It was recently reported that American members of Cake Poker, as well as three other online poker rooms on the Revolution Gaming Network, would be shepherded to a new field of virtually felted tables. It happened early this morning, right on schedule, and it will be interesting to see just how many US players stay on board with the online poker room.
First and foremost, I think it important to point out to all US members of the four affected poker sites – Cake Poker, Colt Poker, Fugu Poker and Hilife Poker – that playing at Juicy Stakes Poker should not affect the safety and security of their accounts in any way. It was erroneously reported by several websites, who I won’t bother mentioning (you know who you are), that Juicy Stakes was not as secure for Americans as Cake Poker because of its domain status. According to these headlines, the Revolution Poker Network did not seem to have the interest of its American players at heart.
These websites reported that Cake Poker is a DOT EU operation, and that EU sites “should be untouchable” by the US Department of Justice (DoJ); that there is “next to no chance of the US government confiscating their domain name”, while Juicy Stakes remains a DOT COM site. As we all know, the DoJ can do pretty much whatever it wants to a .COM poker site that accepts American deposits, should the government wish to target them. However, I’m happy to report that Juicy Stakes is, in fact, the proud new owner of a .EU. Type JuicyStakes.com into your web browser and you will be instantly redirected to JuicyStakes.eu.
Interestingly enough, each of the remaining online poker rooms whose US player base was shifted to Juicy Stakes Poker (Colt, Fugu and Hilife Poker) are DOT COM domains. It seems the network most certainly did have the security and welfare of its dedicated US customers in mind when preparing for the transition.
With that cleared up, let’s look into the history of the Cake Poker room and why they’ve decided to make this sudden transition. Members of Cake Poker have seen a lot of changes over the years, but it has always been considered a safe haven for US online poker players. Shortly after the UIGEA went into effect, Cake was one of the few networks that held strong to its US player commitment, thus numerous poker sites hopped on board, increasing their player base dramatically.
Back in May, it was reported that Cake would receive a substantial make-over when Lock Poker chose to break away from the Merge Gaming Network after a successful acquisition of the Cake Poker Network. Lock immediately rebranded the network as Revolution Gaming. Cake players never suffered for the conversion, waking up on May 31st to a new software update and all of their hard-earned rewards were carried over to the new system.
Surely the officials of Revolution Gaming are hoping for another seamless transition this morning as American player accounts are relocated to Juicy Stakes Poker. Again, all rewards and VIP statuses will be unaffected by the move. But alas, this marks the first time in the seven-year history of Cake Poker that the gaming site will not be accepting American online poker players.