Online poker room PokerStars is expected to go live in Portugal anytime now, Poker Industry PRO reported. It seems, however, that the poker brand will launch its operations with a segregated liquidity pool.
Although segregated liquidity may take different forms, depending on the online gambling regulations in a given country, this basically means that local players cannot participate in .com cash games and tournaments.
Portugal’s online poker market has not been specifically ring-fenced under the country’s newly introduced and implemented iGaming regulatory framework. However, the local gambling regulator, Serviços de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos (SRIJ), has been initially recommended to segregate the local online poker market in a manner similar to the markets in Italy, France, and Spain.
Urged by Associação Nacional de Apostadores Online (ANAon), or Portugal’s association of online poker players, the country’s regulatory body announced subsequently that it would discuss the possibility for sharing liquidity with other ring-fenced markets or even widening the Portuguese poker pool to the .com market.
With France adopting a legislation that would allow the country’s regulator – ARJEL – to discuss shared liquidity with other segregated markets and the idea gaining certain momentum across such markets, Portugal may eventually decide to join the effort.
In other words, PokerStars is set to enter another European ring-fenced market at a time when the said market may be considering the possibility to lift the fences sooner or later.
It was said in June that SRIJ would not start granting online poker licenses before November, mainly due to the fact that it wanted to determine the type of market local players would be playing in.
Apart from online poker, online gambling operators are allowed to offer sports betting and casino gaming options to local players under Portugal’s new gambling law. Betclic, an online gambling brand operated by BEM OPERATIONS LIMITED, was the first to obtain a license to enter the local market. The operator’s .pt site first launched sports betting offering. Last month, it also received a license for the provision of online casino games.
So far, the Portuguese gambling regulator has granted four licenses, with two of those belonging to Betclic, one to online sports betting operator Bet, and one to Estoril Sol Digital, Online Gaming Products and Services, S.A. and its EstorilCasinos.pt website.
