BY TOM SOMACH

With the announcement earlier this week that Gibraltar-based Internet poker room Mansion Poker has joined the ranks of poker sites banning U.S. players, the constantly-shifting landscape of the online poker world has shifted again.

So what is the current picture?

PokerHelper.com just surveyed the scene and found these up-to-the-minute results, as far as which major online poker rooms are still accepting U.S. players and which are not.

Here’s what we found:

The following online poker rooms are still accepting players from the United States: Poker Stars (www.pokerstars.com), Planet Poker (www.planetpoker.com), Tony G. Poker (www.tonygpoker.com), World Poker Exchange (http://www.worldpokerexchange.com), True Poker (www.truepoker.com), Full Tilt Poker (www.fulltiltpoker.com), Absolute Poker (www.absolutepoker.com), Ultimate Bet (www.ultimatebet.com), Doyle’s Room (www.doylesroom.com), Raw Poker (www.rawpoker.com), Bodog Poker (www.bodog.com), Poker.com (www.poker.com) and Bugsy’s Club (www.bugsysclub.com).

The following online poker rooms have banned players from the United States: Mansion Poker (www.mansionpoker.com), Party Poker (www.partypoker.com), Celeb Poker (www.celebpoker.com), Everest Poker (www.everestpoker.com), Empire Poker (www.empirepoker.com), Paradise Poker (www.paradisepoker.com), Poker Room (www.pokerroom.com), Pacific Poker (www.pacificpoker.com), Titan Poker (www.titanpoker.com), Hollywood Poker (www.hollywoodpoker.com), Ladbrokes Poker (www.ladbrokes.com), Canbet Poker (www.canbet.com), Noble Poker (www.noblepoker.com), CD Poker (www.cdpoker.com), InterPoker (www.interpoker.com) and 24 Hour Poker (www.24hpoker.com).

Before banning poker players in the USA, Party Poker was generally considered the largest online poker room in the world, as far as the number of people playing for real money.

When it became the first major online poker room to boot American players, last fall, immediately after the U.S. Congress passed anti-online gambling legislation, it immediatley lost its leading share of the world market.

Now Poker Stars, which not only is still in the U.S. market but which reiterated earlier this week that it intends to stay in the U.S. market, is generally considered the largest online poker room in the world, as far as the number of people playing for real money.

Of the Internet poker rooms banning U.S. players, all except Mansion Poker did so last year, following passage of the new U.S. law.

Mansion Poker instituted its ban this year, immediately following the announcement by Internet money processor NETeller (www.neteller.com) last month that the processor was pulling out of the U.S. market and would no longer process online financial transactions for Americans that involved online gambling.