UK players protest new auto-rebuy ruling

A petition has formed to protest the new UK ruling against 'unfair' automatic top ups in rebuys and cash games.

Last week we brought you the news that PokerStars will remove the ‘auto-rebuy’ feature in cash games and rebuy tournaments, for UK players. This is to comply with new UK Gambling Commission legislation coming in on October 1 which prohibits it.

The new ruling states that:

“the amount of funds taken into a product should not be topped up without the customer choosing to do so on each occasion, e.g. when a customer buys-in at a poker table they should have to choose to purchase more chips to play at the table - automatic re-buys should not be provided.”

Now a group of UK players, led by Richard Richardson, have arranged a petition to protest this change. They argue that while the aims of the new rulings are honourable, they do not work practically for poker.

The new legislation does not prohibit players from topping up their stack in cash games or rebuying in tournaments, it simply forces them to do it manually. While clearly not a problem for recreational players, this is an issue for professional grinders, in particular those who play a lot of tables at once. As Richardson explained in a letter to the UKGC:

UK players at a disadvantage

“This standardisation is important for many players who choose to play multiple tables at the same stakes at the same time. Players routinely play 4, 10 or 20+ tables at a time. For those that do not understand poker this might appear shocking or a symptom of problem gambling but for players choosing to multi-table it is in fact the opposite."

"By spreading the stakes at risk across multiple tables the variance in results due to chance is reduced and the ability to use skill is increased as more skilled decisions are made in the same time. Multi tabling does not really escalate stakes, it reduces them and instead increases the number of choices made.”

He continues that this legislation actually puts UK players at a significant disadvantage:

“With automatic top up removed players would face having a different decision and different style on different tables played at the same time. This would be a significant disadvantage for such players compared to the non-UK players who do not face this complication. This would affect the fairness of the game to the disadvantage of UK players.”

You can see the full draft, which is addressed to Jenny Williams of the UKGC, here.

Is auto-rebuy a bad idea for problem gamblers? Does this put UK players at a significant disadvantage at the tables? Let us know in the comments box.