Pinnacle Sports, long one of the industry leaders in the online sportsbook market, announced today that they are exiting the US market, effective immediately.

From their website - "After careful consideration, Pinnacle Sports have chosen to voluntarily exit the U.S. market. Accordingly, wagers will no longer be accepted from clients within the U.S. as of Thursday, January 11, 2007.

Those clients who are affected will be required to withdraw their balances using the Cashier of their account. We assure all our clients your balances are available and Pinnacle will continue providing our international clients our same great value."

This response to the UIGEA comes as a serious blow to US sportsbettors, as Pinnacle Sports has long been one of the largest and most active of the online sportsbooks. Actions like this, coming after time, are more unsettling than the knee-jerk reaction to the legislation of companies such as Party Poker, which withdrew from the US market immediately upon passage of the bill.