It all started back in the good old 90's with Poker Planet officially being the first poker room present in cyber space in 1998. And like in any emerging segment competition was soon to follow. About a year later Paradise Poker launched its poker client to the world, the same year as Poker Planet suffered a major security crisis as hackers breached its firewalls and could predict pre-dealt cards.

This incident, resulting in a down fall for Poker Planet, was the best thing that could've happened to Paradise Poker enormously increasing its customer base with disappointed Poker Planet players. And so goes the tale when Paradise Poker became the leading poker room we all remember and cherish.

The success story continued only to be scoop up 2004 by the, at present time, largest online gaming company SportingBet Plc. for approximately 340 million dollars.

UIGEA Happened!

Early Saturday morning the 30th of October 2006 the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act was passed through the U.S Congress. As a major milestone in poker history a multitude of online gaming businesses and online poker websites suffered great economical damages.

This legal statement by the U.S government forced leading i-gaming enterprises to restrict their services to non-U.S citizens only. Paradise Poker (Sporting Bet Plc.) being one of them. Debatable is the fact that many other poker rooms like FullTilt Poker maintained their loyalty to U.S customers rather than admitting defeat.

Even stranger is the decision of Sporting Bet when their American poker players were bringing in over 60 percent of the companies profits.

SportingBet Poker

But the decision was never the less standing and the Paradise Poker dream was fading. In an attempt to recover its economical losses U.K based Sporting Bet kept the poker name Paradise Poker for marketing purposes of course and re-launched the poker site in Canada, Europe and a handful of other countries.

As a part of a new network Sporting Bet gave existing U.S Paradise Poker players a one month notice to pack up their stuff and basically cash out. Terminating the Paradise Poker platform, worth over 55 million pounds, and starting off fresh as a part of the Boss network in 2007 the future of Sporting Bet is unknown.

One thing is for curtain though, the Paradise Poker we once knew, the cocktail menu, the cold beer and glowing cigar by your side is forever gone and whether or not this historical poker room ever will climb to the top again is left for the future to predict.