PokerStars Removes Real Money Games From Israel

Following a recent review, we regret to inform you that we have decided to stop offering real money games to players who are physically located in - or have a registered address in - Israel from June 27, 2016.”

Israel is probably one of the most restrictive markets in terms of online gambling, which is ironic since pretty much every operator in the online gambling world has an operation based in the country or a link to the Israeli gaming industry. But on a B2C basis, from the consumers’ point of view, online gambling is illegal. Israel must be among the most conservative countries in the world in terms of its gambling policy.”

Player balances remain safe and secure, and players are able to withdraw their real money balances at their convenience,” adding that, “We apologize for this inconvenience and hope you’ve enjoyed your experience - we invite you to continue playing with your existing account on our play money site here. A full question and answer page has been provided for affected players.”

In 2010 I met a lot of people that play online on PokerStars. A lot of Israelis play high stakes, so maybe it's a new community, but it's big compared to the size of my country."

Historically the authorities have primarily targeted companies that actively pursue their business in Israel, such as operators who have a website in Hebrew, use an Israeli top-level domain, or advertise specifically to Israeli consumers. At least in theory, Israel is a closed market for iGaming and most reputable operators have included the country on their prohibited jurisdictions list.”

That announcement eventually resulted in some political backlash from some of the more conservative factions in Israeli politics so that initiative seems to have gone on the back-burner for the time being – although it hasn’t been officially withdrawn.”

However, when it comes to online gambling, the opposite has been true: there have been some legislative attempts in Israel over the last few years to specifically empower the police to order ISPs to block access to online gaming sites. Since there’s such a strong Israeli connection with the online gambling industry, the government wants to keep these businesses from targeting Israelis.”

..it seems like a pretty weird strategy, as the reaction of Belgian players (do they move up, quit the game, or switch to another site?) is not necessarily a good predictor for what would happen if Brazilians or Brits faced the same 'closure'. It's quite unfortunate for Belgians that they are 'guinea pigs' in this trial, as being locked out of the lowest stakes games while other nationalities can still play seems quite unfair.”