You guys have any clue what it takes to regulate a pokersite?!

They need to:
A) Have a contract deal with a casino in that country (in some country's there are only X allowed casino's)(1 casino can only have 1 deal)
B) Make a deal with GOV (eg company has to pay X% and players will have to pay X%)

^If these don't happen then in x amount of time the site will be blacklisted and possible sued.

That is only how it happens in a few countries.

Yeah, so you're talking there Belgium, New Jersey and Nevada, possibly Greece. Not exactly essential markets.

RIO Poker will be acquiring a license in Malta and probably one in the UK, neither of which particularly onerous (certainly not in the way you think). Those two would suffice to access the world's biggest online poker markets - UK & Ireland, Germany, Russia, and rest of Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, South America. Maybe then think about obtaining a license in Denmark, Bulgaria, and if things are really going well the EU shared liquidity markets FR/IT/ES.

I think Czech Republic works that way too. Maybe Romania? I forget how that one works.

They need to buy a license for Romania and because is a new company and they dont need to pay taxes from past years it shouldnt be that hard to buy the license.

Nerd detected

nice thanks.

my knowledge on such things is mostly US and to a less degree a handful of other regions so Im asking to learn as you obviously know what you are talking about (somewhat rare in the NVG world we all love )

to the achieve the regulatory strat you mention ...

1) is the company licensing process in each place "a couple page form" or a full Nevada type background check? In addition to the company licensing, does each owner have to get a personal license /background check?

2) Is the software certification required just an RNG cert, or is an outside testing lab required to certify other aspects of the code?

finally, given the market opp matched with what appears to be relatively light (if any) true regulatory in India, shouldn't this be a key focus for any new operator?

The UK yes but not Ireland.

I could be wrong, but I am pretty sure that the UK & Ireland are combined for gambling licenses?

FYI:

https://secure.gamblingcommission.go...h/Detail/47226

PokerStars is licensed in one smallish German state. Everywhere else in Germany, they operate unregulated.

I think my post was misunderstood. I'm not saying that no other country requires a license. There are loads; PokerStars has something like 16 local licenses - BE, CZ, RO, GR, PT, Schleswig-Holstein, the list goes on. I was replying to someone speficially saying that you need to partner with a local casino, which is a v. rare stipulation.

I maintain that probably RIO Poker will get a license in Malta for all offshore/international operations - this would allow them to operate in Ireland, Germany, Russia, and rest of Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, South America. In addition, they will almost certainly obtain a license in the UK, as that's a huge market. And then maybe Denmark. The rest they may well not enter.

Unless i'm much mistaken, online poker operators continue to provide poker under their offshore gaming licenses in Malta, Gibraltar, etc (right now local licenses applies to sports betting only. E.g. PS right now offers BetStars under IE license, poker under IOM license). RIO Poker could do the same; operate online poker in Ireland under their Malta license.

Not unregulated at all. Again, they operate under a license in Malta, Gibraltar, or IOM. RIO Poker could do the same.

I can't speak with much authority regarding the process; it varies grealy between regulators. It is more than a couple of form pages, i'm sure, and so for each market an operator needs to consider carefully the value of the market - balancing costs of obtaining a license (fee, testing, paperwork), the cost of operating in the market (localization, support) and the ongoing tax burden, vs the value of the market. That's why quite likely a new operator would do just one offshore license (Malta, in RIO Poker's case) and the UK (huge market, light-touch regulation, well-established regs, low-ish tax) and skip the rest, at least initially. Under Malta you still access most of the major markets of the world.

Many operators operate in India right now with an offshore license (PokerStars does today). The opportunity of local licensing requires partnering with a local group, and running a segregated player pool (due to currency/AML restrictions, tables need to be in INR). So it's quite a different proposition. PokerStars plans to go this route in Q4 or early 2018. We'll see how that goes.

thx, sounds about right. each euro country a new licensing adventure (with a few pooled up) similar to each state in US being a new licensing adventure.

didnt know the local India operators couldnt ROW pool. I just assume they were,. But with with middle class population in India >= TOTAL USA population, thats a pretty nice pool just by itself.

does Stars have a partner In India? Do they allow their India base to play with their WW pool?

dummy detected

I really think having deposits & withdrawals in crypto would be key to a new generation poker site. It can help with many challenges to all involved.

I would never play on this site. I mean how the hell is PG even still relevant? He doesn't play online, he hasn't binked any live tournaments in a while (and compared to some of his counterparts his results aren't that amazing), and if you take what PW has to say he's not very good at mixed games either... I'm just saying his face/name recognition isn't going to bring players in like it would have years and years ago.

ill go out on a limb and guess you arent upswinging

Do you play on PokerStars? Exactly how awesome are the managers of that site at playing poker? Exactly how do you connect your opinion of a player not being "relevant" anymore to not playing on a site he manages ...?!

I should have said "Pokerstars is not allowed to offer real money games in Germany", that's why pokerstars.de only offers playmoney games.

there are some players from India in the global pool on stars, not many though

Must be a way of getting round it as there's a lot of German players on Stars. Are specific regions allowed?

Germans play at pokerstars.eu

1) No jurisdiction in which I've handled licensing for clients compares to the process in Nevada or New Jersey. (I've practiced gaming law for many years and have been active in getting licensing in a variety of jurisdictions, US and non-US.) Generally speaking, there are checks on the owners, to varying degrees. .... IOM and UK being the most extensive among non-US licensing I have seen.

2. RNG cert from an outside lab.

3. There apparently is an odd quirk under India law, or so I understand, that only "made in India" software would be permitted. (This is not a legal analysis, just my understanding from 3d parties.)

PokerStars and all major operators offer real money poker in all German states. The Germany State Treaty is assumed to be incompliant to EU free trade law, so is ignored by operators.

Can't speak for the PokerStars.DE domain name, but as mentioned either dot-com (IOM) or dot-EU (Malta) services German players.