Europe Embracing Poker

June 9, 2009

There are many different countries in Europe and many different ways of looking at things over there. For every country that embraces poker, it seems that there are those that refuse to. However, it does seem that those that are willing to legalize poker are gaining in numbers and more of Europe is pro poker than ever before.

There are still some hold outs of course, but most of it comes down to poker playing online. There are some countries that don’t have a big problem with poker playing itself, but don’t want to see poker playing online. Much of this has to do with protecting the monopolies that they have set up for gambling in their countries, more than it has to do with poker playing specifically.

Many of these countries have no problem with poker playing as long as they do it at the casinos within their country, or they play at an online casino that is registered in their country, but they don’t want their gambling dollars going over state lines.

The Netherlands is constantly in trouble for doing exactly that. They say that they have no problem with poker playing and gambling, but it is not to take place online. They are actually trying to push a bill through that would mimic the US’s UIGEA – which is ironic considering how hard they are fighting to get rid of it. Online poker playing is still very popular over there and those countries that allow it are going to reap the ultimate rewards over those that don’t.