In an e-mail distributed to affiliates of Eurolinx Poker recently, the online poker room announced that the Microgaming network would be blocking customers in 13 US states from accessing their online poker or casino clients.
States affected include Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin, and Utah. Kentucky comes as no surprise after Governor Steve Bashear seized Microgaming.com along with 140 other domain names to cut down competition with the state lottery and other regulated gambling. Although the domain names have not officially been forfeit, Judge Thomas Wingate ruled that if a company successfully blocked Kentucky residents within 30 days, they would be absolved from the forfeiture.
"This is not a new rule, just sudden enforcement of an old one Players can still play in the Sportsbook. Players can still register from the banned states, but will not be able to play in the Poker client or in the Casino. The IP blocking service Microgaming is using also has a proxy detector, so players will no longer be able to use a proxy to hide their IPs." It marks a sudden adherence to the "rule" by Microgaming Network, whose online poker sites include 32Red Poker, Intertops Poker, Crazy Poker, PokerTime, Royal Vegas Poker, Ladbrokes, Betway, Unibet, Pokerwize, Doyle's Room, Jennings Poker, Gnuf, and Eurolinx.