Entain is fully committed to its key tenet introduced when the company took over the reins from GVC Holdings (its former brand identity) and promised to break away from any questionable practices of the past. To achieve this, the company has promised to fully commit to leaving the black markets behind.
This is precisely what is happening with the company’s decision to pull out its partypoker brand from the Russian and Moldavan markets as confirmed by Pokerfuse and Poker Industry Pro. Players were notified via email that the website will be winding down its operations last week and the company has since updated its customer support form to reflect this.
The past two years since the rebranding have been busy for Entain. The company has shown clear commitment to either play by the rules or not play at all. In markets where the company struggled to find a foothold or decided that they weren’t an immediate priority, Entain bowed out graciously.
This includes the company’s decision not to pursue an entry in the Netherlands and to re-focus its efforts elsewhere. Effectively, Entain is one of the biggest names to have given the Dutch market a hard but strategic pass. This is a temporary situation.
Much of the decision was predicated on the fact that Entain has to sit through a cooling-off period which operators that may have targeted the market without a license in the past year now need to comply with. The company is expected to apply for a license at some point this year.
Partypoker Poker Twitch and Community Manager Collette Stewart said in a Discord update that the company has chosen to move away from the Russian and Moldavian markets because of regulatory issues. There is a good chance that the lack of an online platform would probably make partypoker less likely to explore a system of live events in those markets as well.
