Partypoker.eu Now Live in France and Spain

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Monday, June 4th, 2018 | Written by Stephen Smith

In April, French online gambling regulator ARJEL gave the green light for GCV, the parent company of partypoker and bwinparty, to start pooling their French and Spanish players. On June 4th, Partypoker.eu then went live across the two countries, with their respective citizens now able to compete against one another at the site’s cash-game and tournament tables.

“Today’s partypoker.eu launch represents a milestone for both French and Spanish players, who can now enjoy greater variety, reduced rake and bigger and better games on the new .eu platform,” commented Tom Waters, Partypoker Managing Director. “We look forward to bringing our Spanish and French players together for the first time on our new and improved site.”

Tournament Promotion

Before their player pools were merged, Spain’s online poker market was too quiet to support multi-table tournaments (MTTs), while the few cash games that did run were mostly at the modest €0.10/€0.25 level. More players means more action, though, and following its shared liquidity launch the new Partypoker.eu lobby is now packed with the full range of poker options, including cash games, fastforward games, Sit & Gos, MTTs, and satellites.

Celebrating the exciting development, Partypoker is currently running a promotion in which tournaments with buy-ins ranging from €0.55 to €250 will receive more than a million euros in prize guarantees every week, while ‘Progressive Knockout’ (PKO) MTTs will offer more than €600,000 in weekly guarantees.

ElkY Elimination Prize

Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier parted ways with PokerStars at the start of the year, with the Frenchman’s exit following the departures of other high-profile sponsored pros, including the likes of Vanessa Selbst, Jason Mercier, and Felipe Ramos. Needless to say, PartyPoker viewed the chance to snap up France’s number one tournament player as too good an opportunity to miss, and it didn’t take long before “ElkY” became the brand’s ambassador to Europe. As he commented at the time:

“I am extremely enthusiastic about joining PartyPoker to actively support their efforts to bring back the ‘Poker First’ mentality, live and online. Our goal is to provide players and fans with an experience they deserve worldwide. PartyPoker will be aiming to bring their ambition, expertise and successful model to the .eu market with some big announcements coming soon.”

Grospellier is one of the game’s most popular and entertaining players, and has a broad appeal that extends into other fields aside from poker, including the world of eSports, where he is a member of Team Liquid as a Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft player.

As well as the promotions already mentioned, another one of the “big announcements” mentioned in Grospellier’s statement refers to a special tournament taking place tonight at 8:00pm CET. The Partypoker €109 buy-in “Main Event” boast a €20,000 guaranteed prize pool, and anyone who manages to eliminate Grospellier from the competition will be awarded a $5,300 MILLIONS Online ticket.

No Rake on PKOs

Just like on its dot.com site, Partypoker.eu players taking part in Progressive Knockout tournaments will not have to pay additional rake on any bounties that they may earn. The innovation was originally proposed by Partypoker ambassador Patrick Leonard following mounting pressure from the brand’s community of players, and as Partypoker’s official blog stated on May 30th:

“Partypoker will hold this policy for six months with the intention to make this a permanent reduction to the pricing structure. The new rake structure means that PKO MTTs on Partypoker rake 50% less than the industry standard.”

EU Liquidity Gaining Pace

In January, PokerStars became the first online operator to share players across France and Spain’s regulated poker markets, and in May the operator also set another first after adding Portugal to its shared player pool. It hasn’t taken long to see a marked improvement in the countries’ revenue figures, either, and during Q1 France posted an 8% increase to $81.8 million, while Spain’s growth was even more spectacular with revenue higher by 27% to €21.5 million.

Furthermore, PokerStars.eu is currently the third-largest poker network in the world, with PokerScout placing the number of players on the site at 16,271, and a 24-hour peak of 3,084 cash game players.

France and Spain’s market is set to record further gains after PartyPoker’s entry into the space, while other firms are also lining up to extend their operations in Europe, including Winimax, which is expected to launch its shared poker players site between France and Spain before the end of the year.