After six years in business, one of the more popular, under-the-radar online poker rooms in the industry has decided to call it a day. Late last week, Poker Nordica let its customers know that it was shutting down its operations on April 1st, 2012. Unfortunately, this was no April Fool’s joke.
Poker Nordica customers had become very worried about the normally reliable company over the last couple months, as e-mails to customer support received no responses. In mid-March, one poster on the Two Plus Two poker forum said he sent e-mails to the Merge Poker Network (of which Poker Nordica was a member), posted on Poker Nordica’s Facebook page, sent messages to the poker room’s Twitter account, and even contacted his affiliate to try to get any sort of response. He eventually heard back from the network’s security department, which informed him that they had no record of any of his e-mails.
On March 30th, the sudden silence from Poker Nordica became clear, as players began receiving e-mails from the online poker room which announced the end of the business. Those who logged in to the software client this week were also greeted with the disappointing message.
Poker Nordica players have until May 1st to login to the cashier and initiate a withdrawal of their funds. Unfortunately, the poker room’s minimum balance required to receive a check is $115 ($100 minimum transaction plus a $15 fee), so those with small amounts of money on deposit will not be able to receive their money directly from Poker Nordica.
There is an option for players with not enough funds for a check withdrawal. Poker Nordica will facilitate balance transfers to other sites on the Merge Poker Network. The destination accounts must be “active,” so players without an account elsewhere will need to open one first; the poker rooms will not do this for them. Players interested in transferring their balances can e-mail support@pokernordica.com
Poker Nordica launched in 2006, at the peak of the online poker boom. It was in the fall of that year that the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA) passed in the United States, forcing multitudes of poker rooms to pull out of the U.S. and numerous networks to go out of business. Poker Nordica held strong, though, working with online poker affiliates to build its customer base. It never became a major player like PokerStars or Full Tilt Poker, but it was a solid site, growing into the second largest on the Merge Gaming Network behind the network’s flagship site, Carbon Poker.
The Merge Gaming Network is currently the largest U.S.-facing online poker network/room and the 8th largest in the industry overall, according to PokerScout.com. With a seven-day average of 1,640 cash game players, it is just 20 behind Winamax.fr for the 7th spot in the rankings. Bovada.lv (Bodog) is the next largest U.S.-friendly site with just 900 cash game players. The Cake Poker Network is the only other network of any import whatsoever that accepts U.S. players, with only a seven-day average of 680 cash game players.
