PokerStars Suspends All Services in Russia, Restricts Russian Players
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Posted by: Ivan
Following many international companies, PokerStars has announced that it is (temporarily?) suspending all services in Russia.
The online poker site made this decision because of the war between Russia and Ukraine. Russian players still have the option to withdraw money from their accounts, but they can no longer make deposits or engage in any form of real-money play.
Although Russian players have the option to withdraw money from their accounts, many payment processors aren’t allowing them to do so.
PokerStars commented on the situation that their funds and balances remain in segregated accounts and will be refunded when the situation changes.
PokerStars takes a big hit from this traffic-wise, as cash game traffic is down by as much as 15%. GGPoker is experiencing the same at the moment, with a cash game traffic drop of around 10%.
Pokerstars Discredited for Not Canceling EPT Sochi
A week ago, PokerStars was discredited for initially not canceling the EPT in Sochi, Russia. As a result, many poker players decided to boycott the EPT.
A few days later, PokerStars decided to cancel the Sochi edition after all. The tournament, which is extremely popular with Russian poker players, was scheduled for March 18 to 27.
On Wednesday evening, the online poker site announced it was suspending all services in the country, preventing players from playing on PokerStars from Russia:
No further information was shared by PokerStars or its parent company Flutter.
PokerStars Not the First to Take Steps Against Russia
Online poker site PokerStars isn’t the only online casino taking steps in response to the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Last week, several legal online bookmakers across the globe already decided that they would remove the Russian competitions from their offer.
Among the bookmakers that stopped taking action on teams and leagues in Russia are DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, and Caesars Sportsbook.
This resulted in odds for the Moscow Pro Liga table tennis and Kontinental Hockey League to disappear from several betting sites. The sportsbooks haven’t commented on the situation yet.
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