The official dot com for PokerStars is now closed to the French. After successfully gaining a license to operate a .fr domain the worlds largest poker room by cash game volume (and by most other measures you could think of) will be forced to remove French players from all it's international tables.
Italy had already taken steps to force sites down this road and PokerStars had respected this by segregating Italians in a similar way. In some ways this is good for the French players though.
What is not often discussed is that the current poker economy involves the leeching of vast sums out of the microstakes games by very tight players from Eastern Europe who can afford to play for $4/hour. This tightens the games and makes it tougher for regulars in richer countries to make a living and it makes the games less fun for the fish. I would imagine for the most popular game - no limit hold'em cash bot the regulars and the fish in France will have a better time of it after this ban.
Where the downside of course comes is that there will be no more Sunday Million, big special events and the huge selection of alternative games will be closed off to the French. For a lot of players slightly softer games won't nearly compensate them for the loss of choice and fun. I think this move is a shame and probably one that will lead to/encourage more jurisdictions to split their players out of the World pool.
A much better solution would have been some kind of European agreement to allow large rooms to operate across the whole market, regulated fully and in some cases (reputable sites who could prove they would account/pay their tax appropriately) allowing fully international operators. Of course who am I... who am I...!
No comments:
Post a Comment