Portugal may have to wait several more weeks before making its entry into Europe’s shared online poker liquidity scheme, despite last week’s publication of the required technical requirements in the country’s Official Journal.
According to reports from Portuguese poker news outlets, PokerStars, the only poker operator to be licensed in Portugal, has sent an email to its local players suggesting that they will probably have to wait until March 6 before being able to play against peers from France and Spain.
It is believed that the integration of PokerStars’ Seat Me feature is one of the main reasons for the delayed start of liquidity sharing in Portugal. As previously reported, the online poker room’s European network was rolled out with the Seat Me system. In other words, players are not able to pick their tables when playing on PokerStars Europe. However, the feature is not available in Portugal at present. In its email to Portuguese players, PokerStars suggested that the integration would likely be completed by March 6.
Software Certification Could Further Delay Project’s Start
Portuguese online poker blog PokerPt has recently reported that they were informed by the country’s gambling regulator that player pooling cannot begin before the necessary software certifications are secured. This could delay the start of the project in Portugal even further. However, it is believed that Portugal would be able to join the PokerStars Europe network by the end of March.
Portugal’s entry would bring significant liquidity to the network, and liquidity is exactly what it needs. Despite being a relatively small country in terms of population (10.3 million: World Bank, 2016), it has a very tight online poker community.
As mentioned above, PokerStars is currently the only poker operator to be holding a license from SRIJ, the local gambling regulator. However, since launched in December 2016, the PokerStars .pt poker room has been among the world’s largest in terms of traffic and it has very much maintained its traffic since then.
And while Portugal will clearly join the PokerStars Europe network, even though a little bit later than PokerStars and players might wish, Italy’s eventual shared liquidity entry is still a big mystery. According to previous reports, the country has been conducting technical checks that once finalized would allow regulators to move forward with the country’s participation in the scheme.
Aside from PokerStars, there have been quite a few more poker operators that have expressed interest in taking part in the project. Winamax, the French online poker operator, recently received regulatory approval from the French online gambling regulator, ARJEL, to participate in the project, but it still needs authorization from Spanish regulators.
Partypoker, the online poker brand of Isle of Man-based iGaming operator GVC Holdings, has recently confirmed that it would join the scheme. However, it suggested that it would probably wait for all four participating countries to enter before setting a poker room for their players.
