Slovakia Poker Law

Slovakian are doing a good job on the world poker scene and this is probably due to the gambling environment in their home country. Gambling in Slovakia is legal. It has been so ever since 1992 when Slovakia became a state governing its own. Before then, Slovakia was part of a bigger country known for many years as Czechoslovakia. Needless to say, legalizing a trade or a sport is tantamount to sanctioning it and endorsing it; and so Slovakian have, for a great part, developed a positive attitude towards the game of poker. Obviously, this would have been different if the state poker law prohibited poker or gambling in general, in which case, many people would have frowned at the mention of the game.

Accessibility to Gambling Places in Slovakia

Slovakia is said to have around 21 casinos offering a wide variety of betting games. These casinos offer slot machines, poker and other betting games. Anyone in the country who wishes to gamble can access facilities in the cities of Kosice, Nitra, Piestany, Zilina, Bratislava and Trnava. Well known casinos where poker rooms are available include Casino Nitra; Casino Piestany; Casino Zilina; Casino-Cafe Reduta; Olympic Casino Arkadia Trnava; Olympic Casino Eurovea Bratislava; Olympic Casino in Carlton Hotel; and Regency Casino.

When it comes to online poker and online gambling in general, Slovakia happens to be friendly as betting online goes on without harassment from the authorities. Anyone in Slovakia can access online poker sites and play whatever level of stakes they wish. They can also transfer cash liberally to and from their personal bank accounts in the course of gambling without fearing repercussions from the government. This is one reason why the gambling environment in Slovakia is vibrant compared to other countries where poker enthusiasts play online poker as a risk because of legal limitations.

The law on online gambling as it stands in Slovakia

Online gambling is regulated by the Gambling Act of 2005. The relevant sections as far as gaming online is concerned are Section 9 as well as 29. In Slovakia, investors who host online gambling sites are licensed by the Ministry of Finance. And these operators do pay taxes so the government also benefits from online gambling. The tax angle is one that has led to many countries legalizing online gambling. They have realized that depriving their citizens of licenses to run online poker or other forms of gambling does not necessarily block gamblers from engaging in what they love most. It only deprives the state of revenues.

Online gambling sites in Slovakia are so user friendly that many poker lovers feel encouraged to sharpen their skills online. There are even sites that offer betting services in local languages, meaning that language cannot be a barrier to those gamblers who cannot speak international languages like English, French or German. It would be realistic to say that this language aspect has increased the number of people engaged in online poker in Slovakia. Another factor that makes online gambling sites user friendly in Slovakia is the fact that they have made the Euro acceptable. This means that even foreigners can play online and use money from their bank accounts directly without the complication of exchange rates and such other modalities of transacting.

Another thing that makes Slovaks happy about online gambling being legalized in their country is that it reduces the temptation to play on foreign based gambling sites. Whereas being able to play online poker and other online games on sites hosted elsewhere is an added advantage, there is also the risk of falling onto a site hosted by unscrupulous people. If this happens, a player risks having bank account details and other financial information compromised. But for home based sites, it is easy to confirm legality.

Online Poker Law in Australia

Online Poker Law in Australia

Poker players will go to great lengths to find out where casinos are located wherever they visit. This is because poker is not like most other games. It comes with some thrill that is almost addictive. Whether a poker enthusiast is playing in a city casino or on some online poker site is not of consequence. There is a thrill that only the betting game can provide. So one of the top things a poker enthusiast visiting Australia seeks to know is the location of casinos, hoping they can find one around the hotel they are residing in. The next thing is to establish what the poker law in the country is like. Nobody wants to take a holiday and end up behind bars for breaking the law, whether through leisure or otherwise.

Is poker legal in Australia?

Poker can be said to be legal in Australia on one front and illegal on another. However, Aussies still play poker irrespective of what the state laws stipulate. And poker is not the only gambling activity they love. They are also enthusiastic about roulette; bingo; racing of all sorts; lotteries; and others. Still, it is good to be aware what is covered by the poker law and what is prohibited, because as far as the law goes, ignorance is no excuse.

The fact today is that Australia’s gambling law permits poker to be played within brick and mortar casinos. So, as would be expected, there are many casinos in the country. Among the most popular ones is Crown Casino, which is located in Melbourne. Another one is Star City Casino. This one is in Sydney. Poker is actually very popular in Australia, and whatever gambling goes on in the casinos is regulated under an act of parliament, namely, the Casino Control Act of 2006. Whatever an investor in the gambling sector needs to know is clearly stated in this act. That includes matters regarding casino locations and the various gaming committees charged with oversight.

Is online poker legal in Australia?

