BY TOM SOMACH

How the mighty have fallen.

An Internet poker room that was once one of the most popular in the world is no more.

Sportingbet, the parent company of online poker room Paradise Poker (www.paradisepoker.com), has announced that it is closing the room and transferring all of the room’s customers to the other poker room it operates, Sportingbet Poker (www.sportingbet.com).

The redundancies of running two online poker rooms, with each using different poker software, made no sense economically, the company said.

This latest move will save money, the company said.

Sportingbet said it will retain rights to the brand name Paradise Poker, but it is unclear at this time if the name will ever be used again.

In the early days of the online poker boom, Paradise Poker was one of the most popular online poker rooms on the Web.

Ranked No. 3 worldwide in customer base, behind then-leader Party Poker (www.partypoker.com) and then-runnerup Poker Stars (www.pokerstars.com), Paradise Poker had approximately 10% of the online poker-playing market.

In fact, the Costa Rica-based poker room was so popular that in 2003 and 2004 it sponsored its own weekly national radio show in the United States on the Business Talk Radio Network, airing on about 75 radio stations throughout the country.

The hour-long poker talk show, which was hosted by Los Angeles sportscaster and poker expert Fred Wallin, dealt with all aspects of poker and was an effective marketing tool in the U.S. for the online poker room.

In 2004, Sportingbet, a U.K. corporation, purchased Paradise Poker for $300 million.

In 2006, Paradise Poker banned U.S. customers, after the U.S. Congress passed anti-online gambling legislation.

At the time, 75% of Paradise Poker’s customer base was American, so the self-imposed ban was crushing to business and all but a death knell.

That death knell has now come.

Besides its poker problems, Sportingbet, which also runs an online sportsbook, casino and bingo parlor, last year also had legal troubles.

Last September, Sportingbet’s chairman, Peter Dicks, was arrested in New York City on a warrant for gambling charges from Louisiana.

After the arrest, Sportingbet promptly fired Dicks.

Later, New York’s governor, George Pataki, refused to extradite Dicks to Louisiana and the Scottish-born Dicks was allowed to return to the U.K.