After the tumultuous crumbling of Neteller last year, online players struggled to find a substitute for getting money into and out of their poker accounts without the long waiting periods of check requests or the high fees of some credit card processors.  Out of the rubble came ePassporte.

When first discovered by online players, ePassporte wasn’t nearly as large or widespread as Neteller, but it soon grew to be the industry standard - largely in part to modeling a number of its services after that of Neteller (ie. instant deposit options, debit card services, etc.).  The online community held its collective breath for ePassporte to somehow survive whatever roadblocks caused Neteller to go donk-down.  Looks like we can exhale…unfortunately.

Players first noticed that ePassporte was “temporarily disabled” as a funding option on PokerStars on April 11th, and it remained that way up until the writing of this article (evening, April 12th).

The final sign of ePassporte’s demise came in a statement that Cake Poker released to customers late on April 11th:

“To all Cake Poker Customers:

We have received notice from ePassporte today that they are unable to continue to provide CakePoker with merchant e-wallet services. We have since confirmed that this situation is not unique to CakePoker and is, in fact, industry wide.

While we are disappointed with this decision, we want to reassure all players that there will be no impact to either your account balances or your account status at Cake. We are pleased to have launched earlier this week with a new payment processor and have already secured alternative processors/eWallets that we will be launching in the weeks to come. We are also in discussions with other providers that will be making their services available in the CakePoker cashier soon. Players are welcome to inquire with Customer Support for more details.

As always, we value your business and will continue to make every effort possible to make your poker experience a great one.

Regards,
The CakePoker Team”

At first, most users assumed the suspension of ePassporte service was unique to U.S. customers and due to the UIGEA, but that theory was squelched when poker-king.com reported, “We are located outside of the United States and are getting the same messages.”

Attempts to contact ePassporte have resulted in support claiming “technical difficulties” (as did Neteller at first) and no official statement has been made as of yet by the company.

I have talked to a number of players who have the ePassporte debit cards, and they are reporting that they are still able to withdrawal from their accounts (however, this was also the case in the first few days of the Neteller shut-down).

The biggest story to come down the rumor mill this past week concerned the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event.  According to the scuttlebutt (published on numerous blogs, forums, and heard through the grapevine by many name pros), the Main Event of the WSOP would play down to its traditional nine-player final table, then action would cease for three months as the beginning portions of the Main Event were produced and broadcast. 

The delay could also allow the ESPN hype-machine to turn the nine remaining players into both poker and mainstream media stars, which in turn (and in theory), would create a ton more buzz for the eventual airing of the final table (making it also the first time since the poker boom that the outcome of the Main Event would not already be known before broadcast).

One can also speculate that the nine players (or those who need it at least) would get a crash course in no-limit hold ‘em endgame strategy (probably from some of the biggest names in the game). 

In the end, the nine players would then gather for a live broadcast of the final table and play down to the crowning of the WSOP champion.

Obviously in coming weeks and months the pros and cons of this strategy will be debated ad nauseaum.  Does the added “good for the game” media exposure outweigh changing an event that has been the watchword of poker greatness since before pictures could be printed in color (let alone broadcast across television signals)?

Pokerazzi is torn.  As much as it would be a spectacle of spectacles with the potential to draw in new viewers and players (and be an event for the ages), it feels a bit like cleaning the green stuff off of the Statue of Liberty.  I think we’ve grown to embrace the imperfection.