Further to the Port Security Bill, making it illegal for banks and credit card companies to make payments to online gambling companies, the possibility of US players participating in online gambling was virtually cut off. This saw millions of American online gamers to seek out another way to play games online for money. This is where online games of skill, allowing their members to play games for money, fulfilled a need in the market, and continues to do so.

According to market analysts 2008 has seen a substantial increase in the number of people playing online games of skill in America, especially gin rummy. Leading US online rummy website, Rummy Royal, reporting a fifty percent increase in their 2007 and 2008 number of Americans playing at their skill games site, with as many as thirty five percent of these playing gin rummy.

According to RummyRoyal, the twenty three million US players who played online games until the new law came into force, a majority of these players who have moved over to skill games, show a greater interest in Gin Rummy, a traditional US favourite card game.

Rummy Royal's manager of game rooms, Sasha Arkin, said when speaking of Gin Rummy that: ""Changes and developments over the last two years have exposed Americans to games that are cleverer, with a long tradition behind them. The tradition of rummy, played in almost every home throughout the world, goes back hundreds of years and was in fact the most popular game in the Ottoman Empire. More recently, rummy, in all its variations, is gaining popularity in the UK and in France (known as kalooki for uk and rami in France), and even in China where they play Mahjong, the Chinese version of rummy".

In response to the increase in demand for Gin Rummy, RummyRoyal are currently multiplying the deposits of new US players.

Skill Juice launches as skill games provider

 Online gambling white label provider St. Minver, are set to launch a new skill gaming network called Skill Juice. St Minver, who will take on the hosting and maintenance of the Skill Juice network, are one of the biggest white label gambling providers and power brands such as Littlewoods and Virgin. Also involved are other companies that fall under the Lottomatica company - Boss Media A.B. and Finsoft Ltd. Current plans are to develop and add in-house as well as third-party games to the portfolio offered.

Gary Shaw, the founder of Skill Juice said: "There [are] a number of skill game offerings in the market, but we wanted to create the largest scalable back office and game engine where over a million players could play concurrently in a heads up tournament format. Even our games are intended to be different."

This is of course exciting news for all of us. A new skill gaming network bringing the expertise of a large online gambling company to the table for us to enjoy. We should expect to see new games, bigger tournaments, bigger prize money, better signing up bonuses and general growth and improvement on what is already a good industry.

The arrival of St Minver to the skill gaming scene is indicative of the future growth and potential of the market. Already one of the major players in the gambling market, skill gaming looks set to be an area of diversification and growth for existing firms looking to expand into new markets. The expertise and resources available to gambling companies will be directly transferable to the skill gaming market and will add extra competition to the exissting big companies like World Winner, Game Duell and Game Account. It will also be interesting to see to what extent the existing customers of gambling companies will be interested in skill gaming. While some might agree with existing skill gamers, that it can be more rewarding, competitive, enjoyable and exciting than gambling, others may not be interested.