Winamax Receives Liquidity Sharing License from ARJEL

February 12th, 2018 | by Kaycee James

Winamax has become the latest online operator to receive a cross-border iGaming license as part of the liquidity sharing deal between France, Spain, Italy and Portugal.

Winamax joins PokerStars in the cross-border betting stakes thanks to French regulator, ARJEL. (Image: winamax.fr)

The online poker site is only active in France, but currently stands sixth ranked site in terms of traffic by PokerScout.com. After applying to French regulator ARJEL for a cross-border operating license on December 18, a decision was finally reached on February 8.

Taking all things into consideration, Winamax was given the green light to allow registered players in France to compete against those in Spain, Italy and Portugal.

New Opportunities for Winamax

As part of the new licensing conditions setout by ARJEL, Winamax must demonstrate its technology is capable of protecting players and ensuring only those in recognized countries can play.

However, despite receiving the go ahead to share players, Winamax is yet to obtain licenses in Spain, Italy or France. The operator has shown signs that it is looking to make a move into Spain by filling a number of positions within the company, including signing Spanish poker pro Adrian Mateos as an ambassador.

The same also goes for Italy and Portugal which officially confirmed its internal operating conditions that will allow liquidity sharing to take place. When Winamax does finally establish a presence in the three countries, it will not only offer poker but a range of sports betting options.

ARJEL has since published a list of acceptable sports, including soccer, athletics, basketball and tennis.

Things Shaping Up for a Positive 2018 for Poker Players

For now, PokerStars remains the only online betting operator that has the necessary provisions in place to offer mixed games in France and Spain, as well as those from other countries. After its new Franco-Spanish platform went live in January 2018, a representative for PokerStars.fr explained that players from certain regions can also sign-up.

“Non-resident players in France or Spain will be able to play on the pool by registering on the .ES. License, with the exception of residents of a country subject to a national regulation,” PokerStars Benjamin wrote on ClubPoker.

In practice, this means that anyone living in a country that doesn’t have a domestically regulated and ring-fenced system can join the new site. PokerStars is basing this new policy on two factors.

In this first instance, the operator believes the liquidity sharing deal trumps the previous rule which banned international players from PokerStars.fr because it could have hurt the local ecosystem. In the second instance, Spanish regulations never explicitly outlawed international players from registering on PokerStars.es and this was an internal policy that’s now been lifted.

Winamax may or may not choose to implement a similar system when its new cross-border sites go live. However, what this does suggest is that traffic across the quartet of countries is going to be higher by the close of 2018 than it is right now.