See the upper comments!

Any updates on this? Anyone?

Yup, moving forward fast. France has opened up applications for operators to apply for shared liquidity, and Italy has drafted an amendment to allow for it. I expected similar procedural steps from Portugal and Italy in the next month.

Can't wait! The table chat will be fun

That op/ed in calvinayre was rather fishy to me. The author did not disclose who he worked for, and the analysis about French players being better and will, therefore, dominate the tables because of their WSOP performance is ... simplistic, at best.

The article from which you quote, I'll just say that I don't really understand what is trying to be said. Yes, shared liquidity across borders might not immediately entice back the pros Spanish players who moved home outside of Spain. So what? That's not the primary goal. The author also talks about how Spanish and French numbers are "inflated by loopholes" allowing non-citizens to play. It's not a loophole, it's the law. And no Spanish operator has allowed this anyway. I don't really understand the point.

It's going to be great for many operators, all the players, and the regulators. Will it transform the situation overnight and result in a huge poker boom? Of course not.

But will PokerStars PT/IT/ES/FR be the second largest poker network in the world? Looks like it to me. The author kind of says no but doesn't provide any evidence to the contrary.

Is Winamax readying to launch in three more countries explicitly because of this shared liquidity opportunity? Yes. Is that more enticing for new players to play in bigger tournaments and have more cash games available? Absolutely. Could it entice operators like 888 and partypoker to reconsider their investment in online poker in some of these industries? You bet. Is it correcting course for European online poker and putting it on solid footing moving forward? Yes.

The article on PNR seems nitpicking and missing the bigger point. That's my take anyway.

I can't imagine that IT, ES and PT will allow FR to still accept ROW players?

At least on PokerStars.fr they already stopped offering games to ROW players some months ago.

That's TBD but yeah, worst case scenario it impacts today just Winamax. When PS changed the rules a few months back no appreciable impact to numbers. Winamax will still be predominantly Fr... when they pulled out of UK didn't see a noticeable change. And don't think any operator takes advantage of this in Spain any more.

The whole discussion about Spanish players leaving the country and not coming back just misses the point. Online poker is about casual players, and them sticking around because they enjoy the experience rather than using their disposable income elsewhere. Right now things sucks. But shared liquidity - three times the cash games, triple-sized Sunday tourney guarantees = way better product to offer.

Even if we accept that French players are all sharks (lol) and Spanish players have less disposable income ... so? They play lower stakes. Casual players are ultimately net depositors. There's less disposable income in Bulgaria - would they be better off on closed liquidity?

We could see a $10 million SCOOP in 2018 across PT/FR/ES/IT. And that's not going to have a positive impact? Come on.

This change sucks for one group - operators in a single market not readying to expand. Well, that sucks, but market conditions change and you need to change with them. Winamax is. This has been signaled for five+ years. Get with the program.

So, by 2018 there should be everything set (legislation + software) in order for players from these countryes to be able to play against each other?

So can these countries not play tournaments on the main pokerstars site? You would think there must be some way how they can have all countries play the same tournaments while still keeping the cash segregated.

@Hood, do you have any info when it will happen? And which clients will be first to launch it? Winamax and Stars probably but do you think 888 and Party and Ipoker will join? Thanks.

That's the goal, yes. There's a chance it might just be e.g. Spain and France - Italy seem to be a bit behind the curve and the issue recently become political.

Correct.

No


Here's an article i recently wrote on the latest preparations from operators.

Regarding go-live date - Q1 2018 at the earliest, imo.

Thanx for the updates Hood!

Any updates Hood? Is this still in progress? I noticed that i was able to play on Winamax from my spanish location with my Dutch account, this must have been changed recently.

There's nothing explicit from Winamax that they are allowing that. May well have been an issue with their geolocation blocking, i'd be surprised if they explicitly permit that - would go against what they're trying to do. They aren't licensed in Spain yet, to the best of my knowledge.

Recent updates

- Portugal have progressed with regulations, putting forward an amendment to allow international liquidity.

- Lots of rumors that Italy is delayed, seems increasingly likely we'll see FR/ES or FR/ES/PT at first, with Italy joining later. Nothing concrete though.

- Winamax acquired an Italian license by buying bet-at-home, which had a dormant Italian concession. They also hired big-name Spanish and Italian ambassadors.

I recently help host the GPI European Poker Conference, and we had a panel discussion on EU shared liquidity. On the panel was Head of Poker for Betsson Group, who called European shared liquidity "Winamax vs PokerStars 2.0", which I thought was fun. Overall the panel was in agreement that early to mid-2018 seemed likely.

Thx Hood!
Will it be possible to play on that platform from other countries? If not (I guess) is it possible to play say in Spain from holiday or is it required to actually live there/own a passport?

Thanks Hood. And @above i can answer that currently playing on the ES. You have to show passport/ID and or proof that your currently living in one of those countries by utility bills, tax number etc. They became much more strict since everything got legalised. Its only possible to cash out to a bank account registered and located in one of those countries although Pokerstars allows cash outs also to Neteller etc. But im almost certain they will also have to change it to bank account only after they get merged into one pool.

@LeaksSuck - covered that in post #31 re other countries

As NL Eagle says, you will need to register for a spanish account when in spain, which requires i believe a DNI or NIE tax number, so it is not possible as just a holiday maker.

The lack of news from the regulators about this is just absurd. On the backstage there's even the word that Italy and Portugal might not be part of the pool from the beginning which is pretty worrisome because once you don't step on the train from the beginning... you probably won't catch it later...

Lobbies... Lobbies everywhere... on the Portuguese part is even harder to understand these kind of decisions. By the time it was legislated the government allowed from the beginning the international shared liquidity. I recall the Portuguese minister at that time saying that: "by not forbidden the international liquidity the document allows it. We understand the importance of this for the market to be competitive". That was back in 2015.

But then all of a sudden there was a major shift once that government collapsed. We had a major blackout and started 1 and a half year later as a ring fenced market. Still, the document that serves the basis for the legislation is the same... The French and Spanish laws were very clear on this matter: their market should be ring fenced. There's no such thing on the Portuguese one... Once we had the change in the Government, the Portuguese regulator's enforced something to the operator's that IS NOT on the Portuguese law.

Lobbies... everywhere.

Oh man this is the first time I read about this. I finally got red diamond literally 1 month ago. It would be pokerstars/supernova written all over this if I get thrown out now. Not a single mail was sent about this.



edit: obviosuly winamax im talking about.

Not really. The shared pools won't have any impact on that department. The players will maintain their accounts as they are. They will just be able to play with the players from other countries.

Oh. So there will be a playerpool split? Im fine with that, albeit it obv sucks anyway. But happy to stay cause Winamax client is by far the nicest one ive ever played at, yeah, i there is a huge circlejerk around stars client here but ive never took liking of it, esp not its disgusting lobby.

If French players leave the pool, then you end up just playing vs Regulars. It kind of sucks.

rather bleed myself dry in those games than swap to cancerstars.

Yea have heard Italy is delayed and other markets will proceed without them. This is better than waiting really.

I think winamax will gain the most. Stars are not running good promos anymore and are depending on their marketing abilities too much. Players want value!