Pokerstars not available for Dutch players as of October 1st?
Yesterday news received me that as of October 1st new lincensing laws will mean that Pokerstars will be banned in the Netherlands untill they obtain a legal license. (Source in Dutch: https://www.casinonieuws.nl/wetgeving/il...)
There is nothing to be found how this will play out and what the consequents are. Curious what this will mean for example for Lex Veldhuis as streamer etc.
Posted before in Poker site discussion but maybe this will get some traction here with more info.
8 Replies
Good news, rakeback/cashback is now legal, see announcement ksa.
Good news, rakeback/cashback is now legal, see announcement ksa.
uhmm i've read the same article but where does it say rakeback is legal? And it explicitly says that cashback bonuses are not legal.
They say every bonus that is connected with loss is forbidden. They could easily argue that paying rake is a loss so rakeback is not allowed.
They had the same arguments in Belgium and rakeback is forbidden over there, so I do not see the same optimism you see in this article
Edit: And rakeback already was legal in the Netherlands, GG has always offered rakeback. Some sites like unibet & b365 just choose to give nothing away and claim its because of the law, but the same law allows rakeback on GG and they havent gotten a single warning about it.
uhmm i've read the same article but where does it say rakeback is legal? And it explicitly says that cashback bonuses are not legal.
They say every bonus that is connected with loss is forbidden. They could easily argue that paying rake is a loss so rakeback is not allowed.
They had the same arguments in Belgium and rakeback is forbidden over there, so I do not see the same optimism you see in this article
Edit: And rakeback already was legal in the Netherlands, GG has always offered rakeback. Some
KSA now explicitly states "a bonus based on losses" is not legal instead of "a cashback bonus". Specifically refering to what's actually illegal; the more a player loses the more he receives back.
Therefor, cashback/rakeback seems entirely legal, is not a bonus based on losses but just an amount of money a player gets back in exchange for wagering.
The reason that GG poker offers their reward/cashback system doesn't mean anything, they could have offered fishbuffet all this time regardless if it was legal or not.
KSA has made it pretty clear now, its not cashback that's the problem, but speficially rewarding losing players.
Also, the law specifically allows for reward/loyalty programs and bonusses.
Let's see if unibet and bet365 (and other poker sites) agree with your view, i sure hope so.
The reason that GG poker offers their reward/cashback system doesn't mean anything, they could have offered fishbuffet all this time regardless if it was legal or not.
Are you sure? Some other guy named ricepaddy seems to think it does mean something 🙂
GG poker has been offering their cashback reward system for over 2 years now to Dutch players and has not discontinued their offerings. They seem to not have received a warning in regards to their loyalty program by KSA and actually have had fish buffet in tact from day 1 after receiving their licence.
So pretty safe to say that Pokerstars will never come back to the Netherlands after this: https://www.pokernews.com/news/2024/04/p...
what a terrible terrible decision.
I wonder if those players won money if they would have complained that they played on a site without a proper license and given the money back🙂
There was a post about this on reddit aswell. GL for actually winning this case, the guy probably has a better chance winning back his money playing again, than this ruling to result in a single penny being paid by Stars.
