by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Apr 14, 2012 | Updated on Apr 14, 2012On April 15, 2011, the poker world was sent into a state of panic when it was announced that the United States government was pursuing legal action against PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker, and that those sites would shut down in the USA. One year later, the results of Black Friday have left a clear mark on both online and live poker, though both versions of the game are still quite popular around the world.The biggest impact anywhere was the cascading impact Black Friday had on a couple of the largest real money online poker sites in the world. While PokerStars was able to almost immediately pay back all affected players and continue services as normal to the rest of the world, Full Tilt Poker eventually lost their operating license, leaving players around the globe wondering if they would ever recover their account balances.Overall, the loss of US players and the complete collapse of Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker had a tremendous effect on the online poker landscape. According to figures at PokerScout.com, one year later, online poker traffic is down about 32% compared to the weeks just before Black Friday. Other than the complete losses of FTP and Absolute/UB, the biggest loser in terms of raw numbers has been PokerStars. However, the site hasn’t lost as much traffic as many expected, with traffic down just 16% from last year.Meanwhile, live poker has also been affected by the events of Black Friday. Most live tournaments have seen modest drops in attendance, though the 2012 WSOP actually saw overall attendance rise compared to 2011. Meanwhile, the North American Poker Tour was cancelled following Black Friday, while the FTP-backed Onyx Cup Series never got off the ground. The biggest drops in attendance were seen at tournaments that normally were heavily attended by online satellite winnings, such as the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.
