PokerStars is the world’s largest poker site, built on a downloadable platform for MacOS, Windows, and mobile systems. It currently accounts for over two-thirds of the world’s online poker traffic. PokerStars EU launched in 2012. It is available to players around the clock and holds a Malta Lotteries & Gaming Commission license for the European Union market.

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PokerStars EU combines the player-bases of Portugal, France, and Spain to offer a European mega-site. This means more traffic, more tournaments and more prizes. Exclusive tournaments and bonus offers abound too, as well as custom football promotions and other Euro-centric features. With a regular traffic average of around 1,500 cash players every day, peaking at around 3,000-4,000 on weekends, PokerStars EU is often ranked as the world’s third-largest poker site (by traffic) in its own right.

How to sign up for PokerStars EU

Registering at PokerStars EU is very similar to opening a new account on the main PokerStars site. Spanish, Portuguese and French players are welcome. In January 2018, a PokerStars rep confirmed on a popular online forum that, “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.”

So unless your country has a specific ring-fenced poker market or other restrictive regulations – you’ll be able to sign up at PokerStars EU and start enjoying table games with no hassle. Registration takes minutes and is a simple process. However, you’ll be required to submit identification before making any withdrawals – so make sure any information you provide is accurate and truthful.

PokerStars.EU bonuses

There are many bonuses and promotions available at any one time at PokerStars EU. The best place to keep up to date is on their promotions page, as offers and bonuses can change regularly.

Players can also grab a €15 welcome bonus, which is split into €10 cash and five €1 Spin & Go tournament entry tickets. Spin & Go tournaments are fast, three-player tournaments with low buy-ins (as little €0.25) and randomized prize pools. In other words, the opportunity is there to win big for little investment.

Unfortunately, you can only choose one of the bonus offers when you sign up. So make sure you have a good browse through and select the right one for your play style.

Traffic

Since PokerStars Spain, France, and Portugal merged in early 2018, PokerStars EU has consistently been the biggest poker site for European players by traffic. It beats out its main competitor, Winamax.fr, by an average of 1,000 or so cash players per day at peak hours.

This creates a great European community, where you are almost guaranteed to find a space at a tournament table, or something more casual. With around 20,000 players online at any one time, and nearly 3,000 in real cash games at peak times, you won’t find it difficult to discover a table you like.

PokerStars.EU games

Because France has extremely compartmentalized online gaming laws, even the types of poker available at online sites to French players is regulated. As a result, only the following variants of the game are available for real cash play on PokerStars EU:

No-Limit Texas Hold’em

This is the world’s most popular variety of poker. It accounts for over half of PokerStars EU’s real-money play selection. Buy-ins start at €0.80 and max out around €500.

Fixed-Limit Texas Hold’em

You’ll find a lot fewer people playing this limited-stake version of Texas Hold ‘em. We found there were about half as many tables available as for the no-limit version. A fair few of them were empty too. Buy-ins started at €0.40 and went as high as €200.

Pot-Limit Omaha Poker

Pot-Limit Omaha poker was more popular than fixed-limit hold ‘em when we looked, but still not as busy as the No-Limit tables. Buy-ins ranged from €1 to €1,000.

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Other variants

Because of French law, all other popular variants from the main PokerStars website are excluded from real money play at PokerStars EU. This includes all varieties of Stud poker and mixed games like HORSE. European players can still enjoy these games, but without the excitement of real cash on the line.

Rake

The rake on PokerStars EU games is on a sliding scale that maxes out at €3. The site also operates a ‘no flop, no drop’ policy. So if the hand ends before the flop, or the second round of betting, then PokerStars.EU takes no rake.

Tournaments

PokerStars EU also hosts a variety of tournaments, including Spin & Go Max. These tournaments feature randomly determined player numbers, prizes and buy-ins. Then, only a set number of hands are played before players have to go all in. These can offer first-place prizes as high as €250,000 on eight-player €25 buy-in tournaments or as low €2 for a three-player €1 buy-in.

There are also Sit & Go tournaments available that run daily. These start as soon as the table fills up. These are almost all No-Limit Hold ‘Em tournaments, with a few tables for Pot-Limit Omaha players. Buy-ins cover the standard ranges of €0.5 up to €10 and sometimes €25.

Rewards program

PokerStars EU’s main rewards program is called StarRewards. It is actually a very generous system. Players receive 100 reward points for every €1 wagered in tournament fees or taken via rake. Table rakes at PokerStars EU never exceed €3. In fact, they are often substantially lower.

Points accumulated by players go towards ranking up their progress bar. A prize chest is unlocked at each level. There is no limit to how many chests a player can unlock in one day. Plus, if you reach four in a single 24-hour period, you’ll be upgraded to the next level of chest. There are six levels, from red to platinum. Each level requires more points to reach and each subsequent Chest includes bigger prizes.

Chests can contain personalized prizes, as the system tracks your gameplay patterns. For example, if you played a lot of Seven-Card Stud for free, you’ll receive different rewards from someone who played a lot of real cash Hold ‘em tournaments.

