GG Poker goes legal in Sweden

I just recieved the following information from GG Poker per email:

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Important Update regarding your GGPoker account

Hi fundiver199,

We’re excited to share an important update specifically for players residing in Sweden. Players residing in Sweden will be receiving a new dedicated home - GGPoker.se. As a consequence, your existing account will no longer be serviced, and you will be required to create a new account on GGPoker.se.

While there will be some changes to how we operate locally, we want to assure you that your experience will remain smooth.

All we’re asking is for you to register on our new dedicated site, once it launches on the 12th of June.

Don’t worry! It’s quick and simple, and you’ll continue enjoying the same amazing poker action and tournaments without interruption.

Important Information:

• You can still log in to your existing account to withdraw any remaining balance. GGPoker reserves the right to close your existing account three months after the launch of GGPoker.se . After closure, any withdrawal request needs to be made via customer support.
• Once GGPoker.se goes live, you will no longer be able to deposit funds or participate in games. Registration for any upcoming tournaments will be automatically canceled.
• Any accumulated Ocean Rewards (Tide Points & GEMs), promotional currency (including C$, T$ and Tickets) and ongoing promotions will be voided after account closure.
• We urge you to redeem your GEMs, and use up your promotional currency before the 12th of June

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So basically players living in Sweden will no longer be able to use their existing (illegal) account on GG Poker after 12.06.2026, and any bonuses, tickets etc. still remaining after that date will be nullified. But instead we will be able to create a new (legal) account, which will mean no more bonuses, freerolls or promotions. But in return withdrawals directly to a swedish back account should be possible, like it is on other legal sites. And should we ever have some kind of dispute with GG Poker, we can seek assistance from swedish authorities rather than those in Malta or some other obscure offshore location.

And so the fields get toughter to everyone else. But, great news anyways.

rsparente said:

And so the fields get toughter to everyone else. But, great news anyways.

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Under swedish regulations we play in international player pools, but there are rules restricting promotions, deposit limits and so on. The latest addition to the rules is, that deposits can no longer be made using a credit card but only a debit card. Basically the rules attempt to limit gambling problems without preventing people from playing in a healthy way.

So players from Sweden will still be playing the same games against the same opponents. And if I have to guess, I would say, that the legality of the site will likely bring in more recreational players, since they typically dont want to bother with complicated deposit and withdrawal methods. In fact I might actually give GG Poker a try myself. Until now I have had an account there but not used it.

fundiver199 said:

Under swedish regulations we play in international player pools, but there are rules restricting promotions, deposit limits and so on. The latest addition to the rules is, that deposits can no longer be made using a credit card but only a debit card. Basically the rules attempt to limit gambling problems without preventing people from playing in a healthy way.

So players from Sweden will still be playing the same games against the same opponents. And if I have to guess, I would say, that the legality of the site will likely bring in more recreational players, since they typically dont want to bother with complicated deposit and withdrawal methods. In fact I might actually give GG Poker a try myself. Until now I have had an account there but not used it.

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Well that sounds good news I'd say.

Once you get passd the slightly annoying features and kind of forget they are there, I'm sure you will be smashing it on GG @fundiver199

SpanRmonka said:

Well that sounds good news I'd say.

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Yes I agree. I think, online poker should be legal and regulated. So when a country actually have laws in place, that allow sites to operate legally, if they follow certain rules, then they should definitely do so. As I said already, it makes it much more inviting for recreational players to come into online poker, when its legal, and there are no hassles with deposits or withdrawals. Much smaller sites like 888 Poker, Unibet and PartyPoker (who left again) have operated legally in Sweden for many years as have of course PokerStars, so I am not sure, why it has taken GG Poker this long. But better late than never I guess.

SpanRmonka said:

Once you get passd the slightly annoying features and kind of forget they are there, I'm sure you will be smashing it on GG @fundiver199

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I dont think, GG Poker will become my main site, since they dont offer any proper SnGs. But I am definitely going to check out the "new" swedish site and see, if there is a welcome package (the only promotion allowed in Sweden), and then try to play some MTTs there just to try something different.

