Published on March 27th, 2007 5:49 pm EST

The anti-gambling bill has claimed another victim.

Planet Poker, which was the first major online poker room (has been around for over 9 years now), has announced that due to the anti-gambling bill, they will be discontinuing their real money games by March 31st, 2007. Effective immediately, Planet Poker will no longer be processing any deposits of any kind, from either American or non-American residents. Planet Poker is completely shutting down.

Planet Poker plans on continue their free poker games, and even expanding in this department. I am not sure how they are planning on making money in the future, or if they are just planning on running a charitable operation. There are costs such as servers and bandwidth, and I wonder how Planet Poker will pay the costs.

Regardless, it is a very sad day indeed when the innovator in the industry decides to close up shop. Rooms such as Poker Stars and Party Poker all owe Planet Poker a debt of gratitude, as they were the innovators.