Portugal poised to join France, Spain in shared poker liquidity pool

The Portuguese Gambling Regulatory Authority (SRIJ) has approved a resolution to authorise shared poker liquidity with other countries.

In July, regulators from France, Italy, Spain and Portugal signed a long-awaited deal to allow operators active across more than one of the ring-fenced markets to merge their player pools.

France and Spain have already begun working together on the initiative, and the passing of the resolution will now enable Portugal to also join such activities.

“Through this system, it is now possible for poker games to benefit from shared liquidity,” the SRIJ said in a statement published by G3 Newswire.

“For players and operators, this enables all the control and reporting guarantees required for a secure and responsible gambling experience.

“Once in force all licensed online poker operators can also offer tables and tournaments involving players from the countries that signed the agreement for shared online poker liquidity (Portugal, Spain, France and Italy), as long as those operators comply with the requirements defined by each one of these countries.”

However, despite Portugal now joining France and Spain in the shared market, Italy is still yet to confirm details of when the country will begin its involvement, despite having initially agreed to take part in the initiative.

Last month, PokerStars became the first operator to take advantage of the new scheme by rolling out a shared player pool between locally licensed online poker markets in France and Spain.

At the time, Guy Templer, chief operating officer of the Stars Interactive Group gaming arm of The Stars Group, said: “With combined liquidity, players from France and Spain can access a larger player pool with bigger prizes, promotions and a better selection of games, all with the confidence provided by a trusted, licensed operator.

“We look forward to extending the combined player pool to Italian and Portuguese players, and we offer our full support to the relevant authorities in those countries to do so.”

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