In Sweden, you only pay tax on cash withdrawals, not on what you still have in your ggaccount.The more countries, the better.

fundiver199 said:

Yes I agree. I think, online poker should be legal and regulated. So when a country actually have laws in place, that allow sites to operate legally, if they follow certain rules, then they should definitely do so. As I said already, it makes it much more inviting for recreational players to come into online poker, when its legal, and there are no hassles with deposits or withdrawals. Much smaller sites like 888 Poker, Unibet and PartyPoker (who left again) have operated legally in Sweden for many years as have of course PokerStars, so I am not sure, why it has taken GG Poker this long. But better late than never I guess.

I dont think, GG Poker will become my main site, since they dont offer any proper SnGs. But I am definitely going to check out the "new" swedish site and see, if there is a welcome package (the only promotion allowed in Sweden), and then try to play some MTTs there just to try something different.

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GG ar the masters at attracting the recreationals too, with country specific games etc, so watch out for them especially as they are really only juts entering the market. They had a lot of radio and internet adverts in the UK not too long ago, they were really pushing natnally way more than I've seen any other pokr site advertise

GG is so corrupt that charges 1$ every withdrawal in Brazil lol

Time for an update on this. The dedicated swedish site has now launched, but its not like, I understood their message, that my old account will be closed, and I need to open a new one. Instead I was just asked to go though a verification process, where I identified myself with my swedish online ID (called bank-ID), gave some information about myself (source of income, employment etc.) and set deposit limits.

And that was basically it. So I guess, the message just mean, that swedish players opting NOT to go through this process, will no longer be able to deposit or play, and after 3 month their accounts might be closed. The good news is, there is a traditional "match the first deposit" bonus offered up to around $600 (amount is in SEK), and I will have a full 2 years to clear this.

So I took the plunge and made my first deposit on GG Poker. Went for 5.555 SEK to get the maximum first deposit bonus. My very first impressions:

* Oddly enough the poker client will not install a hot key on my desktop, and I have to "install" the software, every time I want to play. No huge deal though, since it only takes seconds.

* Deposit options in Sweden are debit card, bank transfer and Luxon Pay. I had some money on Luxon Pay, so they went into the GG Poker account. Very easy and getting money out the same way should also be very easy.

* Full ring cash games have an ante and a 200BB max buyin, both of which I think are great initiatives, that other sites should look into as well.

* At least up to the $30 level all tournaments seem to have 8% rake, which makes regular speed MTTs a good deal but any kind of hyperturbo and especially the Battle Royal a rather poor deal.

Time for another update to this. After the first week I have not played that much on GG Poker, since I vastly prefer the software of PokerStars and to some extend even ACR Poker. The main issue is, the software get extremely laggy, if I try to play more than two tables at a time. Most likely this issue is caused by the graphic card of my old laptop getting overwhelmed, so the solution would be to buy a new laptop.

For this reason I have also not played any MTTs yet, and I have only played a few short cash game sessions for test purposes. I really dont see any reason to 2-table MTTs or cash games on GG Poker, when I can play 5-6 tables on PokerStars with no technical issues. I have played a bit of $10 Battle Royal though, and here are the things, I like and dont like, about this game in particular and the GG Poker software in general

Things I like:

1) Its possible to save a table layout, so you dont have to adjust the tables manually, every time you play.
2) When a Battle Royal game is finished, you can select "play another", and then this game will open in the same window.
3) There is 24-hour action, which even on PokerStars is not the case for SnGs any longer.
4) For a hyperturbo stacks actually stay at a reasonable level due to the rush phase and a lot of wild gambling.
5) I kind of like any game with bounties, because they require adjustments, and some people adjust really poorly.

Things I dislike:

1) Adjusting the size and position of tables is fiddly, so the ability to save a table loyout is absolutely nessesary.
2) The slow reveal of the river card in all-in pots slow down the action and is quite annoying.
3) The slow opening of chests, when someone is knocked out, also slow down the action.
4) Adjusting bet sizes can be fiddly, and I have timed out more than once.
5) The 8% rake is really high for a game this fast.

