PokerStars India to Go Live on April 17

March 28th, 2018 | by Kaycee James

PokerStars India will go live in April and to celebrate the launch a special one-off freeroll worth $15,300 will welcome all new players.

PokerStars Team India pro Aditya Agarwal will get a chance to shine when his sponsor’s new site goes live in India on April 17. (Image: pokerstars.com)

A little over a week since it announced plans to launch a new poker site in India, PokerStars has confirmed that its virtual doors will open on April 17.

Thanks to the recent partnership between The Stars Group (PokerStars’ parent company) and Indian gaming outfit Sugal & Damani, the platform has been given the greenlight to start offering games within the country.

Indian Online Poker Gradually Evolving into a Monster

Although fragmented, legal online poker has started to proliferate across India in recent years. In regions such as Nagaland where online poker is legal, operators must have connections to an Indian business to obtain a license.

To this end, PokerStars will work alongside Sugal & Damani to ensure that it abides by local laws and finds a way to effectively market its products to Indian players.

With a launch date now set, PokerStars India is pulling out all the stops to attract new sign-ups. A daily schedule of Early Bird Freerolls will take place between April 17 and April 22. Offering a total prizepool worth $4,600, the freerolls be open to new players that register and download the site’s software before April 22.

Topping the first week of action will be the $15,300 welcome freeroll. Kicking off on April 22, the MTT will be a chance for Indian players to see what the segregated site feels like and to take home a prize that will be worth close to five figures.

Local Platform Backed by Global Trends

Beyond its selection of early offers, PokerStars India will also give customers the chance to download the site via their desktop or mobiles. Additionally, although there hasn’t been any official word from PokerStars HQ, Team India are likely to play a part in the initial launch.

Formed long before the Indian platform was created and currently featuring just one player, Aditya Agarwal, the “team” will be used as a promotional tool to crack a market that industry insiders believe could be worth $214 million.

As of 2018, the country’s poker startups are raking in around $150 million per year. But with a population of 1.32 billion and new regulatory frameworks evolving, that figure will rise.

Although PokerStars is something of a latecomer to the party, it’s likely to become one of the country’s largest platforms due to its global reputation. Despite giving its competitors a three-year head start in New Jersey, PokerStars NJ is now the most visited platform, which suggests it may well do the same in India.