yeah pretty grim for the UK, especially after .fr and winamax had to pull out i mean that place was great for mtt regs albeit on a smaller scale but great still non the less.

does suck about the system but it really is better than some parts like holland %30 tax on winnings, other countries are going that way i can see in the future, where is the best european country for a grinder to go nowadays?? i mean everything seems all a bit sketchy atm and i dont know whats happening in other countries but i do speak to alot of easter europeans and they seem like they have easy laws atm but i dont know how long these countrys wont go under the radar in the future..

Bump due to the release of StarsCard (a prepaid Pokerstars-branded Mastercard) in the UK, coming to other countries soon (already existing for long in Italy, where it's a Visa Electron ).

Maybe the news is worth its own thread, but I'm not an NVG reg and not ready to write a good OP.

Giving rewards to UK players that differs from other EU countries doesn't not comply with EU law.

Well that's not really true. You can price diferently in different markets. Especially when tax varies. With VAT applied in Germany but not in the UK there is bound to be a differential., this is far less of a challenge to the single market than that.

Segregation and seperate pricing in Italy and Spain has been deemed EU compliant, apparently gambling protection so long as applied consistently is EU compliant even if that breaks the single market entirely.

The whole POC tax regime has been referred to the European Court of Justice by the British Courts and in many months maybe a few years time they will make a ruling. My view is that the precedents on gambling related matters and VAT mean that the ECJ will rule the POCT lawful.

I have been wrong before and clearly there is some doubt or the Gibraltan authorities would not be making this fairly desperate last throw.

Meanwhile we have entered the time period when Stars warned they might change the rake charged in the higher tax areas like Germany and the UK. No news yet so maybe the development and testing of differentiated rake with a shared pool is behind schedule.