Duplicate Poker Ceases Operations

In a surprising announcement via an update on their home page and similar email newsletter to its players, Duplicate Poker has ceased operations, effective immediately. Duplicate Poker’s online poker client confirmed their stance with all games on the site closed.

 

Duplicate Poker blamed the current global financial market as the reason behind the site’s demise, as per their announcement:

Dear players,

Duplicate is sadly bidding farewell to its players. Caught in the middle of the global financial situation the company is not able to continue to provide service. We are a small victim of the global financial crisis.

Regretfully as of the today, October 5th, 2008 we are closing our service. We thank our players for being with us. Hopefully at later time and in a better economic climate Duplicate Poker will re-appear.

Sincerely,
The Duplicate Poker Team

The home page also provides some information for existing players to check their account balance, how to request a withdrawal of funds and a link in case of a forgotten password.

The sudden closure of Duplicate Poker marks the end of an interesting experiment. The US-facing poker site went out into unexplored territory when its unique format was devised to remove elements of chance as direct response to the Oct. 2008 signing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Duplicate Poker was one of the first to create new ways to market to the huge American customer base interested in online poker, but their concept didn’t sustain the traffic required. Its closure this week is an unfortunate end for an innovator of the online poker world.