Founder of WinAllPoker Media, co-founder of winallpoker.comLeslie works as an editor with regular article contributions to the site, bringing years of experience working in both land and sea based casino operations in managerial roles.Leslie is an avid poker player and a huge fan of the game many of us love.
PokerStars.es have released their PokerStars Android App for Spain with the iOS version expected to be released shortly. The mobile version of PokerStars has already been launched separately in the UK, Italy and France then made available to the rest of Europe via PokerStars.EU and PokerStars.net
Spain recently introduced their own licensing regulation for online poker, PokerStars have subsequently been granted a licensed to operate in Spain and all Spanish players are required to play on Pokerstars.es
The mobile version of PokerStars was unavailable on the PokerStars.es domain until today, its addition will allow players to install the android PokerStars mobile app and play either Hold em or Pot Limit Omaha with SNGs, tournaments, cash games, PokerStars Zoom with multi-tabling supported.
PokerStars.es is fenced from the rest of the world and Spanish players for now have no option other than to play against their fellow Spaniards due to licensing constraints, it is rumored that sometime next year Spanish players will once again be incorporated into the worldwide PokerStars player pool.
While it may take a few more months or even years until we see a fully fledged EU gambling law being introduced that all EU members are required to abide by.
The European Union (EU) Parliament Event held on 27 June 2012 in Brussels; saw Michel Barnier Member of the European Commission responsible for Internal Market and Services Online Betting and Gambling in Europe speaking about “How to Regulate Betting and Gambling in Europe – Track record and future perspectives”
Michel Barnier’s speech mentioned that a common European base of principles and measures of protection for players should be in place and enforced by the commission with action to be taken against Member States who violate EU gambling regulation by reopening pending infringements and reopening complaints that have already been closed to those member states that violate the law, the EU Commission is set to propose several European policy initiatives regarding gambling in September.
The speech seems to outline a draft template for future gambling law that will be enforced by the EU commission that member states will be obliged to uphold, which would go a long way in combating any protectionist member states that could be opposed to regulation or protecting their own interests.
An iPhone poker app has recently been launched with the ability to read your poker face, it determines whether you are bluffing or not.
The BluffCam poker bluffing app released by WowWee Inc. is the first of its kind and is exclusive to the new range of Apple iOS products i.e. iPhone 4 /s, 4th gen iPod touch, iPad 2 or better the iPhone poker app uses the latest in Vital Signs camera technology to monitor your heart rate and skin color for any micro changes and can be downloaded for $0.99.
Everyone knows that showing an unreadable poker face can prove advantageous in any form of poker as facial expressions and heart rate can at times give away vital information known as tells to the more astute poker player about the strength of your poker hand which is known as reading a player.
Players looking to improve their poker face could use the app to help potentially reduce tells they could be inadvertently giving away by learning to reduce their pulse rate, but in reality its more for the novelty of the device to show up your friends.
The 5th of June 2012 marked another day in online poker history as Spain awarded licenses to PokerStars, PartyPoker and 888 Poker who were among the most recognized online poker rooms of the 27 licenses awarded for online poker. Spain now joins the short list of European countries taxing online poker with the only other countries being France and Italy.
Licensing poker rooms for economically stricken European countries will go a long way in collecting much needed additional tax revenue, while the rooms seem only but eager to get into the action regardless of the expense as can be seen by the large amounts in back taxes that were needed for the mentioned rooms to be granted poker licenses in Spain.
All the Spanish .es poker rooms are currently segregated from the rest of the world due to legislation but it is hoped that early 2013 will see the reintroduction of Spain to the rest of the world.
PokerStars have yet to introduce all their poker games to the Spain with the current maximum table limits set to €0.50/€1 and Zoom Poker is still being held back from the pokerstars.es domain.
Little is known as of yet just how much PokerStars was required to pay the Spanish Government to be granted their license but the €200 million estimate seems to be mentioned quite often.
Bwin.Party the merged group comprising of PartyGaming (PartyPoker) and Bwin needed to fork out a massive 33.6 Million Euros ($42 million) in back taxes to be granted their Spanish license while 888-Poker needed to cough up €7.4 million and some €1.3 million in surcharges and interest.
Will Poker Taxation Kill Online Poker?
While it may all be well opening and regulating the online poker industry the major question is if players will actually join these regulated rooms with stringent government enforcement and insanely high tax rates will this be the death of online poker?
The newly launched Revolution Gaming Network is stirring up existing poker rooms that still allow US players by offering 36% rakeback that is paid out hourly and much larger than standard sign up bonuses for new players with a massive new Lock Poker sign up bonus of 200% up to $4000.
The promotions being run by Revolution Gaming are making their main rivals in Bovada and Merge gaming (Carbon Poker) look a bit dated. Merge have recently adopted a rake back plan for their players in response to Revolution Gaming’s new promotions in order to try to please their remaining players after Lock Poker departed from the Merge network.
Lock Poker was formerly one of the major brands on the Merge Gaming Network; they recently left the network then went on to buy out the Cake Poker Network and subsequently launched it as Revolution Gaming.
The re-branded network has given Revolution gaming (former Cake Poker network) a boost to 13th place according to PokerScout having already surpassed Bovada (14th) in terms of traffic.
The new Revolution Network still has some way to go in order to catch up with Merge Gaming who currently occupies the 8th spot in terms of global traffic which is the first place for USA facing poker sites.
Lock Poker Bonus Code: THEFUTURE (200% to $4000) + get rakeback up to 36%
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