3 Things Holding Back the US Online Poker Industry

Online poker is slowly spreading across the United States, but where it has taken hold (in Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey) the industry growth has been stunted by a number of factors.

Here are the three leading contributors to the stalled growth and maturation of online poker in regulated markets.

Social Security #’s

In this heightened time of paranoid blogs espousing the dangers of black helicopters, FEMA death camps, and mind control weather satellites, is it any wonder people are a bit skeptical about handing over their Social Security Number to an online poker room?

That antiquated piece of paper containing nine simple digits is perhaps the most important identifier we possess, and even if you’re not into the whole InfoWars conspiracy scene we’ve been conditioned by security specialists to protect our SS# like Obi Wan Kenobi protecting the Skywalker twins in Star Wars.

For online poker to really take off in the US, sites and regulators need to come up with a way to verify players’ identities without requiring them to surrender their SS#. And the US government needs to update those things — National ID card FTW!

PokerStars… Or should I say, a lack thereof

I understand all of the arguments by other providers against PokerStars, but let’s be honest here, we gave all of these other providers a shot to tackle online poker without PokerStars and while they haven’t necessarily failed (far from it in my view) they haven’t set the world on fire either.

I don’t want online poker in the US to be the sports team that is stuck in mediocrity; good enough to get bounced in the first round of the playoffs every year, which leads to more inconsequential mid-round draft picks and more years mired in mediocrity.

US online poker needs PokerStars to come in and show these other sites what’s possible and what they should be striving for, and end the milquetoast promotions and announcements we’ve seen to date. Sure PokerStars will jump out to a lion’s share of the market, but it’s time for these other companies to either put up or shut up when it comes to their product.

Banks and online banking

While I’ve been railing against online poker rooms using a 2004 state of mind when it comes to marketing and software (see my milquetoast comment above), the one area I would love to see return to a 2004 state of mind is banking and payment processing.

Until a potential online poker player can type in his credit card and be playing in less than five minutes we are never going to see the industry hit its peak.