I don't believe that PokerStars.fr is "loosing" money. If it was, it wouldn't have made the site and it would not be up and running atm.
I think the only way to make this right is that we keep the strike on and all the gaming bosses settle something with the authorities.

Arise, you children of the fatherland
The day of glory has arrived!
Against us, tyranny
Has raised its bloodied banner (repeat)
Do you hear in the fields
The howling of these fearsome soldiers?
They are coming into your midst
To slit the throats of your sons, your wives!

To arms, citizens!
Form your battalions!
Let us march, let us march!
May impure blood
Soak our fields’ furrows!

"La liberté guidant le peuple" or "Liberty leading the people"
- Eugene Delacroix
Louvre, Paris

So beautiful

Scheinberg can make public detailed numbers but who cares? No one wants to play cash games with a rake that can not be beaten. I don't care what reason they give for raping their players with insane rake.

Agree

This is really upsetting that Stars would pass along the extra rake to customers and make the game unplayable. I'd be pissed off if something like this happened in Canada and now I can't make a living. This could happen to anyone and Stars certainly isn't on your side.

Tempted to withdraw and play FTP. I had tons of respect for Stars but lately they are just getting greedy. Fleecing the micro players with extra rake, now this.

Is there any other alternatives than Pokerstars in France?

14 rooms have applied for a license and 6 of them are already open.

All agreed rooms are charging prohibitive rake though.
Fullt Tilt, the Cereus Network didn't take a licence yet. Let's hope they won't

lol

haha, nice picture

Yes, Bwin, Winamax, Everest, Partypoker, Sajoo, and more to come.

But this is not a good alternative since they're all applying the french taxation system.

Stars was just more greedy than the rest of the rooms but even if they lower their rake, the game is still hard to beat with the french tax.

The ultimate goal is for the law to change. This is why Stars won't be the only target, we need all rooms to unite and force the lawmakers in France to change the tax system.

Personally I am not against tax. I am actually for it. If I manage to earn some small pocket change from playing poker, I want those earnings to be legal.

But the tax must be reasonable and not kill the game. Taxing pots and even preflop pots is the dumbest tax structure for poker. It makes the game difficult to beat, and makes below average players to bust really quick. Moreover, each pot I win contains some of my own money, to start off with, I don't understand why it should be taxed. In this respect, tax is different from rake, because rake is what you pay to the poker rooms for using their facilities to play poker, it is like a form of a service charge, but the aim of the tax is entirely different - it exists to tax the income.

To make it reasonable, they should either tax the net earnings or, as an indirect tax, they can simply deduct tax from each deposit made to an online poker room. I actually like the latter option. It is true that this option isn't actually tied to the amount of the net winnings, but it is a form of simplified fixed-rate taxation that "clears" and "legalizes" all your future won pots and earnings made from the amount deposited. It is a win-win scenario: the government gets their share, pokerrooms are not forced to increase rake or lose profit, players play legal games and can actually beat the game after the tax is deducted from their initial deposit. And most importantly, the game remains alive instead of being killed, so everybody wins long-term.

I wouldn't mind paying up to 10%, even 15%, of each of my deposits on the condition that the pots I win are not taxed.

No one should be rooting for taxation, ever. A game can be legal even if untaxed. Tough concept to comprehend if you live in France, but it's possible.

Your idea isn't stupid though. Wonder why none of the geniuses at Stars/govt/etc didn't think about it.

I just hope Stars will lose a lot of money over this and that the 300 millions expected by the french govt will never come.

Deposit tax would be the best form of tax for poker. We need two things from the government: allow international liquidity and apply reasonable tax.

A tax on deposits sounds like a great way to kill poker.

Winning players would be taxed only once, on their first deposit. Then they'd be free to suck all the money out of the game for as long as they want, tax and rake free.

Losing players/fish such as myself would be stung by tax every time we play, since we need to redeposit every time. And so, seeing we lost some of our money before we even hit the tables, we'd find something better to do.

A tax on withdrawals would clearly be a far fairer solution that would nurture the poker economy, while a tax on deposits would kill it.

It's not gonna kill poker.

Keep in mind that those who lose (or fish, as you say), they will still lose the same amounts (and probably even more) to taxed pots rather than tax deposits. When pots are taxed (like under the current scheme), losing players bust out even quicker than if they started with a smaller deposit amount. All in all though, I'd suppose it doesn't make much difference to losing players, but it makes a huge difference to winning players, and as such, it affects the overall development and quality of the game as a whole.

But a tax on withdrawals is also OK. Probably even more fair than tax on deposits. And in any event, better than a tax on each pot.

Tax on withdrawal is the best way to do. Like taxes on benefits for companies
If it could be a tax that pays retirement and all that stuff it would be the nuts. Pbly what's going to be done in Franc ein a couple of years

We also try to make a rotative boycott in the french sites from september
if you read french it is on
http://www.poker-academie.com/forum/...-de-poker.html
resume
no french player in
semaine 1 : Pas de français sur Poker Star .fr
Semaine 2 : Pas de français sur Everest .fr
Semaine 3 : Pas de français sur PartyPoker .fr
Semaine 4 : Pas de français sur Winamax.fr

Semaine 2 : Pas de français sur Everest .fr
Semaine 3 : Pas de français sur PartyPoker .fr
Semaine 4 : Pas de français sur Winamax.fr

No need to boycott, there is already no one on those ****ty rooms.

Tax on withdrawals will never happen because it's well known that only 3-5% of the players are consistent winners and that's peanuts.
Even-money and some of the losing players that cash out from time to time after winning a donkament (just to deposit it back again) will also stop cashing and keep the money in the account.
IF anything changes it will be tax on deposits, sucks too but it's still better then it's now, the way it is now it's criminal tbh, is it a mob that taxes or a state here?
Weird.

The problem with a deposit tax is that it would act as a deterrent to people depositing, sort of a reverse deposit bonus.

Even though a tax on withdrawals punishes the winning players I do think that it's the better of the two options and not any different (but simpler) than a tax on winnings post-withdrawal.

I agree that tax on withdraws would be a better solution then raking the hell out of the games and making it near impossible to win.

There is no need whatsoever for a tax on players. The operator can pay taxes on their profits just like any other activity.