BY TOM SOMACH

Planet Poker (www.planetpoker.com), one of the pioneers of the Internet  poker industry, has announced it is getting out of the play-for-real-money business, effective at the end of this month.

The website will continue to offer play-for-fun online poker, and hopes to one day resume real-money play, the company said.

Planet Poker, which debuted in January of 1998 as one of the first online poker rooms in the world, said the decision to cease offering real-money play was made because of the U.S. government’s crackdown on Internet gambling.

Planet Poker made the announcement on its website and gave more details in a mass e-mail to its customers.

The e-mail, a copy of which was obtained by PokerHelper.com., reads in part: “After nine years in business, Planet Poker has made the difficult decision to cease real-money operations. Management regrets this decision but the impact of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) in the U.S. leaves no reasonable alternative.

“During the past several months, Planet Poker explored every reasonable option to continue real-money operations. This included working with other cardrooms and e-commerce processors to find solutions to the issues existing in the industry today. Unfortunately, no viable solution surfaced.

“As always, your funds are safe and secure at Planet Poker. We are pleased to announce that we have made arrangements to allow players to transfer remaining funds from Planet Poker to another cardroom…Real-money tables and tournaments will continue at Planet Poker through to 31 March 2007, but effective immediately you can no longer make a deposit…

“Planet Poker will continue to offer you the best ‘play for fun’ poker on the Internet and hope to see you frequently at our tables. We hope to return to real-money operations when the legal climate is clearer.”

The “another cardroom” that the e-mail refers to is Bodog Poker (www.bodog.com).

Planet Poker’s decision to terminate real-money play for everyone comes as somewhat of a surprise to industry observers.

That’s because up until now, most online poker rooms have reacted in one of two ways to the passage of UIGEA: The rooms have either ignored it or reacted by banning U.S. players only from real-money play.

Planet Poker becomes the first major online poker room to ban residents of all countries from real-money play, while continuing to offer play-money play to all.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)