In October 2010, PokerStars announced its partnership with Circus Groupe, making it possible to offer online poker under the regulation of the Belgian Gaming Commission. As a result of this, PokerStars launched its Belgian client today. For now it's only a Beta Testing project but on a later date (probably somewhere in April or May) all existing Belgian players will be migrated to the .BE client...
Due to legal restrictions the minimum age will be 21 and new Belgian players are no longer eligible for a first deposit bonus. (So if you're Belgian and don't have a PokerStars account yet, now's your last chance to sign up and get that bonus...) Belgian players will still be able to play tournaments against .COM players but cash games will be .BE exclusive.
Is this the end of online poker in Belgium or a new dawn? It depends. A regulated poker client will attract new, inexperienced players (aka fish aka more money for the regulars). But real gamblers and degenerates don't really care that much about laws and regulations anyway. Will the new players make up for the .COM cash games we are about to lose? I seriously doubt it. If you're a Belgian cash game player on Stars, you're fucked.
There might be a sparkle of hope, though: Full Tilt Poker.
Howard Lederer, the strong man behind Full Tilt and the most powerful man in poker (Number 1 in Bluff Magazine's Power Top 20), has been running his poker client for years in a legal grey (well, grey at best) area in the USA.
While PokerStars's always first to follow new laws, Full Tilt seem to prefer a more relaxed approach. As long as Belgian players can deposit and withdraw I don't see Full Tilt leaving the Belgian market any time soon. It all depends on how hard Belgium will try to enforce this new gambling law... If it's just another dead-letter-law we will be fine. It's hard to enforce laws online (the PirateBay is still here) and when we don't even have a real government (over 250 days and counting). Belgian cash game grinders probably will have to ship there bankroll to Full Tilt but that's about it for now.
No worries, in my opinion.
We still have Rush poker.
(and if it turns out I'm totally wrong about all this it might be a good time to relocate. Life's much better in the sun...)
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