All in all its pretty clear, that both the platform in general and the Battle Royal game in particular is designed to attract gamblers, and is successfully doing so.

How old is your laptop?
The computer I've been using for the past couple years is a dozen years old (4th gen i5 cpu), with no GPU. I can 10-table on GG while playing on a couple other sites at the same time.

SpanRmonka said:

Well that sounds good news I'd say.

Once you get passd the slightly annoying features and kind of forget they are there, I'm sure you will be smashing it on GG @fundiver199

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When I first opened GG I was a bit confused by some of the features (cards dealt down where you had to reveal them). I quickly changed some of the settings and now it looks and feels very much like Partypoker and Stars. The only thing I don't like is the Hand History feature and it's not even that bad.
One thing I do like on GG, you can mouse over the pot and it reveals the prior action from each street. Sometimes I lose track so this can be a huge help to me.
What features do you find slightly annoying?

Poker Orifice said:

How old is your laptop?

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Its around 5 years and do also sometimes get laggy playing on PokerStars or ACR Poker, especially with 5-6 tables. So could be that particular model and perhaps also our local swedish version of the software, which seem to have some differences to the global one.

fundiver199 said:

Its around 5 years and do also sometimes get laggy playing on PokerStars or ACR Poker, especially with 5-6 tables. So could be that particular model and perhaps also our local swedish version of the software, which seem to have some differences to the global one.

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Im on Ryzen 7 with 16 gh ram, 4 year old still fairly actual mid range laptop model and it starts to kind of lag too with too many tables on certain sites. Worst is wpt global where i cant play more than 1 table without lag.

Desktops are probably just way better for poker in the end if we talk about performance, which would explain why @Poker Orifice is able to play so many tables GG without issues on an older machine.

Poker Orifice said:

When I first opened GG I was a bit confused by some of the features (cards dealt down where you had to reveal them). I quickly changed some of the settings and now it looks and feels very much like Partypoker and Stars. The only thing I don't like is the Hand History feature and it's not even that bad.
One thing I do like on GG, you can mouse over the pot and it reveals the prior action from each street. Sometimes I lose track so this can be a huge help to me.
What features do you find slightly annoying?

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Its just kind of the emojis, and the voice, all of which I can probs turn off, but I suppose I've got used to them, like I said they're only slightly annoying, and I remember finding them a bit much when I first started, but then they do kind of become just part of the background!!

I didn't knat about the pot, I will have to test that out! Thanks

What I do wish they did, was have satties to any game of a certain buy in, rather than mostly specific sattys for particular tournaments!

SpanRmonka said:

Its just kind of the emojis, and the voice, all of which I can probs turn off, but I suppose I've got used to them, like I said they're only slightly annoying, and I remember finding them a bit much when I first started, but then they do kind of become just part of the background!!

I didn't knat about the pot, I will have to test that out! Thanks

What I do wish they did, was have satties to any game of a certain buy in, rather than mostly specific sattys for particular tournaments!

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The voice? Is there a voice? Is it the dealer's voice or something? (I honestly don't know).
The first day I was on the site I played smallest stakes and tried to dial in the settings as best I could in hopes of getting it to look like the rest of the sites I play on. And it does.

Poker Orifice said:

The voice? Is there a voice? Is it the dealer's voice or something? (I honestly don't know).

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There is a feature called "action voice", which for me was set default to "off". I guess, its says something like "yubiyeee", when you win, and "arrrgggg" when you lose, but I have not tried to turn it on, since I dont need even more distractions, than there already is. You can choose between Daniel Negreanu, male 1-5 and female 1-5, if you are curious to find out, what it is

Time for an update on this. After having serious performance issues and pretty much only being able to play 2 tables at a time for that reason, the recent software update on GG Poker and perhaps an update of my graphics card driver completely solved this problem. Which caused me to play my first MTT session on GG Poker yesterday.

