The Law of Unintended Consequences

The New York City transit workers' strike has had an unusual effect: it appears to have sent online poker playing through the roof.

DeviatedNorm posts to LiveJournal's WTF, Inc. community a press release from the publicist of online poker site Doyle's Room:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Kevin Manning
212-999-5585
kmanning@5wpr.com

MTA TRANSIT STRIKE RESULTS IN RECORD ONLINE POKER NUMBERS

Online Poker Site DoylesRoom.com Sees Record Amount of Players During Early Stages of MTA Transit Strike

December 20, New York – It is only mid-afternoon, but already internet poker site DoylesRoom.com is seeing record numbers online in the New York City metro area. It appears, due to this mornings New York City transit strike, many commuters are staying home from work and playing poker online.

Normal peak hours for online poker are between 8pm EST and 1am EST, but today, many accounts that are active only in the evening hours went live by as early as 10:00am EST in New York City and surrounding areas affected by the strike illustrating the fact that many commuters that opted to “work from home” were instead playing online poker.

“At first we didn’t know what was going on with the flood of players we were getting from New York City,” stated Marty Wallace, COO for DoylesRoom.com. “Then we realized that the transit strike they’ve been threatening since this past Friday finally took place.”

The winter season is the peak time for online poker rooms like DoylesRoom.com because people spend more time indoors away from the cold and log online. With the addition of a transit strike in New York City, those numbers have reached record levels.

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Doyle’s Room (www.DoylesRoom.com ) is the only online poker site endorsed by poker legend, Doyle Brunson. The site is a leading poker provider for North American players and is an international hub for Texas Hold ’em and other popular poker games. Players at DoylesRoom.com can play for free to learn the game, or engage in real game play against players throughout the World.

Sean Hamel
Account Executive
5W Public Relations (www.5wpr.com )
45 West 45th Street, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10036
Phone: (212) 999-5585 x239
Fax: (646) 328-1711
Email: shamel@5wpr.com

Note: I checked both the 5W Public Relations Web site and the site of Doyle's Room and could not, at first attempt, locate an online copy of the press release, so I can't independently confirm its veracity myself. However, the Chicago Tribune has a news story reporting the same basic facts, and also reports that BetOnSports.com's poker room has had a 30-35% spike in users today.

(hat tip to Lynn Kendall)