It was barely a month ago that online poker site ClubWPT Gold announced its departure from the state of New York.
The short-notice move was brought about thanks to the December 5 introduction of Senate Bill S5935A, prohibiting online sweepstakes games, and saw New York players forced across state lines in order to access and empty their accounts.
But now, just as quickly and unexpectedly as that first announcement, comes the news that ClubWPT Gold is opening its virtual doors once more to players from the Empire State.
For those seeking a deeper explanation from the operator, so far there’s been no official statement beyond ‘We’re back, New York’.
Will NY follow the California model?
Up until last September ClubWPT Gold operated on a dual-currency sweepstakes model, whereby users could buy Gold Coins for use in play money games — the purchase of which came with Sweeps Coins, tokens with a $ value that could be played, won and cashed out.
New York’s S5935A bill closed this loophole, much as bill 831 sought to do in California at the start of January. Ahead of the introduction of these bills, ClubWPT Gold altered its business model to awarding Chips — again, which may be used in real-money games — with purchases of hand analysis credits.
This was consistent with the brand’s repositioning as an educational tool, and coincided with the purchase of Doug Polk’s Upswing Poker training site.
With California’s legislation coming into effect on January 1, the next day saw ClubWPT Gold bring in the concept of ‘California Game Days’, allowing players in the state up to 9 days per calendar month of real-money play. As we understand it, this leans on the wording in the bill which permits sweepstakes gaming on a ‘limited and occasional basis’.
Whether players in New York will be subject to similar restrictions is unclear, given the small amount of information released so far, but we assume the site’s legal team have unearthed sufficient grounds to reintroduce games in a manner which adheres to their interpretation of the law.
ClubWPT Gold has always maintained its commitment to legal compliance in every state where it operates — though notably at the time of writing the site’s player FAQ still states it is not legally available to residents of New York, as well as Washington, New Jersey, Louisiana, Connecticut, Michigan, Montana and Canada’s province of Quebec.
A busy 24 hours for the WPT brand
The news comes on the heels of a confusing day in the life of the World Poker Tour, with apparent miscommunication and deleted tweets flying between its various sub-brands and licensees ClubWPT Gold, WPT and WPT Global after the latter announced the signing of controversial player Ren Lin as a new ambassador.
Lin had previously been banned by his former sponsor GGPoker over accusations of ‘ghosting’ — coaching another player in real time — after messages apparently from Lin were published that contained admissions of guilt. The news broke while Lin was partway through playing the WSOP Super Circuit Cyprus Main Event in October, and resulted in his disqualification from the tournament.
In the aftermath of Lin’s appointment to WPT Global two of the brand’s existing ambassadors, Dara O’Kearney and David Lappin, have announced their immediate departure.
