Home / Poker News March 2010 / Estonia and Belgium tackle the issue of online poker
Estonia and Belgium tackle the issue of online poker
Posted by: James Carter. - Sun, 2010-03-21 14:14
The issue of the legal status of
online poker is addressed by various states one after the other. Obviously, most of the countries which decided to do something about the issue, moved towards protecting monopoly one way or another.
The Estonian Tax and Customs board is the latest “culprit” in the online poker battle. All poker sites based outside of Estonia have been blocked, and because there’s only one operation holding an Estonian-issued license, that effectively means online poker has pretty much been banned in the country.
The only operation currently entitled to supply online poker services to the Estonian public is the Estonian Olympic Casino.
According to outraged forum posters, ISP’s are liable to receive a EUR 600 fine for allowing players to access restricted sites. Players trying to circumvent the ban and using proxies risk an even larger fine of about EUR 2,600.
Belgium too tackled the issue of online gambling a few days ago, albeit with radically different results than Estonia. Belgian authorities will give online gambling licenses to operators, foreign and domestic. All poker sites have to do to gain access to the Belgian market is to apply for the said licenses.
If there’s a poker player whose life is worthy of being turned into a movie, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott’s has to be it. The British professional is currently in talks with a Finnish and an English company about getting something going in this respect. According to Uliott, there’s a possibility that he may be playing himself in the movie.
After one of the highest profile live poker events, the Aruba Poker Classic has been cancelled,
Ultimate Bet has signed up as the Main Sponsor of the Four Aces Poker Pro Canada Classic.
The event will take place during April, in Montreal.
The
Poker tournament will feature a $1,500+$150 buy-in, and the prize-pool is likely to grow to about $500k. Obviously, as the main sponsor of the event, UB will be the best place to earn a seat in it online. Right until the start of the event, the online poker site will offer players 10 Four Aces Poker Pro Canada Classic packages each week. Each package will be worth $2,500.
