Uncertain Future

Considering the enormity of scandals that have rocked online poker business worldwide, it is possible that online poker may have an unclear future. Apart from numerous banking problems, improper mergers and acquisitions and other shady business practices, online poker is facing a serious challenge from legal from several countries. Though the United States (the country with the largest online pokers) doesn’t have a national law that restricts the gambling activities, but 8 States have come up with strict regulations against playing poker. But indirectly, the US government is threatening the survival of gambling by instituting laws that would regulate banking operations with gambling companies. This is included in the “Safe Port Act” by the United States Congress.

This may have contributed to the pull-out of major poker companies from the US market. An example of this poker company was Party Poker. This sudden pull-out causes some disorganization in the entire poker industry.

Scandals

Scandals are not new to the gambling world. There was an allegation that the software developers at Absolute Poker had created “back doors” with which they peek into the activities of other players and use the parameters gathered from the spying to play against them to win. It was reported that many players lost millions of dollars as a result of this cheating system. Will a scandal like this help poker to be acceptable to everyone? Another annoying instance happened when some players still secretly use poker bots, the software that is programmed to play against live poker player in a tournament. Other poker rooms have made a rule that none of their players should use it. It is a sign of cheating.

Identity Theft

The rate of occurrence of identity theft has also made many people to worry about playing poker. They wondered if their credit card information and other personal information would be taken good care of. No one wants to expose himself/herself to the world where he/she doesn’t know who is in charge of his/her private information. However, development in Internet security has made it possible for online poker rooms to use encryption to protect their clients’ personal information.

Although, there is no surety that all the problems listed above can be successfully controlled, even though poker administrators are trying their best to save their business from losing recognition in the society.