Fox News recently ran an interesting online article regarding the effect of Black Friday on the estimated 50,000 full time online poker pro players in the United States. According to the article, the crackdown by the Department of Justice on poker in the country, literally overnight, has stripped most of these players with their primary source of income, and those who are really suffering are the ones with families to support.
The vast majority of these players follow the same rules as anyone who is self-employed would. They are essentially part of a community of online poker breadwinners who have been left “financially paralyzed” following the shutdown, concerned about how they will make ends meet for their families.
The article highlights the problems faced by these players by using full-time online poker player, Brian Mogelefsky, as an example. “If I was single and on my own it would be a lot easier to deal with, or if it was just like a hobby. But it’s my wife and my kids who depended on me – that’s why it really hurts,” he is quoted as saying.
The player now joins over 13.9 million Americans who are unemployed.
The double whammy for Mogelefsky and many thousands like him is that even money that he had in his online poker account is tied up in one or more of the three sites who had their domain names seized by the DOJ. If he is lucky, his account was held at Poker Stars, which is the only one of the three which has started paying players back. However, it may be months before the fate of the millions owed by Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker is known. Some players have already accepted the fact that they may never see their money again.
“There’s a big question mark: Am I ever going to get it back, and if I do, how long is it going to take?” another player is quoted in the article.
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