But the sites which still accept players from the USA have, of course, shown growth. Thus, on the very eve of the New Year 2008 PokerStars announced about the achievement of 150 000 poker players simultaneously, but still these growth rates are not more than 50 percent per year casino online philippines.
Curiously enough, the slowdown of online poker room players was also very noticeable offline. For the first time over many years at the main WSOP tournament there were fewer players than the previous year, at this point, about 20 percent less. Previously a large number of gamblers were presented by online poker rooms, but a decrease in the number of American gamblers online, as well as tougher rules concerning the advertising of online poker rooms at the tournament resulted in the rooms being passive in involvement of gamblers for WSOP .
If everything is bad in America, than in Europe the situation is contradictory. On the one hand, the EU did not allow the Italians, trying to ban online casino games, to do it. A new law in Great Britain not only legalizes online betting as well as allows advertising online casinos, however, the company should be licensed in the EU. In connection with this, Malta, which has become the center of online companies in Europe, has a windfall and will manage to earn quite some money. On the other hand, Germany passed a law right on New Year’s Eve which banned online casino games and their advertising, though, everybody considers that the EU will make the Germans repeal the law in question. For quite a while there are rumors in the air that Norway will ban online casino games, Turkey, although it is not quite a European country but it has also imposed a ban.
As for online poker, there was a rift within online poker rooms awaiting its resolution. For the first time fraud in an online poker room was proved and accepted (to be more precise, not the room itself, but one of its senior managers). Absolute Poker confessed that one of the managers gained access to the players’ cards (he knew all the pocket cards, but not the cards which dropped out at the flop/turn/river). He shared this information with his partner who managed to win a big tournament. To prove everything was possible due to a repeated mistake in sending history which was received by another participant of the disastrous tournament. Absolute Poker made an investigation, promised to refund losses to all those who suffered and toughen the security system. Though, Absolute Poker cheating scandal has caused damage not only for a poker-room, as well as the industry as a whole, however, this blow is not fatal.
From a technical point of view, the past year has not brought anything new. The mobile poker, 3D-poker, are being gradually developed, but all this appeared even earlier. Online poker rooms actively create versions not to be downloaded, add new games, improve the interface, add new methods of payment and change table sizes.