Everleaf Gaming made big news yesterday after announcing that they were banning players from France, Malta and the United States. Now those from these countries who try to log onto an Everleaf Gaming site get a message that says:

Client is blocked.Dear Member, according to our Terms and Conditions we regret to inform you that we are no longer able to accept traffic from your country. Your account has therefore been locked until further notice.

The main reason why Everleaf has taken these actions is because the US Department of Homeland Security sent them a cease and desist order. In other words, if the poker network continues to accept Americans, they’ll be in for quite a legal fight. So Everleaf has updated their terms and conditions to include the following:

No person who is resident in Malta, France and USA may open an account, play, or in any other way participate in the ELG offerings and/or services.

It’s unclear why the Everleaf Gaming network decided to pull out of France and Malta as well, but there’s a good chance that the Maltese Licensing Authority told them to pull out of these markets before any legal action happened.

Going back to the US market, Americans have increasingly fewer options for places where they can play poker. In less than a year’s time, they’ve lost the ability to play at PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, UB Poker, Absolute Poker and now Everleaf. Now their only real options include the Merge Gaming network, the Cake Poker network and Bovada.

Seeing as how the United States is attacking all of these offshore poker companies, it seems about time that they hurry up and give Americans some “legal” options for playing. Perhaps this is a sign that the federal government is closer to instituting their own online poker operation?