i checked with support: Hood is right, ppl in the .eu/.com pool that are not a local license like UK etc can open an .es account and play in those games, transfers b/w other licenses and .es are impossible, support can send direct links for client dls

Dont need to start using the f word its true tho. They have less money to spew playing card games online and the players that are able to beat the game from those countries are obviously not the most loose passives but more nitty and very careful with their money/ betting.
Stars makes a mistake imo by throwing it all open suddenly without knowing what it will cause to the balance of fish/regs. We have seen what happened on the .com after france and italy (the most fishy countries) got excluded and more people from the poor countries like Eastern Europe and latin America discovered online poker on .com. It definitely caused an unbalance.

Btw, didnt France and Italy, and Spain regulate it so the taxes from the companies and the money from their citizens would stay within the country? I remember that was one of the main reasons to keep it exclusively within their own countries.

could be the case that stars is going against regulation guidelines?
Afaik this option was never on the table, so weird...

Well there are lots of unregulated markets, serving them is just a risk/reward decision with couple of unknowns. How can it be against regulation guidelines if e.g. in case of germany there is no common regulation? Doubt the spanish/french regulation explicitly forbids foreigners to join, they're certainly not planning this for a long time and then hurting some important rule on the first days o_O

Absolutely not against regulations.

lol, this is beyond ridiculous (from the perspective of a `shared liquidity` country player obv)

when portuguese and italians join, the regs will be already settled

I feel bad for even posting this, but Belarus and Ukrainians can now play with French and Spanish players?! This will be a bloodbath, and the chance of seeing a EU market in the future are a fantasy...

whether the rus/ukr/bel players are able to join the es/fr pool it doesn't really matter.

Noone i going to be making a ton of money on stars.fr anymore except the elite 600nl+ players.

if ROW players join the .fr pool...all thats going to happen is the best es/fr grinders winrates go from 2bb/100 to 1.5bb/100.

This new combo site is zoom only? I don't really understand how that makes sense given their low player numbers? It's one thing if they allow a table to go off when 2 players join, but waiting until 3 when there is so little action is a pretty big impediment to a game getting started on a site where it will often have to start at 0 players.

Zoom works much better where there is a lot of action, but on a site where it could go hours with 2 players wanting to play a specific game/stake, to not allow the game to start is silly.

Was Stars.fr zoom only before this? Is there any difference between .fr and .es now?

Could Belarusians and Ukrainians play on PokerStars.FR prior to February 2017? Was it a blood bath?

France and Spain, Italy excluded themselfes from online gambling already 7(!!) and 6(!!) years ago, because of money flowing out of the country and not taxed (this was one of the main reasons they regulated it back then) when they now open it again to ROW and especially those East European countries like Belarus/Ukraine etc.
Only nitty grinders sign up up from those countries, and again, the reason for it to do so regarding the steps taken against it in the past, is clueless.
Countries with huge differences in economic wealth shouldnt be allowed on the same client imo, exactly why it got regulated 7 years ago when deposited money in richer countries didnt flow back/return into the own economy.
But we will see what this will lead to, we all know PokerStars has been focused on rapid growth and expansion (see all rake increases and reward system changing) adding gambing/sports betting) while they used to be the absolute number 1 site for the players.

Nothing has changed with regulations in this regard. It has always been the case that Spain was open to international signups, and France was open to all players with an European bank account (my Q regarding Belarus and Ukraine was genuine; can't remember precisely what the cut-off is with French regs; if its EU bank i guess not). So, again - absolutely nothing in regulations of either country has changed.

All that has changed is that accounts registered in France can now play with accounts registered in Spain; and, PokerStars has made the business decision to open up its Spanish signups for the first time.

So far i havent seen any other nationalityes in the lobby. No-one registered an acount from outside of Spain and France yet, or maybe the accounts haven't been verifiyed yet?

it auto gives u spain as country, im playing on it right now lol.

French and Spanish players (and other players from First World), dont` be afraid. Just sacrifice some money to poor grinders from Eastern Europe and enjoy the game.

So funny.
For french players there is no reason now to play PS.fr.

Winamax is the way better choice. There's at least some RB and from time to time a reload bonus.

Why u guys think Eastern Europe will play in ps.es? Correct me if im wrong, but ps.es has higher rake and 20-45% tax to your winnings.

Calm down guys. Will not be Ukrainians at your tables

Thank you for contacting us.

My name is Jose and i'll be assisting you with your case.

You can create the account (as you already did) however in order to play with real money you need to physically be located in Spain and process the authentication of the account.

There is not tax if you are not living in Spain.


Edit: Well, that now makes more sense if you only can play from Spain.

I'm hoping to get some clarification from PS on this very soon - seems to be some crossed wires here.

Fwiw the original source is from the PS French poker room manager himself here:
http://www.clubpoker.net/forum-poker...-lespagne-faq/

While I guess he might have meant that "non-residents while in Spain can now play on PokerStars.ES" that was not stated at the time nor cleared up later on in the thread. In fact he goes on to say:

That seems pretty ambiguous that the plan is to allow foreign players, like they did with PokerStars.FR.

edit: and he just posted now in response to "Does Spanish law allow it to play outside their geographical territory? Does your Spanish software allow it?" - "Answer is Yes to both questions"

Hood, do you think it's at all because they are forcing zoom only down peoples throats and zoom only is absurdly ineffective when the player pool is small?

Just looking right now, and there isn't a single 2/4 or 5/10 game running. One person sitting alone at a table. But why would any random player just wanting to play sit and be number 2 if it means they have to stare at their computer for many hours unsure if the game will pop up and take their blind? With a limited player pool, zoom only discourages people from playing where they want to because there is a greater barrier to getting a game going.

While I'm not personally a believer in zoom only with a larger player pool, there is at least a more normal case for it when there is always a large pool running that's easy to hop in and play. When the cash player pool is small, it just makes less games go off.

You may be onto something here. Both partypoker and bwin constantly run promotions that cater exclusively to fast-forward players.
The rake generated in those games must be impressive.
Also with the "seat-me" feature maybe stars just want all cash game action on zoom in future?

I assume however that UK and Irish players will not be able to join winamax.es since we both have licences that Winamax have not signed up to? However both should be eligible for pokerstars.es (?)

I'm no expert in what works with player liquidity, but my first instinct would be to say that Seat Me and Zoom are more effective with smaller player pools, no? You're auto-seating people at the next-full table, rather than letting players spread out across lots of tables, encouraging more action with a smaller player base.

Unibet has been "seat me" since day 1 and it seems to work for them for their relatively smaller player pool.

I can inform people that I was successfully able to create an account on pokerstars.es and deposit from Eastern Europe. Completely legal, no VPN and the info I put in is 100% correct. To be fair I only deposited 10 euros to see what's up. Messed around on nl2 zoom a little bit and played few tourneys. Games obv super soft, only saw players from France and Spain. Kinda hard to believe that I am only one out there from foreign countries so there might be glitch but who knows.

I checked if I could potentially withdraw money and I was asked to upload the standart documents (ID and address proof) so I am know waiting to hear from Pokerstars. All in all it seems very similar to Pokerstars.fr before February 2017.