After pulling out of France when the new tax laws were introduced, major online poker room PokerStars were not one of the first to go through the licensing procedures, preferring to wait and see what was involved.
Well a press release yesterday announced that pokerstars is now live and accepting French poker players after PokerStars was given a licence by ARJEL, the French authority which regulates online gaming.
The application was submitted at the end of May, and the licence was granted on Tuesday. The site is already offering free money games and SNGs, and cash games will be appearing on the site later this week.
PokerStars French Manager, Alexandre Balkany, stated that “pokerstars aims to be one of the leading online poker operators from the day the French market opens”, and said that “We plan on offering players the best tournaments, promotions, and opportunities to win seats at PokerStars' world renowned international tournaments."
Some of the biggest names in French poker are involved with the site including Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, Arnaud Mattern and Thomas Bichon.
"Players on pokerstars will have fantastic new opportunities, not only to play online, but to win seats to famous international poker events like the pokerstars European Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas," Grospellier said. "These tournaments require players to have the right mix of skill, training, and concentration, and pokerstars will be the perfect place for players to work on that."
French players can download the PokerStars software and start playing now at pokerstars
