Nobody seem to be complaining the fact that you are getting isolated from the poker world? You actually like to play against French only?

Haven't read the whole thread but here are my thoughts.

You've all showed your unhappiness, which is great, but that doesn't guarantee anything. Now you'll need to give stars an incentive to find a solution quickly. There's not much choice here - the only way to show you're serious is the treath of more strikes. You could go for a 3h strike every 1st sunday of the month and/or a 1h strike every sunday, but it's really something you as a community should decide.

Stars is a multinational company and will have great negotiaters dealing with you when trying to protect their margins, so make sure you as a community elect someone, or better a couple of people who will represent you, and make it very clear what your demands are, which of your demands are negotiable and which ones aren't. Find a balance so that the situation improves for players from all stakes. It's very important you stay united.

I'm not able to check out pokerstars.fr, but I assume possible demands can be
-abolishment of preflop rake
-lowering the rake percentage (til for example max 120% of the rake on the .com for every game)
-lowering the cap on rake (til for example max 133% of the rake on the .com for every game)
-adding extra vpps (and thus fpps)

Give something back to stars if you need to
-1st cashout of the month stays free, 2nd can be charged x fpps
-obv a guarantee there will be no more strikes if they give in

If your demands are met, try to install some follow up to prevent Stars from breaking parts of the agreement (probably ones that hurt a small group of players who will not get everyone motivated to strike for them again)

gl guys, hope you'll continue doing such a great job setting an example for the rest of the world.

Personally, I'm crying myself to sleep at night being able to play only French players.

Mob that taxes and I hope they go straight to hell

THIS

WP FRENCH PLAYERS!!!

Concerning Cash Game, it's not the main concern since anyway we're raking way too much to be profitable french only or not. And there are sufficient volume as for NLHE CG.

When it comes to tourneys though, it's ridiculous, the field is way too small, and it's a problem. But thing is that it's one of the main point of the law (like in Italy), so there's nothing the rooms can do immediately, we have to wait until they review the law, which is supposed to be in ~18 months

Fortunately we still have Full Tilt .com

We have discussed this in the legislation forum. I'm seeing a lot of, imo, questionable ideas as to what the structure of the tax should be.

Deposit tax: likely to kill the midstakes and high stakes action. This is a bad idea because a deposit tax does not necessarily have any correlation with the underlying activity. A small-time grinder could deposit $1,000 and generate thousands in rake, while a high stakes player could deposit $100,000 and only generate a very small amount of rake. Someone else could deposit, not play at all, and decide they need the money and pay nothing in rake. The only way a deposit tax could work well is if it was on net deposits (deposits minus withdrawals).

Withdrawal tax: Again I don't think this type of tax works well for either side and again, doesn't necessarily correspond with the underlying activity. If I withdraw, the site is actually making less from that money, whereas if I continue to play, the site makes more. A tax should be tied to the activity that it is taxing, i.e. more play equals more tax.

Therefore, I believe the structure that makes the most sense is a rake tax; however, it needs to be reasonable.

California is currently contemplating a bill to legalize online poker that has stalled. The bill has got many problems, but one thing I think it has gotten right is the tax structure. It suggests a 10% tax on gross revenues, where gross revenues are defined, in short, as the rake. So you have a $100 tourney with $9 in rake, and the govt gets 90 cents. This is basically the equivalent of 10% rakeback to the government. Given that sites offer anywhere from 27% to 50% rakeback to their players, this would be a fair tax, imo and would allow the sites to keep their current rake structure, while perhaps reducing rakeback benefits a bit to cover the cost.

You also could consider tax on benefits ie withdrawals-deposit.

A percentage of the rake if also a clear intelligent possibility.
In France, they stupidly went for a added fix tax, which is ridiculous, especially when it comes to format such as HU or hyper turbo, not to mention hyper turbo HU ...

This is exactly what PS is to blame for.
They are running their business for years now as the market leader. One should assume that PS knows all about online poker.

Before opening PS.fr they had discussions and negotiations with the french government.
Why did PS not point out, that with that tax the playerbase will bleed out and it is not the way to run a pokersite long term.

Instead PS said amen and lets do it.
And if those stupid french players accept the tax, we can also raise the rake. Let's milk the cow - but far from it guys.
Do not disrescept your customer, we will defend ourselves.

this thread makes me proud to be an american

There is of course a lot of room for various argumentation about this, but a deposit tax could be capped for higher deposit amounts. For example, let's say up to 10% of a specified amount (e.g. 1,000), and after that a series of caps for higher deposit amounts.

This would actually encourage people to deposit more on each occasion in order to pay less net tax on each deposit. Poker sites should generally be very happy with this type of solution.

A deposit tax would have disastrous implications for the liquidity of online poker. And I'm saying that as someone who'd often deposit 20 times in a month. I would be totally discouraged, as a losing player/degenerate gambler, to know the site was taking some of my money before I even got to the tables, while winning players got away free.

Why a deposit tax should have an impact on player ? Site can easily absorb 100% of the tax since they already does it for american in a certain way (ie hidden fees for cashout/deposit)

*bump* thread must remain on page 1

Like Elky or Benyamine

It is good to see that you guys are able to unite for the cause. But remember it is not PokerStars fault, it is your governments fault. If you really want change, then you need to create something similar to the PPA in the United States which is working very hard and effectively to protect poker players here.

You need to call your lawmakers if you want change. PokerStars can do nothing about the law and taxes in your country. That is your own job to do. You should be lucky that they are still providing games to play and they did not outright ban it like they try to do in some countries.

You don't get the idea.

1/ Stars is the world leader of online poker. They weigh more than us players, even united. By putting pressure on Stars, we want them to pressure the govt.

2/ Stars can close its .fr room, no one here gives a crap. Actually, people HOPE Stars.fr will close se we can play on the .com again. So no, we do not consider ourselves "lucky" they're still here.

So what is stopping french players from playing on the .com now?? Is it illegal to do so? Probably more likely what will happen is that pokerstars.fr leaves the market and then you can't play on the .com or the .fr

You can't. Stars closed our accounts.

If you try to create a new one, they check your adress, IP, bank account, and if one of these is in France, you can't even make a deposit.

Plus, it is illegal.

I sure hope the law changes or Stars closes its .fr room with the godawful rake.

edit: didn't read your reply properly. Well if Stars closes down .fr and won't allow us on .com, then so be it. We're french and therefore stubborn. I'd rather not play at all than play with a terrible traffic (you have to wait 15 minutes for a 1$ SnG, ffs) and a rake that makes my a$$ bleed. If Stars representatives aren't smart enough to ally with other rooms and put pressure on the govt, there's nothing more that can be done. But at least we tried. That can't be said for a lot of other countries now does it?

Well it sounds like a crappy situation that might not get any better in the short term. Regardless of what Stars or other sites do, it would be better for french players if they could play against others from across the world and for a reasonable rake. So you need to mobilize your forces and start organizing and e-mailing and calling your law-makers. This has worked good in the USA with the help of the PPA(Poker Players Alliance), which has grown very strong ever since the UIGEA law was introduced in the USA.

Good Luck.

+ 1

moar love

1. How much rake are you paying now on cash games and MTT? Are you still paying for pots that end preflop?
2. What's the highest NLH cash games that runs regularly (the equivalent of nl1000 at PS.com)?
3. What happened with Steps tickets in $ when they made you play on .fr instead of .com?

:-|

i dont get why stars doesnt lower the rake - yes i realise that they would earn less, but the games would be playable and they'd still make money....