Germany Takes Tough Stance Against Online Poker

Just a few weeks ago in this column I suggested that online poker was flourishing in Europe. Shortly after I submitted that column, the German government introduced a nationwide ban on online gambling similar to the USA's Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act.

Germany's legislation makes it illegal for banks and financial institutions to process payments with online gaming sites, including those solely dedicated to poker. There is also a strong possibility that German Internet service providers will block access to gaming sites. The ban in Germany is a major step backwards for European poker, however many players are optimistic that the legality of the ban can be addressed via the European Union. Norway, Turkey, and France, also have anti-online gaming legislation in place.

Ironically, just a few weeks later the PokerStars.com sponsored European Poker Tour (EPT) staged the German Open in Dortmund, where over 400 players stumped up the €8,000 buy in. Germany has been the biggest growth market in Europe for online poker for the past couple of years and there has been a noticeable increase in the number of German players in major live European tournaments. Of the 411 players who participated in the Dortmund event, more than 30 percent were German.

The only other EPT event to attract such a high percentage of players from the host country was in London. After four hard fought days of poker, the tournament produced the youngest ever winner of an EPT event as 18-year old Canadian Mike McDonald took down the first prize of €933,000 ($1,381,000). His first live tournament was the main event of last summer's WSOPE in London, which happened to take place on his 18th birthday.

It is, however, slightly worrying for the online poker industry that so many youngsters are playing and winning major events as soon as they are legally allowed to do so. It indicates a high level of underage players on internet poker sites, which will only help fuel the flames of those who seek to outlaw the online form of the game.

Similarly, the WSOPE victory of 19-year old Annette Obrestad, who has played online since the age of 15, is not the best advertisement for an industry that wishes to remain legal. Online sites should be doing more to police their customers and stamp out underage play.

The EPT also made its first foray recently outside of what is conventionally regarded as Europe, as the Pokerstars Caribbean Adventure now has EPT status. The tour sponsor will be delighted with the result, as the winner was none other than Frenchman Bertrand 'Elky' Grospellier, one of Pokerstars' sponsored pros. I can't help but wonder whether they got a cut of his $2m payday for defeating over 1,100 competitors. There is still much debate over whether the buy in, at €8,000 is too high this year. Last year Dortmund's EPT event, with a €5,000 buy-in, attracted just short of 500 runners. The Prague EPT, which took place in December last year, had a reduced cost to play of €5,000 and numbers soared to over 550.

This suggests that perhaps it is too big, but organizers seem determined to press on with the higher price, at least for the remainder of the current season. There have been considerably fewer British and Irish players at recent EPT events than there have been in previous years. The buy in is almost certainly one of the main reasons for this, but there are two much more affordable tours in Britain and a healthy festival circuit in Ireland, which may also be significant reasons for the decline.