Poker Year in Review

3. Poker Refugees
For the thousands of Americans who make their living playing poker, Black Friday was the equivalent of financial tsunami. Not only were they unable to work, they were also unable to access the funds they had sitting in, now shuttered, poker sites. So what could they do?
Several big name players like Daniel Negreanu, Phil Galfond packed up their houses and headed off to the Great White North to continue their business. Pocketfives.com even set up a poker refugee relocation service to help displaced players settle in their new locations. It’s tough tell how many players are talking about making the move and how many will actually follow through.
Some American players who didn’t want to make the physical move made a virtual move utilizing Virtual Private Networks (VPN). A VPN can, for the most part, disguise a player’s IP address making it difficult to track their actual location. VPN’s are banned by most legitimate sites and players who use them risk having their accounts suspended.