As far as Australia’s state laws are concerned, online gambling is illegal. With no other law in place to exempt online poker from the ban, it means it is illegal to play poker online in Australia. To be precise, the illegality of online poker falls under the Interactive Gambling Act of 2001 (IGA). This law was passed when Prime Minister Howard was in power; actually in the month of June 2001. The law sought to protect Australian citizens against the negative effects of online poker and online gambling as a whole.

Whether the law succeeded in this protection is subject to debate. The reality on the ground is that Australians who want to engage in online poker do not have to fly abroad – they do it right within the borders of Australia. Poker enthusiasts have realized that the government is keen on cracking the whip on the businesses that host poker illegally online and does not seem to follow up on poker players themselves. As such, many of the poker lovers just log onto the websites that offer online poker, even when those sites are based in other countries.

Incidentally, Australia’s state laws do not prohibit the citizens from accessing such sites. Yet the IGA prohibits anyone from offering interactive gambling related services that use real money online. It also prohibits any advertising of such gambling activities that use real money. So Aussies continue to play online poker because of the gaping loopholes in the gambling law and the weakness in the implementation of the existing online gambling law. Maybe it is just as well because the presence of Aussies in the world poker arena is well felt.

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Online Poker Laws in the State Of Colorado

Online Poker Laws in the State Of Colorado

Colorado is likely to have a bill on online poker passed very soon. There has been much lobbying in this regard, and poker lovers in Colorado are hopeful that online poker will soon be legalized. In a number of US states, the poker law is not explicit especially regarding online poker. That means that betting enthusiasts are unable to foretell if and when they are crossing the line in regard to the state poker law. Colorado has around forty casinos, and a good number of them provide poker rooms. Needless to say, casino owners will be among the happiest people when the Colorado Gaming Commission succeeds in getting the law on state online poker passed.colorado

Debate on Pros and Cons of Online Poker

For close to five years now, interest regarding online poker has been rising in Colorado. With equal measure are the concerns about what online poker may do to the conventional arena of poker. First on the list of concerns is the possibility of revenues from brick and mortar casinos dropping when some old patrons turn to online poker. The debate about online poker began to gain volume around 2011 when the Colorado Gaming Association released a report on a study they had commissioned dwelling on the prospects of online gambling and its effects on the existing Colorado casinos.

Colorado legislatures took the debate on online poker seriously, and in 2012 they initiated a bill that was meant to lead to legalization of online poker in the state. Colorado state laws have not addressed the issue of online gambling before, and that leaves poker players as well as their fans wondering where the state stands with regard to online gambling. It will be a great relief when ultimately the poker law is enacted and particularly addressing the state online poker law. As owners of brick and mortar casinos fear, failure to address the topic of online poker with a view to regulating it is likely to jeopardize commercial activity in the industry.

State Revenues from Gambling

Currently, the state of Colorado gets a whopping $750 million annually in annual revenues from casinos. If the online poker bill draft is passed into law as is anticipated, the state will, very likely, reap more revenues from the gambling sector. One pertinent point is that the brick and mortar casinos and hosts of online poker need not be mutually exclusive in terms of ownership. In fact, owners of current casinos may wish to participate in hosting online poker as well as long as they understand the infrastructure and the legalities involved. They may also wish to spread their tentacles to neighboring states. That would make it easy and convenient for the state of Colorado to gather revenues from a much bigger number of gambling centers. These are great prospects for the state as far as budgetary issues are concerned.

Colorado Has Not Been Enthusiastic In The Past

It is tempting to think that the state of Colorado has been enthusiastic about gambling considering that 40 is not necessarily a small figure when it comes to number of casinos in the state. However, that is not the case. Granted playing poker is legal in Colorado; but the ceiling for betting amounts is quite low – $100. That might come as a surprise to people who are familiar with the gambling that takes place in Las Vegas casinos and such other vibrant casinos. And even this $100 is an improvement. Before 2009, a gambler could only bet $5 and below at any one time.

However, Colorado can no longer afford to ignore the need to liberalize poker a bit more. The fact that New Jersey and other states like Nevada have embraced online poker is itself enough pressure for Colorado.

Poker machines and the law: when is a loss disguised as a win?

Poker machines and the law: when is a loss disguised as a win?

Picture this scenario, I take all the money that is in your pocket, you would probably feel and maybe be furious that I have taken all your money. In other words, you would feel like you have lost something. But what if I took 70% of the money that is in your pocket, would you still feel like you have lost something or feel like you have ‘won’ the remaining 30%? And what if I managed to convince you that you have actually ‘won’ in this case by putting on some happy music laced with fire cracking sounds?

