NETeller and Citadel pulled out of the US market on Wednesday night last week and their exit has precipated a general exodus from the American market. Already InstaDebit has follwed in their footsteps, and meanwhile Click2Pay has stopped accepting new US customers - though it will allow exisiting US users to continue deposting and withdrawing money. How long it maintains that position remains to be seen.

The situation is rapidly becoming extremely grave for US online gamblers, and it may not be long before all of the respected third party payment processors have left the US market. PokerStars.com, the world's biggest online poker room and one of the few mainstream poker rooms still accepting US customers, lists 17 different deposit methods on its site. Today just one of those (ePassporte) still accepts US punters.

With the respected payment processors out of the business, if ePassporte also exits the US market PokerStars will have no choice but to look to other, less reputable payment processors if it is to continue on in the US. Things could get very tricky for the US punter from here on in.