Just days after the unexpected cancellation of the European Poker Tour's 2025 EPT Paris festival in February, a second poker series scheduled to take place in early 2025 has been cancelled. This time, it's the debut of a brand new festival, Texapoker's European Championship of Poker (ECOP), that has been mothballed.
The first-ever ECOP Paris series was announced just a few weeks ago, and it was supposed to begin its initial 12-day run on January 2, 2025, at Paris' Club Circus. The launch of the mid-major series is designed to expand Texapoker's live-event footprint in France and a handful of other European countries as the company already produces other lower-priced series in western Europe.
In cancelling the ECOP Paris stop, Texapoker CEO Apo Chantzis also possibly shed additional light on the EPT Paris cancellation, which also may be due to a local regulatory issue and should not apply to near-future festivals being held elsewhere in France.
All Paris card clubs scheduled to close on December 31
The root issue behind the festivals' cancellations is somewhat more dire for Parisian poker clubs in general, as the temporary law passed in 2017 that formally allowed card clubs to operate is being allowed to lapse by France's current government. Seven Parisian clubs are affected and have been ordered to close by France's Ministry of the Interior.
While there is still some hope that another in a series of extensions might allow the seven clubs to continue operations, for the partnering poker tours such as ECOP and EPT, there's simply no way to continue a proper promotional and marketing buildup. For the brand new ECOP, that means the tour's debut will now take place in March in Sanremo, Italy.
"We can't resign ourselves to the closure of the gaming clubs in Paris. We all gave so much to make this experiment a success, and it has been," said Thierry Bolleret, head of public relations at Club Circus Paris. "Unfortunately, it seems that our fate is to suffer the political instability of the moment, which is why we are reluctantly having to postpone the ECOP. We would like to thank all our customers and partners [despite] this state of affairs, which is completely beyond our control."
Image courtesy of Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd
