PokerStars didn’t take into account the French law which states that players can’t be discriminated on an age or gender basis when they created their side event schedule, which resulted in 22 male players registering for the Ladies event at EPT Deauville.
As usual, PokerStars is running plenty of side events, such as Ladies and Seniors event in their EPT Deauville schedule. However, French law states that no one can be discriminated on a gender or age basis, which is something that local players knew but PokerStars didn’t.
This resulted in 22 male players entering the €220 Ladies Event, and one of them Thierry Olivier Derkx went on to win the tournament.
The €550 Seniors event also had a non-eligible entrant, it was 18 year old Luigi Macaluso entered the event.
The World Series of Poker also had this kind of controversy in past years, they solved it by making the Ladies event a $10,000 buy-in event, with a 90% discount for female players.
