PokerStars announced Tuesday that its new site, PokerStars.eu, is now live for all players in Sweden and Finland. The site, while fundamentally the same as PokerStars.com, is expected to augment the poker experience for players in both countries as well as other European nations that will gain access to it in the future.
PokerStars.eu was ready for launch once the online poker room obtained a Malta Remote Gaming License, which it did late last week. The licensing in Malta is important because the country is a member of the European Union (EU), a status which comes with special privileges.
“Some markets treat European Union-licensed operators differently than other license-holders,” said PokerStars Head of Business Development Guy Templer. “Offering our online poker on www.pokerstars.eu with a Maltese license provides benefits to players in Sweden and Finland in particular and we are always striving to offer the best product possible to our players, wherever they are located.”
Sweden assesses a 30 percent tax on gross winnings by its residents on poker sites outside the European Union. Similarly, Finland requires its citizens to pay normal income tax on winnings from sites outside the European Economic Area, which includes all EU members plus Iceland, Lichtenstein, and Norway. Prior to the ability to play at PokerStars.eu, customers in Sweden and Finland were playing, like most others, on PokerStars.com, which is licensed in the Isle of Man. The problem there is that the Isle of Man is not a member of the European Union and therefore the players from those two countries were getting hammered with taxes. Now, by playing on PokerStars.eu, an online poker room licensed in the EU, Swedish and Finnish players are free from the burden of taxes.
On the PokerStars corporate blog, Head of Corporate Communications Eric Hollreiser wrote of the new Malta license, “We hope and expect the future will bring more certainty and more uniformity that will help players and companies alike. That’s why we were happy to see the recent reports that France, Italy and Spain are discussing regulatory cooperation and shared liquidity.”
While PokerStars.eu is technically a separate site from PokerStars.com, those who make the switch to the “dot eu” site will continue to play at the same tables with everyone on the “dot com” site.
Despite losing its American players almost a year ago after Black Friday, PokerStars.com remains far and away the largest online poker room in the world. With a seven day average of 26,600 cash game players according to PokerScout.com, it is about 5.5 times larger than its closest competitor, PartyPoker. Additionally, PokerStars.it, the company’s Italian-only site, ranks fifth on the PokerScout.com list with 2,550 cash game players and PokerStars.fr, its French-only counterpart, is the 9th largest online poker room, with 1,700 cash game players.
Upon opening the PokerStars software for the first time since the PokerStars.eu launch, Swedish and Finnish players will see the update process begin, a process which will move all account information, including cash balances and Frequent Player Points (FPPs) over to PokerStars.eu.