Partypoker To Leave Unregulated Markets For Legal Gambling Ones

• Partypoker, who’s parent company is GVC Holdings, will be leaving any country that does not have a regulated gambling industry beginning in December.
• Montenegro, Norway, and Poland players will no longer be able to play on the partypoker platform starting on December 17.

LONDON – In compliance with GVC Holdings goal of being a completely legitimate business, the parent company of partypoker will have their internet poker room start exiting any country where gambling is an unregulated industry.

This news will be hurting some loyal players in places where no talk of any type of legislation is taking place that could rectify the situation. Beginning on December 1, partypoker will begin its slow fade away until they exist only in countries with regulated and legal gambling industries.

All players have been notified of this change to prepare to close out their accounts which will be deactivated within the month.

What Is The Plan For The Future Of GVC & Partypoker

GVC has discussed at length their plans to operate a well-respected company where customer needs and safety are of top priority. The business will be changing its name to Entain soon with all of the deviations they’re making.

They have what they call a Sustainability Charter to allow for these changes and purchased the PlayPause software that will be seen on partypoker platforms.

PlayPause will allow players to put their names on the self-exclusion list only once and that will automatically stop them from accessing partypoker in any other place outside of the area where they excluded themselves because of its interstate self-exclusion technology.

GVC will also be donating about $132 million over five years to fund programs for gambling addiction and responsible gaming initiatives. To round out their responsible business model, the final piece of the puzzle is to leave all industries that are not regulated.

The poker players that will be affected by this new structure will be those that reside in Montenegro, Norway, and Poland.

On December 1, all members in these areas will be restricted from making deposits to their accounts. Then on December 17, they will no longer be able to play on the platform. They will still be able to access their account but only for the purposes of withdrawals.

“Going forward, GVC, our umbrella brand, willingly operate in regulated, fully licensed markets only,” said Colette Stewart on partypoker’s Discord. “By mid-December, we will no longer offer our services across unregulated poker markets following a management business decision.”

What’s Next

Other countries that were expected to have issues as well were Brazil, Mexico, and Canada. But they have since discussed plans for their own legally regulated markets that would allow partypoker to remain in their areas.

GVC set out a three-year plan for everything to be on the straight and narrow so these countries will need to comply within that time period or they too will lose the partypoker platform in the future.

Any member in the affected countries, for now, will receive all of their cashback credits by December 23 if they notify the company by the 17th. Should they not use any leftover tickets, loyalty points or tournament dollars, they will become null and void by December 17 when accounts are deactivated from playing.