Doyle Brunson Turned Down a $230 Million Offer For DoylesRoom.com

10-time WSOP champion Doyle Brunson recently tweeted about his regret about turning down a $230 million offer for his former online poker site, DoylesRoom.com.

DoylesRoom opened its virtual doors in the middle of the Moneymaker online poker boom in 2004. Brunson was a co-owner of the company, it bore his name and he wore the logo of the room on his signature cowboy hat during many of his TV appearances. A number of other famous pros were also brand ambassadors, including online MTT earnings record holder Chris “moorman1” Moorman, Amit Makhija and David Sands.

The site never rose to the level of Full Tilt or PokerStars but was attracting steady traffic. Originally part of the Tribeca Poker Network, it switched networks multiple times over the course of its operation: first it moved to Microgaming, then to Cake Poker, then the move to the Yataha Network followed - the final destination was the Winning Poker Network after the room was acquired by Americas Card Room in 2011.

But before the 2011 transfer however, as we learned from his recent tweet, the Texas Dolly was offered a whopping $230 million for his share in the poker room - an offer that was eventually turned down, an admittedly nightmarish decision by Brunson since, as he put it, the poker room became worthless in one day.

Brunson has given no other details of the failed deal so the date is unknown. But - as Cardplayer Magazine points out - there is an event we can pinpoint on the timeline that likely could have caused the sudden drop in value for DoylesRoom. 

In 2006 the US Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act - strangely enough, as part of a bill about port security. As a result, DoylesRoom exited the US market and did not return until a year passed. Daniel Negreanu complained about how the same bill passing derailed an acquisition deal he was about to make for Full Contact Poker for $170 million, so there’s a good chance Brunson’s talking about the same turn of events on Twitter.

The buyout by Americas Cardroom, mentioned before, took place in October 2011, a few months after the infamous Black Friday - by then, Brunson was not affiliated with the room, he cut all ties with it on April 15th that year.