A month after launching its own online poker site amid much hoopla, online search engine Yahoo has decided to shut down the site effective December 31.
The company didn’t offer details but a message on its webpage said that the online poker site would no longer be offered due to “changes in supporting technologies and increased security requirements for our Yahoo web pages” having rendered the game “incompatible, insecure, and no longer functioning correctly.”
Yahoo left open the possibility of launching a new online poker room in the future.
It’s a little surprising that Yahoo would give up on its online poker offering, especially after it took great lengths to advertise the site on its fantasy football page. Even if web security is a real issue that needs to be addressed, it’s not like Yahoo doesn’t have the means to work on the supposed security gaps ailing the site.
A little research on Yahoo’s Games Help page did reveal that the online search engine is working on a series of new online games to be launch soon.
Yahoo’s Texas Hold’em portal offered no real prizes other than virtual chips. The new version is expected to use the “free to play” model that offers add-ons at a cost.
At the time of its launch, many analysts believed Yahoo created its poker site with the intention of eventually entering real-money poker by applying for a license in states that have legalized online gambling.
