Quote:
Originally Posted by TouchOfEVil
wait, are you saying that all the other pokersites that actually did obtain a license is seperating the swedish from the rest?
The Swedish system is expected to work the same as the system in place in the UK, Denmark etc. Companies must obtain local licenses and pay a tax on revenue derived from players in that country, but there are no stipulations as to player pooling. So companies will be able to connect the Swedish poker site to existing international dot-com player pools.
That's why PokerStars.UK, BE, DK (also Greece, Estonia, Bulgaria...) share the same global player pool as PokerStars.com and PokerStars.EU. PokerStars.SE will, we assume at this stage, be in the same scenario. So to answer your question - no, no separation expected.
However, Winamax
does not operate a usual "dot-com" international player pool. It does not hold a license in Malta/IOM to serve the "rest of world" market. Instead, it serves the "rest of world" from its
French (and now Spanish) license. These jurisdictions are different in that they do not allow players
that fall outside of these jurisdictions from playing at their tables.
That's why Winamax does not have a UK license. The UK is not part of the European shared liquidity agreement (current signees: ES/FR/PT/IT; enacted by ES/FR/PT). So under French or Spanish rules, if Winamax accepted a player from the UK, they must fall under FR or ES licensing, and they must pay tax on that player. In fact, that's exactly what they did until 2014. And that's what they do in Germany, Sweden and other parts of the world. These players fall under the purview of its French or Spanish license.
But then UK POC tax came along in 2014 and said hey - you must hold a license and pay tax on that play in the UK.
In theory it might be possible to do but Winamax would have to pay double tax (first in the UK, and then in France/Spain), and that's never going to be profitable. So Winamax withdrew from the UK market.
I would expect the exact same scenario to play out in Sweden. The only way I think it play out differently is if Sweden signs the European shared liquidity agreement. But I would not expect that to happen.