The online casino industry is welcoming a new unexpected and most welcomed business partner, Yahoo!. The search engine giant announced that it is planning to enter the world of gambling via the internet and offer gaming services to its millions of customers. Yahoo! is opening an online poker service titled 'Yahoo! Poker'. The new service will feature a real money room where players can gamble. Yahoo! closed a deal with St. Minver LTD, the Gibraltar-base firm that offers online solutions for gaming networks in Europe. This means that Yahoo! is now a part of the growing gambling industry. Hopefully, this show of trust buy possibly the largest internet company in the world will cause other firms to look into online casino business.
Yahoo!'s new poker room will use the International Poker Network platform, an already running poker room that combines the largest casino poker rooms on the net. Both online and offline brands are using the International Poker Network, and it will be a great host for the new Yahoo! Poker enterprise. The poker market is constantly growing in Europe and Yahoo! wants to be in the center of attention. Yahoo! UK will be in charge of the new poker room and will be responsible in growing Yahoo!'s share of control over Europe's internet market. The gambling world is becoming a dominant part of the European online market, where everyone wants to be present.
Yahoo! is not alone. AOL also operate a 'play money' site and offers online gambling services to many customers, and even Microsoft has included a play money poker game into it's new and shinny operating system, Microsoft Windows Vista. Yahoo! will offer ISP services for people that are interested in playing poker on the site, however not everyone can play. With the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act still standing, players from the United States will not be able to use the new poker room. American citizens are banned from many online gambling sites as the UIGEA made it illegal for gambling firms to deal with financial companies in the United States.
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