeback-less account.

Kind regards

RakeTheRake

[kidpokeher]

[ QUOTE ]
This is definitely a break from the norm of extreme overkill from other rooms where they close your account completely and send you a cheque 3 weeks later.

[/ QUOTE ]

Or, in the case of Littlewoods, still waiting...

[Sniper]

Any explanation for WHY they are shutting down US access?

[Inthacup]

IIRC, William Hill originally did not accept US players for a long time.

The commonality between all these sites(William Hill, Littlewoods, Eurobet) seems to be that they were established European sportsbooks well before they opened a poker room to US players. My guess is that they are abandoning their relatively small US presence to protect their European sportsbook interests.

Cup

[Sniper]

fwiw, for US players looking for a place to put in crypto hands... Pokerplex is increasing their monthly bonus to a tiered max of $200/month starting in Oct... more than makes up for the loss of WillHill Poker & Casino monthly bonuses.

[Pokeraddict]

[ QUOTE ]
fwiw, for US players looking for a place to put in crypto hands... Pokerplex is increasing their monthly bonus to a tiered max of $200/month starting in Oct... more than makes up for the loss of WillHill Poker & Casino monthly bonuses.

[/ QUOTE ]

And if I understand correctly it is a 5x that will clear just like the Sun Poker monthly.

I completely agree with what Cup says and I think you can also include Ritx Club London in that as they stopped all new player signups this week and they are an established B&M.

[Ron-Mexico]

Did william hill also have a sportsbook?

[Red Lion]

Yes

[Pokeraddict]

Americans were never allowed to place sports bets there though.

[Sniper]

OK found this news article...

LONDON (Reuters) - British bookmaker William Hill (London:WMH.L) said on Wednesday it had stopped its gaming business in the United States, pending clarification of the scope and enforceability of state and federal gaming laws.

William Hill said it had taken steps to stop accepting casino and poker business from clients with a U.S. address or U.S.-issued credit card, the same as steps already in place to prevent Internet betting on sports events by U.S. residents.

This year has seen the arrests in the United States of Sportingbet Plc's (London:SBT.L) chairman on charges of "gambling by computer" and BETonSPORTS Plc's (London:BSS.L) then chief executive on racketeering charges.

Costa Rica-based BETonSPORTS subsequently said it is closing its U.S. business, and the arrests added to fears of a U.S. crackdown on the online gambling industry.

Shares across the sector have taken a series of knocks since July as some U.S. politicians seek to ban Internet gambling there and as U.S. and European authorities also target executives from Austria's Bwin.com (Vienna:BWIN.VI).