Merge Online Poker and Gaming Network Opens the Door to America

Online poker players who live in the USA have been extra vigilant about what poker network they sign on to after the Department of Justice in that great land shut down a few of the largest online poker operators in the world.

Now with some serious trepidation US online poker players will have a network accept them and let them play. The small but nervy online poker network is now welcoming players who reside within the boundaries of the America and member sites such as Carbon Poker, Pokerview, Lock Poker, RPM Poker, and Black Chip Poker have all dealt the cards to their US customers.
Merge was cautious at first when the DoJ introduced Full Tilt and Absolute to the law. Merge didn’t accept new players but allowed existing players to continue using their services. As players began to migrate away from the big firms Merge began to pick up the traffic slack and saw a 79 percent growth within a month after April’s DoJ crackdown. The surge in player numbers did however overwhelm the payment processing department at Merge.

The strategic move to freeze new accounts from the States gave the Merge Network a little bit of breathing room to set the network back on an even keel. Instantly the rumours started to fly that Merge would be letting new accounts to be established in the US yet a few false starts after announcements were made gave the impression that the company wasn’t ready just yet.
Now the network has officially said it will accept new members from the USA . Merge has however told it’s affiliate skins that they shouldn’t be to upfront about getting the word out there as precaution against another flood of signups that could bog down the system once again. At this point according to PokerScout.com the Merge Gaming Network ranks as the 12th largest online poker room or network in terms of cash game traffic.  Bodog ranks 13th but will discontinue any operations by the end of this year.