A look at the past, present, and future of online gambling.

It is hard to believe that 4 short years ago the world of online poker in the United States came to a crashing halt. When you ask a poker player what "Black Friday" means, I doubt many will say the day after thanksgiving. It happened on April 15, 2011. The DOJ shut down the 3 biggest sites in poker; Pokerstars, Full Tilt Poker, and Ultimate Bet/Absolute Poker. One by one online players were blocked from playing the game they love, the game they crave. The money in players accounts was frozen. Players were left grasping for any information on what was happening. Speculation about what was going to happen was flooding the internet. Nobody knew, not even the pros. Some of pokers biggest icons; Ivey, Ferguson, Dwan, Moneymaker, Mercier, were all in the same position as everyone else. From this point on, online poker would never be the same.

In October of 2006, George W. Bush signed a bill to help prevent terrorists from sneaking a nuclear, chemical, or germ weapon into the U.S. With the country on high alert from the attacks on September 11th, the bill was passed. House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R, who was up for re-election and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist a Republican from Tennessee, who had aspirations of running for president in ‘08, both were opposed to gambling and wanted to make it known right before the November elections. Frist found a way to attach the online gambling bill to the unrelated SAFE Port Act. Without any debate or hearings, the bill was passed. Technically, the law does not make it illegal to play poker on the Internet. What it does is, it makes it illegal for any credit card company or bank to process transfers to or from an online gaming site. Little did the United States Government know how much revenue it was missing out on.

After the Department of Justice shut down the big 3 sites back in ‘11, the outcry from scorned online grinders was astounding. Thousands and thousands of poker players from all walks of life came together to show their support. They called for reform, legalization, and taxation. Shockingly, the government listened. The government proposed a bill where for every dollar won, you were taxed $0.10. If you won $50.00, $5.00 went to the government and you got to keep $45. It doesn’t seem like much, but multiply that by all the U.S. players, and it adds up quickly.  The Government used the money collected from all the grinders to help rebuild the United States and make it a thriving country again. With the legalization of online gambling, some of the famed casinos started offering online sites. Who would of thought by the year 2015 players from the United States of America would be playing online poker on sites like Bellagiocasino.com​, WSOP.com, and Harrahscasino.com.