Hollywood Poker Shuts Shop
June 26, 2012 2:22 pmAfter 8 years of operation Hollywood Poker has finally ceased offering online poker, and instead shifted its accounts to RedKings.com where its players are now able to play without incident. Although no explanation was given for the sudden closure of Hollywood Poker, a company statement read on the website:
“Please be informed that your HollywoodPoker account, along with your entire account balance, has been transferred over to RedKings.com. Your nickname and password will remain the same. Simply log into Redkings.com with your HollywoodPoker username and password.
Located on the Ongame Network, Hollywood Poker originally launched in 2004 describing itself as a “celebrity-filled poker room” and the place where the “Stars come to Play!” Hollywood Poker even had three-times Emmy Award winner James Woods as a spokesmen, whose biggest poker success came at the 2006 L.A. Poker Classic where he finished 24th out of 692 players for a $39,859 payday. In addition, WPT host Vince Van Patten also acted as a spokesman for the site and stated at its one year anniversary in 2005:
“I think the site is growing very fast. People like to hobnob with celebrities. This is the one spot where the celebrities can play poker with anyone across the country and around the world.”
Nevertheless, it ultimately failed to deliver a roster of poker pros or any other celebrity endorsements and in recent times had seen its traffic dramatically decline to 2,847 cash game players as of June 23. Hollywood Poker has now become the latest site to exit the beleaguered Ongame Network, whose other casualties include Gala Casino Poker moving to the iPoker network, and Bet24 moving to Microgaming.
Following the latest news about Hollywood Poker, many customers have been expressing surprise as to the suddenness of the closure. However, as one of the site’s customers pointed out: “To be honest, at least they moved people’s balances to another site rather than steal people’s money.”