Black Friday Continues to Affect Casinos Online

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Almost four months ago the US Department of Justice forced the closure of major American online poker rooms based on their processing payments in an allegedly illegal manner. The aftershocks of that event continue unabated with announcements every week of some major online casino group or software provider exiting the US Internet gambling market or closing down altogether.

The latest news is that the online gambling software provider Rival Gaming has communicated that its licensee casinos will no longer be able to accept new players from the US. This was confirmed by the affiliate program AffiliateWide, who issued the following notification on Tuesday August 2. "We have received notification from our software provider, Rival that as from 7th August we will no longer be able to accept New US player registrations. Please note your existing US players will still be able to deposit and you will continue to earn commission on player generated revenues."

Since AffiliateWide has a large US client base that it wants to continue to develop it, it has decided to switch its brands to another software provider, Top Game. As of now Top Game will continue to operate in the US online gambling market. The online casinos involved are Box24 Casino, Spartan Slots and Black Diamond Casino. This is sad in a sense because Rival Gaming had developed some excellent online slot games exclusively for this group.

The message from AffiliateWide to its members states that migration to Top Game is expected to be completed by August 15. As far as the affiliates and the players are concerned the switchover will be without any hiatus. The online casinos will offer Rival games till the switchover date and the affiliates will be able to access Rival stats on the AffiliateWide web site. After the switchover the players will be able to wager on Top Game software and affiliates will be able to login to the Top Game Affiliate system. Affiliates will also be able to download new marketing materiAal and tracking codes. Players on the AffiliateWide online casinos who want to continue wagering on Rival Gaming casino games will have to close accounts and search for another Rival Gaming online casino.

Another Black Friday related announcement was made this week, though this announcement was of a less severe nature. The popular Realtime Gaming online casino Intertops has decided to change its domain suffix from .com to .eu. The reason given is "in order to further improve our accessibility, reliability and level of service". However, the real reason is that the American federal authorities will find it easier to act against .com portals than .eu portals. Bodog casino had made a similar switch last month.

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