According to Holdem Poker Chat, TwoPlusTwo, and anonymous industry sources, sites on the Merge Gaming Network may be closing their doors to new U.S. real money players for at least three weeks starting on Friday, June 3rd. A Holdem Poker Chat article explained, “The Merge Poker Network will temporarily stop accepting new U.S. players… in order to catch up on a backlog of customers service requests, but more importantly on poker transactions.”

The family of sites could reopen its doors in as little as three to four weeks, although the Holdem Poker Chat article claimed that the temporary closure could stretch “through the end of the summer.” It added, “What they will be trying to do is add more processing options as well as hire more customer support personnel to handle the extra traffic.”

No official announcement from Merge has been made as of the time of writing.

Existing players on Merge, even those from the United States, do not appear to be affected and can continue playing as normal. On June 1st, Merge Gaming Network sites like and Lock Pokerand Carbon Poker cut off 35% rakeback to new accounts, while existing players with 35% rakeback were grandfathered in.

According to a thread on the Poker Affiliate Solutions forums, the temporary ban on new U.S. player sign-ups could last four to six weeks. The same thread asserted, “It seems that Merge feels they are doing their customers a disservice by continuing to bring in scores of new players while the company struggles in certain areas with the customers they already have.”

Merge’s growth since the Black Friday indictments of the founders of PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker has been quite staggering. According to the traffic ranking site PokerScout.com, real money ring game activity on the Merge Gaming Network is up 145% year-over-year. It now sits with a seven-day running average of 1,640 cash game players and a 24-hour peak of 2,761.

To put the growth in perspective, between April 2nd and Black Friday on April 15th, the highest peak cash game player count reported was 1,615. Merge ranks ninth worldwide in terms of real money ring game traffic.

If the rumored plans from the Merge Gaming Network come to fruition on Friday, then U.S. online poker players will be left with a scant few sites to sign up on. The next largest U.S.-facing room, according to PokerScout.com, is Bodog, which has a seven-day average of 790 cash game players. Other options include Cake Poker(610) and the Yatahay Poker Network (220). Bodog and Yatahay have seen their cash game traffic grow by 45% and 195% year-over-year, respectively.

The Yatahay Network has had its fair share of legal run-ins in recent days, as sites like TruePoker.com and DoylesRoom.com were seized in Maryland. A total of 10 dot-com domain names were seized on May 23rd in a second wave of indictments, which were issued on charges that included operating an illegal gambling business and money laundering. Both True Poker and DoylesRoom have since moved to dot-ag domains.

On PocketFives.com, a thread linking to the Holdem Poker Chat article, as well as one authored by Subject Poker, popped up to mixed responses. One poster questioned, “Idk about this ‘temporary’ block. Why would they block off any more potential growth? That’s what running a poker site is all about. If they needed to hire more ppl to ‘clear their backlog,’ there’s certainly no reason they couldn’t do that while still allowing new sign-ups.”

Most of the poker-related attention in the United States is currently focused on the annual World Series of Poker, which today announced a $1 million buy-in tournament that will take place in 2012.

Also taking center stage in Las Vegas have been pros from Full Tilt Poker. To that end, site front man Phil Ivey sued Tiltware in order to get out of his contract, which included a non-compete clause. Moreover, Red Pro James Bord called John Juanda a “thieving prick” on Day 1 of the seven-week tournament series.

Visit the thread in the Poker Sites forum for more information.