French Poker Players Staging Protests Over New Tax

July 16 - New regulations have been imposed by the French government following the opening of France's online poker market.

One of the new regulations comes in the form of a heavy tax that online poker rooms have to pay. In order to fund the cost of this tax, many poker rooms have simply passed the buck onto the poker players.

The French poker players, in turn, of course, are not happy about these moves. As a result, they have begun organizing protests and sit-ins against the increased tax cost.

The new French poker tax means that 2% will be collected from poker rooms on cash games, tournaments and rebuys.

Some online poker operators such as PokerStars have decided that they do not have the means to cover the new tax, so they will simply pass it on to the players by charging an extra 2% rake fee.

A spokesperson for one leading online poker site said that the higher rake fee was essential because poker sites were losing a lot of money due to the new French gambling laws.

Players, however are not letting this pass without having their say and have found a creative way to protest this new cost. Players have been arranging semi-organized sit-ins whereby they sign into Pokerstars and other poker rooms and then simply take up the seats and sit out the hands.

This move is costing the poker operators a lot of money but players are determined that it the poker rooms' fault and that the extra rake is completely unnecessary.