Upcoming Gambling Regulation in Ireland
Hey folks, I'm posting here to raise awareness regarding the new proposed gambling regulation which will be of interest to any grinders/recreational players based in Ireland. The most meaningful stipulations regarding poker include the following:
1) Ban on inducements/vip schemes (decent chance this gets revised based on the wording in the debates so we might end up being all right here)
2) Max bets of €10 per game and max winnings of €3,000 per game (this basically makes it impossible to play poker for meaningful stakes if we are limited to €10 buyins).
Now they do offer an exception for sports betting and horse racing of course where there are no restrictions on bets and winnings. The justification for this is that sports betting and horse racing involve skill whereas casino games and poker do not involve any skill apparently. I can understand the motivation to set a limit for online slots but it is obviously not appropriate for poker and just pushes Irish players onto unregulated platforms.
This is going to get voted on in the Seanad (second parliamentary house) in three weeks and then finally in the Dail (first parliamentary house) a couple of weeks after. If worst comes to the worst, its basically GG for poker in Ireland by mid October. However there is a decent chance, poker does not end up being included in the 'relevant game' section which have restrictions if those voting can obtain an understanding that poker is a skill based game and that many people make a living from it in Ireland
If you are significantly impacted by this, you may wish to 'politely' contact the TD's and Senators who will be dong the voting in the coming weeks (
). It would be a very simple change to the bill to just not include online poker in the 'relevant game' section which stipulates these restrictions. Also, the bill only narrowly passed the first round of voting so it's not a done deal just yet.
