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The popularity and the number of visitors of online Poker rooms is in decline: after it reached its popularity peak during 2010 and 2011, the annual number of visits to the online Poker rooms, including the largest ones, such as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, is declining by 10-14% on average.
Over the last six years online Poker rooms have lost hundred of thousands of regular visitors, and one of the main reasons in such a drop have been the events of the so-called 'Black Friday,' when FBI has simultaneously blocked the webpages of the four largest online Poker sites in USA (Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars, Absolute Poker, UltimateBet Poker). The main reason for this was that these webpages allowed US citizens to play Poker, which went against the 2006 ban on gambling games.
As a result, all Poker rooms have instantly lost about 20% of their audience. All players from the US, and the players themselves have lost all money in their accounts, and the attempts to return these finances are being carried out till this day.
Statistics is showing that the drop in popularity happened not so much because of the ban of Poker in US, but is mostly due to the policies of the casinos themselves. It's well-known that withdrawing your winnings from such webpages is a long and complicated process that also takes a long time. In case of larger withdrawals,you can expect to wait for several weeks.
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