September 30th Poker Stars announced that they would no longer be accepting players from the state of Washington effective immediately. Poker Stars stated that they made the move due to a recent Washington State Supreme Court decision that upheld the state's internet gaming ban, which was first introduced in mid 2006 before the UIGEA. Despite this, Poker Stars operated in Washington on "the basis of legal opinions where the central advice was that the state could not constitutionally regulate Internet poker, or at least could not discriminate in favor of local cardrooms and against online sites."

This is obviously very poor news for players in the state of Washington, who will now have to move to another USA-friendly site such as Full Tilt Poker, Cereus or Cake. Of course, the fear exists that if an industry leader such as Poker Stars pulls out of the Washington market, who is next? Does a site like Full Tilt use this as an opportunity to absorb some of the Poker Stars Washington players, or do they see the writing on the wall about the legal situation in Washington State and also bite the bullet?

Is this likely to happen in any other state? It seems that most of the sites that are currently accepting USA players will continue to offer their games to players until a time when it is obviously illegal. In the case of UIGEA and legislation that predated that law (i.e. Wire Act), there is a pretty convincing argument that online poker is not illegal in the USA on a federal level. With Washington state, a law was specially passed that outlawed online gambling (as a matter of fact, it was made a felony, although no players have been arrested and likely wont be).

This is not the first time a site has banned players from a specific state. Many smaller sites such as True Poker and the Cake Poker Network still ban players from the state of Kentucky due to a domain-seizure case that is still ongoing. Before banning them entirely, Microgaming banned players from 11-13 states where some form of state online gambling laws were on the books (although the debate even on those states was anything but settled).

As for what this means for USA players in general, it's another opportunity lost which could have shifted momentum in our favor. That being said, it is not a catastrophic blow by any means. Thanks to the PPA and support of poker players, there has been much more positive momentum than there has been bad. The biggest positive news being the recent passage of HR 2267 out of committee by a vote of 44-21. Indications, however, don't seem to be great for a bill passing before the end of legislative session, although scenarios still exist where the bill could be tacked on as an amendment in a similar fashion to the passage of UIGEA to the Safe Port Act in 2006.

It seems almost impossible to predict when everything is going to finally give. It does kind of feel like something will happen one way or the other in the next couple years, whether that be a good or decent federal regulation bill or state bills that allows for intra-state poker. Of course, I've been saying this, as well as everyone else following the situation, for the last 5 years.