Online poker operator partypoker is set to merge its French and Spanish player pools today to finally enter the shared online poker liquidity scheme more than four months after PokerStars gave the official start to the project that is hoped to save the game across Europe’s segregated markets.
Partypoker confirmed late last week that its .eu platform would go live today and would give Spanish and French customers the opportunity to play against each other. To celebrate its participation into the shared liquidity project, the operator, owned by gambling giant GVC Holdings, will more than double its multi-table tournament (MTT) schedule for its French players. As for Spanish players, they would be able to play MTTs for the first time in a while, as partypoker had previously pulled the format from Spain.
The poker brand has already upgraded its .es website ahead of merging its Spanish and French pools and revealed last week that more updates and improvements would be rolled out across both its .es and .fr clients in the months to come.
Partypoker has recruited French poker star Bertrand Grospellier to promote its .eu endeavor. Grospellier joined the operator’s cluster of sponsored brand ambassadors after leaving PokerStars Team Pro in January.
Has Shared Liquidity Proved Good for Online Poker?
The gambling regulators of France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy signed last a shared online poker liquidity agreement that would allow operators licensed in the four markets to merge their player pools and thus hopefully give a much-needed boost to online poker across Europe’s ring-fenced markets.
PokerStars was the first operator to launch shared poker tables in January 2018. The operator first merged its French and Spanish pools. Its Portuguese website joined the shared European pool mere days ago.
The shared liquidity project is in its initial stages and it would be difficult to say how it would develop and whether it would indeed improve Europe’s online poker scene. On the other hand, it seems that some of the participating countries already enjoy some benefits from the scheme.
Spain’s gambling regulator, Dirección General de Ordenación del Juego (DGOJ), published late last month its latest quarterly report about the state of the country’s online gambling market. The figures reported showed that online poker revenue grew significantly during the first quarter of the year.
Total poker revenue amounted to €21.5 million during the three months ended March 31, 2018. Cash game revenue totaled €8.4 million, up 30% year-on-year, while revenue from online poker tournaments reached over €13 million. Tournament poker jumped more than 50% from the first quarter of 2017, DGOJ reported. Cash game spending grew more than 18%, while tournament fees surged over 40% during the reviewed period.
France, on the other hand, saw a slight drop in cash game revenue to €24.1 million during the first quarter of the year, despite the 18% increase in cash game spending. Tournament revenue rose 15% year-on-year to €44.8 million and tournament fees grew 14%.
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