by Mario Alfonsi | Published on May 10, 2012 | Updated on May 10, 2012Believe it or not, Spain was one of the few European countries that sets irrational laws making it impossible for online poker to thrive there. On June 1st Spain will be running online poker for its residents and will be forcing any and all international online poker providers out the door. Over the course of the next 3 weeks, a list of all the applicants will be released so that Spanish players have a better idea of what they can expect to see come June 1st. While some of the international sites that are running now will remain, their domain will now end in .es, and nothing else.We know that PartyPoker and PokerStars are two of the names that will grace the list of accepted applicants and help Spain forge their way through the gaming industry. Bodog and other online poker rooms powered by Microgaming have already decided against trying to get a Spanish license and will let the bigger companies duel it out for the very small market share. Like we stated above, the players on the Spanish-regulated and approved sites will not be from any country besides Spain which will make for an interesting atmosphere for sure.In many cases the thought of regulated online poker sounds like a nightmare, this situation may not be all that bad. In fact, many limits on how much money you can deposit or withdraw in a certain time period may no longer exist. This means players will be able to move their money more freely than ever before. As we know though, you must always take the good with the bad and while limits may be lifted, there will be a lot of new taxes that we and Spanish citizens have never seen before on online poker in Spain.
