I don't think the ridiculous (ever increasing) amount of very tight players from these poor countries has gone unnoticed by recreational players - in fact the recreational players I know personally have been commenting on it quite a lot recently.

So perhaps it's not purely about how much these players are taking from the games, but also the negative effect they have on recreational players' experiences whilst playing...

Juk

I updated the article text so it is a bit more clear, but the main point stands.

The article said "[countries] .. represent markets too small to profitably operate"; you are talking about market size in terms of rake generated, or hands played. But this is talking about profit potential of online gaming in the country.

Considering factors like population size, propensity to gamble online, sports-betting interest, disposable income, social acceptance to gambling etc ... I think market potential in these countries is small.

I'd happy to be corrected on that, and i'm not suggesting i'm an expert about online gaming culture in many of these countries. But the numbers you quote only highlight the point i was trying to make - the players playing from these countries are mostly net-withdrawing players (PS has a large community in Hungary, for example), not recreational; the market for revenue-generating players is small, and marketing there to try and increase recreational play has been deemed as unprofitable.

Yes these are the countries that have largely destroyed online poker at the low stakes and have made western fish give up the game. I don't blame a Chinese national or a Pole or any other grinder from these countries as 500 US or more is a decent money in their country. But hudbots at 5NL is why online poker is dead for casual players.

Ya this is why it seems frightening to all around online poker health. what changed in law in these countries all at once? nothing?

I'm from Latvia! As I'm really close to legislation of Latvia I haven't heard none of changes in our laws for next year.

Better time than ever to start developing 2+2 poker with forumcoin.

I agree. A new recreational player's online poker journey will be very short after he/she got brutally killed on a $.02/.04 table or $1 SNGs by some Ukrainian/Belarusian/Lithuanian leeches who each played a million hands already. That's a huge problem.

lol !

this post is the wisdom of a 2003 account with >3000 posts

Yeah I understand.
But it's a totally different case - at least regarding Brazil.

After UIGEA Online Gambling was specifically prohibited in the US, but there's nothing similar to a prohibition for online Poker here in Brazil.

who gives a ****? Why on earth would you be playing party poker to begin with?

This is like Furrs Cafeteria saying they will no longer accept business from anyone under the age of 65

i love the new party poker.. as a recreational player.. its absolutely the best site.. even without some of the fishier euro countries

I have to wonder what their end-game is exactly.

To become the new Pacific Poker or better yet True Poker....

They want to convert as close to 100% of deposits into rake as possible - to turn online poker into another -EV casino style game where only the house wins. This is actually the endgame for all the major sites right now. Even Stars/FTP is slowly headed down the same path, all be it vastly more subtly.

It's sad the sites don't seem to realize that for players who are just playing with all intentions of losing their money that most other gambling games are vastly more fun than online poker! They're trying to capture a market utilizing a method that will likely cause said market to disappear should they achieve their goal! The poker boom was caused by MoneyMaker turning $50 into millions, ostensibly through skill. It's like the sites don't realize that all us nasty scary super evil predatory winning players were also just depositing donks at one time chasing a dream. The actions and respective consequences of those actions though have made it clear to anybody who considering getting into online poker and does even a modicum of research - well they'd be more likely to hit it big house flipping at this point.

lol @ PP blocking players from signing up. Yeah because players are just lining up wanting to play there

Do you think players benefit from having only 1 reasonable option for a site to play on?

That is the problem with sites dropping like flies. Those bonuses and incentives seem to be more and more rare at Stars. And then they changed the rake terms to make it less attractive for TAGs. Things like that.

When we had FTP competing with Stars, it wasn't like that. I bet there would be no Team Online. I bet we would still have to play thousands of hands to clear our bonuses. Etc.

maybe some bigdog has short position on BPTY?

Some of them are for obvious regulatory reasons. Others are too small to make sense if you're a second line operator. There is an overhead of operating in each country such as having software and support in that language, staying on top of legal and regulatory developments, local payment processing, fraud management etc. I guess some small markets are just not worth the cost/effort for them. It makes sense for them to focus their limited resources on the big prizes.

no, I think its horrible there is only one option.


however party stopped being an option a while back with their fair play bull**** (and they werent even really much of an option before then). So who gives a crap what they do now.

I used to play on party in like 2003 and the games seemed pretty juicy. Does anyone know if the games are still solid or has it been heading downhill?

Seems like with this kind of bull**** policy it is going downhill but I would like some insight. Thanks.

yes the games are still like they were in 2003

Blocking the Baltic countries is going to cost Party a fortune in attorneys fees.

Neteller illegally blocked access to the Baltic countries for no reason despite their inclusion in the EU, and had to respond to the claim. They agreed to service all EU countries.

A company doesn't have to offer service to every country within the EU, but if they offer services outside their borders, they cannot deny service based solely on nationality of a country within the EU.

Party is going to run into the same thing. There are no laws restricting online gaming in Latvia or Lithuania (although winnings are taxed). Poland is a very tricky situation as is Romania, but players in these countries should complain to their EU commission as well.

The good news is that when it comes to very small countries like Latvia and Lithuania, the representatives in the EU which pitch a huge fit over economic racism. They don't have much to do besides this.

It's illegal but tolerated in Belarus actually. This is not a country where you can do business in either, and it might actually be illegal for Party to service it. Lukashenko is persona non grata in the EU amongst other sanctions on Belarus. The biggest European games I have heard of recently have taken place in Minsk (500-1000USD PLO). Belarus is a lot nicer than most people on here would believe, it is not that poor country.

I have friends in Belarus, and the poker community is alive and well there, however nobody actually cares as the people winning the money are looked favorably amongst anyone who would care, and even if they did, some money would probably make your problems go away.

As for the Ukraine, cash game poker is 100% illegal, and it is not a debate. Poker clubs that have tournaments are the grey area and this is still an issue up for debate. However, as a company, I would not service the Ukraine. (And yes, it is "the" Ukraine, as that is the official transcription for Украина/Україна when you transcribe it to languages containing indefinite articles.)

A fun fact of Ukrainian history (no articles when you use a demonym in this context) is that President Yushchenko actually played PartyPoker during the beginning of his term as president. This was never publicly reported to my knowledge, but it is a fun fact of those who knew him. No wonder the Orange Revolution failed...

I'm not sure of his username. However, but I can tell you that Kafelnikov used to play party as Kafelnikov, and nobody guessed it was him.