PokerStars Players from UK to Be Migrated on October 1st

From October 1st, migration of all UK online customers to new UK PokerStars site will start and it is going to be the first online poker room to address its UK players directly on the issue of the new UK regulations requiring all poker rooms offering their games to UK customers to obtain a license.

What Stays the Same

Positive thing about the migration is that will be very easy and accessible for all costumers and should take a few minutes of their free time to uninstall the mobile clients on Android and Apple and to download new software and they will have access to the same game and opponents they always have, actually they will not be separated and will remain in the dotcom player pool.

Only thing to be mindful of when transitioning is the fact that the migration cannot happen if a player is registered in a tournament, have a cashout pending or is currently self-excluded. In these situations, players will have to a) unregister from the tournaments, b) wait for cashout to be processed (or cancel pending cashout) or c) wait for the self-exclusion period to expire.

New PokerStars.co.uk will have the same selection of games and tournaments, software will be exactly the same as before the change, everything that is directly related with account (screen names, password, usernames, cashier, VPP balances, security settings and player notes) remains the same. Another positive thing is that these changes will not bring rake increases and player-to-player transfers and deposit limits are not expected to be restricted.

Negative effects

In accordance with the new law set by the British Government, there are two major negative changes for UK players. First one is that auto top-up in cash games and auto-rebuy in tournaments is being removed. The other significant change is in VIP program, which will take place from 2015 and players will see reductions in VIP benefits. Almost whole VIP system will be changed, and PokerStars will be paying 15 % gross tax on profits generated from rake from all UK players which is going to be reflected in the VIP system. This is one of the lowest in the regulated European market: 15 % GPT is the equivalent to 10-12% tax in gross gaming revenue, tax in France, Denmark, Italy and Spain is double or more that amount. Players are mostly concerned about changes in auto rebuy function for cash game and tournaments they think is completely unnecessary and till now unseen implication.

PokerStars is the first major operator to announce these changes ahead of the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) act. We should expect most of the major poker rooms like Poker888, Full Tilt, PartyPoker, Paddy Power, Ladbrokes, William Hill, Bet365 and more soon, to do exactly the same thing before new regulations in UK come into effect. Titan Poker now points United Kingdom players to its Titanbet Poker domain too.