I'll do just this.

what are u on about? link?

The Australian market will be closed completely, meaning that the members will not be able to play while in Australia, no matter where they are from.
Regards

Do we have any information as to why 888 left the market prematurely?

evidence? I cant find anything? Who told you?

It's gone - just tried to login to 888 & got this message

"Your account has been temporarily disabled. For immediate assistance please refer to our FAQs, otherwise please check your email inbox or contact us directly on operations@cassava.net"

No official word from 888 except 'a business reevaluation' but its been reported its because of the new laws

I wouldn't have thought it was new to you guys down under, but Canadians can tell you that sometimes all it takes is fear of laws that might get passed some day even though there hasn't been even a hint of such a possibility, for sites to pull out. We've lost multiple skins and ewallets with little reason given other than similar vagueness like "business reevaluation", and absolutely NOTHING in the way of pending legislation, or even anything being hinted at it by any government official.

I'd fully expect that having actual proposed legislation could send numerous operators into conniptions.

Well there's still plenty of Aussies at the tables today (17th) so I'm a bit confused right now. Is it just a case of no new Australian accounts after the 16th or have I missed something here?

your account does not automatically update to show your location based on the country you are in, it may show them as australians but they could be in NZ ,asia,europe etc. i dont know of any site that shows actual location, only shows account registration location.

I considered that but was curious that I was still seeing quite so many Aussie accounts so I asked a couple of the players in the chat box who confirmed that indeed they were in Oz at the time.

Can confirm I saw an Australian today and asked them in the chat if they are in the country, they replied yes.

Yeah maybe but they have invested quite a lot into Australia through promotion, it seemed to be a good part of their market.

Maybe they announced it now because the Aussie Millions is on so there would be a bit of talk about it.....and hopefully amongst poker people with some voice.

BTW my account is disabled.

I logged on today and it didnt say anything about my account being disabled, i could view the lobby and tried to join a table but i couldnt because i withdrew my balance, nothing about being restricted... i haven't received any emails about my account being closed either... is this the same for anyone else? Seems weird that some aussies can still play apparently??

Pretty bad news for ROW. Hurts liquidity at off peak hours and removes another wealthy economy from the playerpool...online poker gets bleaker by the day

Yeah this would effect countries in the same time zone, good point

Could you further clarify: does this mean that if you have registered as Australian on the site and deposited money through say, Skrill BUT you are playing from outside Australia, eg from a UK IP, then you will not be blocked from playing, depositing and withdrawing?

Don't think using a vpn is a smart decision.

care to elaborate? what would be unsmart about it?

But I was mainly thinking of Australians who reside and work o/seas. Since the proposed legislation is aimed at not allowing gambling operators to access the Australian market/mainland, and says nothing about individual Australian citizens being allowed/not allowed to gamble, it seems that said Australians should be entirely within the law and free to gamble on blocked sites, so long as they are not residing within the boundaries of the Australian market (mainland). That is, of course, so long as the operators interpreted it that way and set up their sites to not target by nationality but by ISP address. Or am I missing something here?

You can get canned from the site.

If you reside overseas and are playing from outside Australia then you are welcome to play as far as i can tell. Its not a ban against Australian citizens just Australian residents regardless of their citizenship. No reason to use a VPN unless your plan is to register a overseas address then play from Aus which doesn't sound like a good idea.