- The Director of the Spanish online gaming regulator is “quite confident” that the online poker player pools in Spain and Italy will combine by the end of the year.
- This unification would allow poker rooms to combine the pools of their separate dot.ES and dot.IT sites.
Enrique Alejo, Director of Spanish online gaming regulator the DGOJ, is “quite confident” that the online poker player pools in Spain and Italy will combine by the end of the year.
The words come from multiple Spanish poker media reports (poker-red, poker10, pokerviu) of a recent meeting between regulators, players, the industry and media.
Shared liquidity was one of the main topics, following a string of reports in the last year that France, Italy and Spain have engaged in regular discussions about the the possibility of combining the currently separate pool of players.
There is a certain parity between the regulations of Spain and Italy, with a similar level of operator taxation and game restrictions.
One key factor, according to the Alejo, is that the regulations of both countries explicitly permit player pools to be shared across country borders.
Given these favorable conditions, Alejo is optimistic that the “deal can be done” by the end of 2013, and is quoted as saying that discussions are “sufficiently advanced.”
