"There is a Definite Surge in Online Poker"

A resurgence in the popularity of poker has added to the popularity and the impressive growth of online gambling which has become especially evident in the last six months.

During the month of April, comicScore Network’s gambling category of sites, drew 29.13 million individual visitors as compared with 25.43 million visitors just last November. This represents an outstanding 14.5 percent increase in just a few months.

GlobalMedia Entertainment’s network of sites, includes StarLuckCasino.com, PartyBingo.com, and PartyPoker.com. These three sites attracted the most visitors in April or a total of 10.3 million visitors. This represents a 166 percent increase as compared with last year’s figure for April, which was 3.89 million visitors. To use the GlobalMedia’s site, you need to download the appropriate software and establish an account.

Although there has been a rapid growth of poker sites, the parent companies of these poker sites have chosen to remain somewhat oddly silent with regard to their success. To illustrate this for example, GlobalMedia’s corporate site shows only email addresses. There are no phone numbers provided. Although there are live agents at PartyPoker.com’s Indian located customer service center, who will answer your calls, they will not honor any request for corporate contact information.

The questions of legality that are attached to the Internet gambling industry as a whole probably explain the hesitancy of companies to publicize this information. Since the World Trade Organization’s ruling that the Internet gambling policy of the United States is in violation of the international free trade rules to which the U.S. is a party, the Internet gambling issue has truly become an international problem. Comscore has rated 15 top gambling sites. All but two of these sites, iWin.com and FreeSlots.com, are located outside of the U.S.

Regardless of this question of legality however, poker sites do not hesitate to advertise their sites. In fact there are some sites that have been running advertisements on television that feature endorsements from well-known American players. Indeed, Chris Moneymaker and Greg Raymen, World Series of Poker Champions, were featured on a London-based poker site, PokerStars.com. Even though and in spite of the fact that the advertisements clearly state that Pokerstars.com is not a gambling site, you need only visit the site to see that the facts prove otherwise. For example, on the main page of the site there is an advertisement for a weekly No Limit Texas Hold Em tournament that offers a guaranteed minimum prize of $350,000.