Entraction Network to Close in December

Owners of the Entraction Network have announced that they will be ceasing their online poker activity from December – blaming poor liquidity for the decision.

International Gaming Technology (IGT), owners of the Swedish-based Entraction Poker Network, has announced that they will be closing the network on the 10th December 2012. IGT – who paid $108.2 million for Entraction just last Spring – has seen traffic decline by more than 50 percent since its purchase of the network, mainly due to its withdrawal from national markets such as Spain, Canada, Belgium, Russia, Norway, Israel and Turkey.

Despite being granted an online gaming licence by the Nevada Gaming Commission and generating $4.5 million in revenue last year from online poker, a spokesman for the company was quoted as saying

change and uncertainty in the European market conditions had diminished the expected returns in certain real money wagering products and that, as a result, the company has been forced to consolidate its product development.

Skins on the Entraction Network are already making plans to find their players new homes. iGame Malta – who own 24hPoker.com, Pokerihuone.com and iGame.com – are widely rumoured to be joining the Microgaming Network in the near future. iGame Affiliate Manager Sami Kurvinen was reluctant to confirm the move to Microgaming in a recent interview, but did admit that the company was looking at another poker network because of low liquidity We want to offer our players better traffic and better options he said.

PointPoker and NOIQ Poker have also emailed their customer base to advise them that they will be looking for a new network to move to, but some of the smaller skins may shut up shop altogether. The network´s European Masters of Poker Tour is also expected to end this year after the final two scheduled events in Barcelona (starts tomorrow) and in Dublin (November 16-18) and it has been reported that a number of multi-platform poker sites are already removing the IGT/Entraction Network from their portfolios.

Players with funds on any Entraction Network skin should not have to worry about the security of their bankrolls. The major skins – such as iGame Malta – have advised their clients that balances will be maintained when they switch networks, whereas the smaller networks have their funds held by IGT – a company listed on the New York Stock Exchange who presently are cash rich – having recently revealed $2 billion in revenue in 2011 from their American gaming machine operation.