But in general, the rewards available in Chests include:

• Cash bonuses
• StarsCoins
• Tournament tickets
• Extra reward points
• Reward points boosts

Cash bonuses run from as small as €0.07, to as large as €1,000 – which has a one percent chance of occurring in platinum Chests. StarsCoins can be used to purchase items in the poker room’s shop, including tickets to glitzy Las Vegas poker events, PokerStars merchandise, and more. They can also be exchanged for cash at a rate of €0.01 to every coin, although the minimum is €25.

Many online poker rooms will offer you rewards based solely upon the amounts taken through the rake and fees you pay, so it’s nice to see one of the bigger players take a different approach. The scaling difficulty of obtaining each level of chest also makes it a more even playing field and allows even the most casual of players opportunities to get rewards.

Deposits

There’s a good range of deposit options available at PokerStars EU, nine in total. These are:

• Local bank transfer
• VISA
• MasterCard
• EntroPay
• Skrill
• Neteller
• PayPal
• PaySafe Card
• Ticket Premium

This should be comprehensive enough for most players, with a range of popular e-wallets, bank cards and top up card options on offer.

After your first successful deposit, VISA, MasterCard, Neteller, and EntroPay users will be able to use the new ‘fast deposit’ option. This means you can deposit directly from the table, without having to leave and navigate to the lobby. You can even pre-enter a suggested deposit amount, meaning you won’t have to use your keyboard when making a fast deposit. It’s two-click simplicity at its best.

Withdrawals

There is only one withdrawal method available at PokerStars EU, which was a bit disappointing. This solitary method is direct bank transfer. These transfers take 3-5 days to arrive in your account. Compared with all the instant banking methods on offer here and at other poker rooms, a 3-5 day wait (after processing) doesn’t really cut it.

PokerStars.EU support

PokerStars EU offers an expansive FAQ section, which should be any user’s first port of call when encountering a problem. It is one of the better FAQ sections you’ll find at an online poker room. Plus, it is easy to navigate with helpful answers that include tables and other data.

Most problems or questions you might have should be solvable using the FAQ. If not, the contact support form can be accessed in your web browser or directly from the PokerStars EU desktop app.

Not having a direct e-mail readily available, or any kind of live chat option certainly lets PokerStars EU down a little. Their video guides and tips for new players are also worth a shout out and should help many a fish on the road to becoming a shark in due course.

Table Of Contents

Cash game players at the world’s largest online poker site, PokerStars, will no longer be able to use automated seating scripts from Mar. 1 following changes to PokerStars’ third-party tools and services policy.

Some cash game players use third-party software known as seating scripts when they play online. Several versions of seating scripts exist and they all work slightly differently, although the principal is the same for each. The automated seating script software scans the cash game tables at each online poker site, PokerStars in this instance, and finds the optimal seat for the player to be seated at according to their own preferences. Players will then be seated in the optimal seat to avoid the better players at the table and to have position on lesser skilled players and be there as quick as possible as soon as the target sits, therefore potentially increasing the script user’s win-rate.

Major Changes Coming Mar. 1

A PokerStars spokesperson told Poker Industry Pro^($) several changes were in the pipeline, including:

“One such change is we will be prohibiting any tool or service for table selection efficiency that filters or sorts available games, or automates/semi-automates the process of joining available games based on opponent gameplay statistics or notes. For example, the use of seating scripts that join players to a set number of tables that have an average statistic for opponents above/below a certain figure, or work off pre-assigned player notes, are prohibited.”

Although PokerStars has yet to officially confirm the changes or the implementation date for the upcoming changes, one of the seating script software providers says on poker forum 2+2 they have received a 40-page document highlighting the fact Mar. 1 is the date for automated seating scripts to be banned from PokerStars.

On their website, script provider NEED4SEAT elaborated:

“Effective from the 1st of March this year, PokerStars is going to change their 3rd-Party Tools and Services Policy. In a 40-page document which they sent me via email, they have outlined the upcoming changes that will effect some utility tools, HUDs and of course seating scripts.”

The same articles sheds light on some of the new rules players will have to adhere to. NEED4SEAT said: “To cut a long story short, any software that simplifies the user's table-selection, based on data about individual players at the table, will be prohibited.”

The three main points that will prohibit seating script software are:

• Software that automatically seats the user at a table when a specific player sits at the table
• Software that notifies the user when a specific player sits at the table
• Any tool that scans the PokerStars lobby and automatically opens tables based on the players currently seated at them

Working Around the Policy Changes

Some script makers have already started processing a workaround for the upcoming changes so that their software is compliant with PokerStars’ new rules. According to NEED4SEAT, the changes they have proposed have been approved by the PokerStars Game Integrity team.

One way to completely eradicate seating scripts would be for online poker sites to deploy the “Seat Me” feature across their networks. Seat Me works similarly to how the likes of “fast-fold” poker works in that a player cannot select an individual seat on a specific table. Instead, they click seat me, and the poker site’s software finds the next available open seat and sits the player down in it.

This system is in place at sites on the MPN network and Unibet Poker, with some PokerStars sites also utilizing this feature. PokerStars’ Spanish and Italian sites use a Seat Me system for cash games.

NEED4SEAT states they approached PokerStars to see if the site was planning to rollout Seat Me across the entire PokerStars suite of sites. PokerStars’ response was “There is no imminent plan to change the lobby, however it is possible to happen at any future date. There won’t be a change related to this specific change in policy.”

_{The Stars Group owns a majority share in iBus Media.}

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