It is this kind of notion that has compelled Australian law firm, Maurice Blackburn to propose a legal action suit against poker machine operators. The suit claims that the people operating the machines are deceiving and misleading clueless gamblers into continually using their machines despite the fact that they are ‘losing’.MauriceBlackburn

Section 18 of Australian consumer law prohibits deceptive and misleading conduct. The key way to assess this is to determine whether said conduct is indeed deceptive and misleading bearing in mind all circumstances surrounding said conduct. To test out this theory, you need to identify both the targeted consumer and the conduct. And in this scenario the targeted consumers are the gamblers or more specifically armature gamblers or the more addicted gamblers.

Maurice Blackburn has also identified the misleading conduct in this case which is a technique that has been dubbed ‘losses disguised as wins’. This is a situation whereby the poker player bets on many lines and even a minor win on any one of those lines set off a chorus of happy music and images that indicate a ‘win’ when in actual sense the player has lost more than he or she has won.

Using The Law Against Poker Machines

The beauty of consumer law is that it employs common sense to answer most of the questions. One such common sense question that would be brought up in court is; If there is a minor win and the poker machine responds with chiming music and flashing graphics indicating a win, would an average amateur gambler regard this as a win despite the fact that they have actually lost money?

In further support of this suit, close attention to detail by the poker player and in turn realizing their error the judgment doesn’t apply in this case. Why? Well because humans are known to behave irrationally and most times we tend to make decision based on the opinions that we form around a particular conduct be it good or bad in actual reality. So, in this case for instance, Maurice Blackburn could argue that armature gamblers are distracted by the flashy graphics and happy music so much so that they pay less attention to their credit.

Other cases that have been argued out in court using the same idea include the TPG Internet case of 2013. The court found TPG guilty of misleading its consumers by putting up an advert which offered unlimited ADLS2+ for meager price of $29.95 when in actual sense this offer was only available to clients who had a bundle broadband and a home phone service. TPG had included this detail in their advert but it was displayed less prominently compared to the flashy deal.

The Argument

So how does Maurice Blackburn plan to argue out the losses disguised as win technique in court? Well, their argument might revolve around recent Canadian research which revealed that the music and accompanying flashy images displayed on poker machines often trigger the same arousal levels in armature gamblers as actual wins and it’s no secret that arousal is central in nourishing gambling behavior.

GPL may be in trouble with the law

Recent poker news posted on CardsChart reveal that the Global Poker league might be having a few legal woes. CardsChart’s Jon Sofen also suggested in his article that GPL may not be such a popular event with global poker players as Global poker Index CEO Alexander Dreyfus hyped it out to be.

Sofen who dubbed Dreyfus as a ‘controversial businessman’ described GPL as an innovative event whose primary intention is to ‘sportify’ the game this way in order to make it more alluring to the non-poker playing audience.

For this year’s GPL tournament, private investors have put up a whopping $5 million. The event will host 12 international poker teams picked from different cities sprawled out across the globe. Each team will have 5 poker players who will be picked out in drafts and it will run through for 14 weeks. Each team having its own manager will battle it out in a stadium and all the games will be fully televised with accompanying commentary.

In his defense, Dreyfus strongly believes that GPL tournament will salvage poker from its slowly decaying glory and rejuvenate it as a fun and intense game. However, given the circumstances of the event and all the fine lines that Dreyfus alleges to put the spank back in poker, most would arguably view this event as more of a gambling forum as opposed to a pure old fashioned game of poker.

It may seem that Dreyfus’s enthusiasm to up the poker game ratings might have blinded him to a few legal issues. Since players on the team will each receive a salary during the season, Dreyfus could argue that GPL is not a gambling ring and everyone is getting paid what they are owed. However, according to US poker laws, games that are hosted outside of licensed establishments are deemed illegal hence gambling. While Dreyfus still maintains that he is doing everything within the law, many beg to differ with him on this. Should the US law enforcement find that the GPL does not conform to the rules and regulations set, the league will have to be cancelled for further investigations.

To add salt to an injury, the timing for GPL tournament couldn’t be worse seeing as the Daily Fantasy Sports Industry is under investigation for allegedly hosting gambling games. However, DraftKings and FanDuel have vehemently denied these accusations saying that the list of fantasy sports are not included in the banned gambling games listed out in the poker laws. Moreover, Nevada has recently officially banned fantasy sports websites from running without proof of a license which leaves room for the federal government to step in at any given moment and declare fantasy sports as indeed gambling games. Imposing more scrutiny on the GPL, the federal government might even rule that running that entire league is against the law.

To make matters worse, Dreyfus is not a popular figure in the poker world. Part of the reason why poker players are not fond of him is because his formula for ranking players in the Global player index is often thought to be unfair. And for a few other players they just don’t like Dreyfus and there is no apparent reason for their dislike for the man. Bottomline, Dreyfus has his work cut out for him. Not only does he have to convince law enforcement agencies that his league is indeed legit and law-abiding, but he has to gain the trust and goodwill of the entire poker community. One cannot do without the other, otherwise the entire league will come crumbling down.