Couple of cool things going on overseas. First the EU pimp slapped France and Sweden for protecting their own state run gaming monopolies. The government of Sweden runs its own poker room and France has alwyas had a poor record which was only made worse when the banned the Unibet-sponsored cycling team.
According to the official EU release, “The European Commission has taken action to put an end to obstacles to the free movement of sports betting services in France, Greece and Sweden. The Commission has formally requested France and Sweden to amend their laws[…]. These formal requests take the form of ‘reasoned opinions,’ the second stage of the infringement procedure laid down in Article 226 of the EC Treaty. If there is no satisfactory reply within two months, the Commission may refer the matter to the European Court of Justice.”
Second piece of good news was that PokerStars was kicking off the Asia-Pacific Poker Tour (APPT). Asia has a lot of potential and it’s good to see something starting to develop over there.
As a side trivia note, the APPT’s President and Co-Founder, Jeffrey Haas, used to be at ClickNRaise Poker who sponsored the first WPBT Winter Classic.