It looks like United States based poker players may have a site to play on after all. It has been said that the Merge Gaming Network is going to begin allowing new American players by the end of July. While there is no day that has been locked in for it yet, it’s looking as if it will happen at some point, hopefully soon. The Merge Network was one of the biggest winners in terms of adding traffic after Black Friday. A month after the indictment, Merge’s cash game traffic had gone up an incredible 79%. The Merge Network includes sites like Carbon Poker, and Lock Poker.
Originally, Merge decided to stop accepting new US players in the beginning of June. The reason for this was a bit different than most other sites though; as they were actually so flooded with new US players that they began to have payment processing issues. The Network was looking at a two week backup for cashouts, and decided that it would be smarter to just stop the growth, and get their customers paid out quicker.
When US players are fully allowed back on the site, it will be interesting to see how they do payment options for US players. Currently, a debit card or credit card has been said to work on the site, but the best withdrawal option as of now is by check. While getting paid out by check isn’t always the fastest (it sometimes takes up to two months to get the check processed), it is definitely a much better option than not getting paid at all. Based on Carbon Poker’s payouts though, players who put in for a check withdrawal were receiving payments within 2-5 days a few months back. This was of course, a bit before they had to stop allowing US players due to payout backups.