Another Poker Room Bites the Dust: Bugsy’s Club Closes

New online poker rooms come and go, but it’s a rare day–and a sad one–when big, respected, long-standing poker sites have to close their doors. Such was the case recently when PokerRoom.com, the first poker site to support Mac users, announced its closure. Operating since 1999, PokerRoom was bought out in 2006 by Bwin which ran the site until just recently when they made the decision to shut it down.

Now it’s Bugsy’s Club which, according to the notice on its website, had to shut down “due to circumstances beyond our control with regards to banking facilities”. Fortunately, Bugsy’s Club has reached a deal with Poker Stars to transfer all player account balances over to that site, well known as the world’s largest online poker site, and the one that “discovered” World Series of Poker Main Event Winners Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem, and Peter Eastgate (2008).

So if you were a Bugsy’s Club player, at least you can comfort yourself for your loss knowing you won’t lose your bankroll and you can now start playing on PokerStars with ease.

Meanwhile we bid farewell to another great poker site. Bugsy’s Club Poker, named for Vegas mobster Bugsy Siegel, was launched in 2003.

After a startling news story recently about a Hidalgo County Texas father and son who defrauded investors trying to run a shady online poker scheme, it’s now more than ever when we cherish those legitimate poker sites we know and trust. Let’s hope no more of them go the way of PokerRoom and Bugsy’s Club.