After the Chinese authorities announced that poker will no longer be recognized as a competitive sport, has begun the crackdown on online poker applications, which will ban the promotion of Texas Hold’em via social media applications
Despites the full legal framework of China’s social media poker ban is not yet known.
The crackdown comes almost from three years when Chinese authorities raided and shut down the PokerStars APPT Nanjing Millions, a high-profile live event co-hosted by PokerStars and Beijing’s Star Poker Club that had attracted 2,359 players in April 2015.
The ban will require all apps offering any form of social poker game to be shut down and removed from app stores by 1 June. Social media channels such as WeChat will also be banned from promoting any form of Texas Hold’em product. (READ SO: ONLINE GAMBLING. CHINA GOVERNMENT WILL BECOME A VPN PROVIDER)
Enterprises has experience an immediately falls of 12% of their share´s price. Given that poker in China largely exists via these social media apps, the ban could prove to be a devastating blow for players and the companies that enable them.
Tencent, developer of WeChat, has already taken down its World Series of Poker app.