And I have to say, that its a great site for MTTs. The selection is enormous, and they dont all have huge fields, which could be a potential turnoff for grinders or people trying to build up their bankroll. I played a $10 turbo with a guarantied price pool of just $300 and finished in 4. place with only 5 places paying. And as time scheduled MTTs go, the fields dont become much smaller than this anywhere.

GG Poker charge a uniform rake of 8% against all sorts of tournaments at least up to pretty high stakes. And to be honest this makes it look a bit like, PokerStars are sleepwalking their way into annihilation. Yes PokerStars offer a discount on hyper turbos, which makes them somewhat cheaper for these specific games depending on the buyin. But charging 10.9% for all regular or turbo speed games with a buyin of <$20 is just to much, when the new market leader only charge 8%. Not to mention the ridiculous 15-16%, PokerStars now charge for some of their SnGs.

If someone told you, that you could only pick a single type of games to play on GG Poker for the rest of your life, then I would definitely recommend MTTs. Until this MTT session I mainly played the $10 Battle Royal, and as expected or feared this game feels like a bit of a rake trap / money pit. After around 140 games I am down something like $200 for an ROI of -15%, since most of them were $10 games. And while variance is of course huge over such a small sample, this is not a great start.

Which brings me on to, what I think is the biggest reason to not play on GG Poker, which is the difficulty with tracking your results. As most people will know, GG Poker dont allow the use of external trackers like PT4, and a few years ago they also stopped independent tracking by sites like sharkscope. Which mean, there is no easy way to find out, how you are doing in different types of games, unless you literally play the same game all the time. If you play different games, then your only way to track results is to do it completely manually and write down your results of each session or game in a spreadsheet, like a live poker player might do.

For Battle Royal they give you stats showing, how many games you played, and how much you cashed for. But they dont show you, how much you bought if for, so unless you literally play the same stake all the time, this information is pretty much 100% useless. They also tell you, how often you cleared the Rush stage, which is again 100% useless information, since clearing the rush stage does not bring you in the money. And they tell you, how many players you knocked out, which is equally 100% useless information, since it include players knocked out during the Rush stage, which did not pay a bounty.

For cash game players its even worse, since they will show you a graph of your results not including the rake paid. Which is of course a crucial detail, since the rake can easily eat up more than half the profit for a winning player or turn a winning player into a losing player. Its pretty clear, that GG Poker wants to give people an illusion, they are doing great, when the reality is for the most part very different.

Now I dont recommend being overly results oriented, especially not over the short run like a sample of 140 SnGs played. But if you are a serious poker player, you do want to track your results to help with future game selection. For instance when I started playing online poker 10 years ago, I played a mixture of full ring cash games and 6-max Zoom.

Initially at 2NL and 5NL I won in both formats, but when I got to 10NL and 16NL my results drifted apart with the full ring cash tables still showing a decent profit, especially at 16NL, but the Zoom games showing a sea of red. At first I put this down to variance, which some of it might have been, but eventually the gap became to wide to ignore, and I decided to focus on the game, I was beating rather than the one, I was almost certainly not beating.

Another example is results at different stakes, if you play MTTs or SnGs. I recently posted about my results on 888 Poker, where I made $5k+ in 2020+2021, but I actually lost $3k playing just 200 MTTs with a buyin of $22-55. Again variance might have played a part here, but when you have an ROI of -50% over a somewhat decent sample like 200 MTTs, its also a reasonable conclusion, that you probably dont have the skills required to beat these games. And then you should move down, find softer games on another site or try to study and improve.

So where does that leave me? I am not giving up on GG Poker, because I want to play more MTTs there and perhaps try to clear my first time deposit bonus of SEK 5.555 (close to $600). And I have two years to do so, so its pretty realistic. I am not sure, how much more Battle Royal I am going to play though. I prefer the more traditional SnGs on PokerStars and ACR Poker. So if I am going to play anything other than MTTs on GG Poker, it will likely be full ring cash games.