blonde poker forum

Can anyone enlighten me on the legal ramifications of holding an open poker competition outside of the casinos?  I believe the recently started Irish Poker Tour is held in hotels. How would this stand up in the UK ?

I believe the ROI is outside the jurustiction of the gaming Ciommission.

But P4C held a comp in Newcastle a few weeks back, in a Civiv Hall, so maybe it can be done in the UK. And of course we have Gutshot, & a whole collection of Gutshiot type places.

Thanks Tikay, we a couple of venues, but would lioke to keep everything legal. I believe there are restrictions on advertising also. Presumably the best starting point would be the Gaming Commission itself then ?

The Gaming Commisssion? No, I would not advise. They arre fence-sitters. "Easier & less hassle to just say we would not advise", that sort of approach.

Wait till Yogi comes on, he seems to know the drill pretty well, and a few others too. Be patient, you will get a decent range of responses.

Thanks again.

Very tricky to advise anyone on this. First advise get a good a solicitor and study the latest Gaming Act for hours on end.

If a 'rake' is charged the event is illegal. If the promotors profit the event is illegal. If the event is 'open' the event is illegal.

The Gaming boards official advice is that all poker tournaments outside of a casino will almost certainly be illegal.

SEEK POFESSIONAL LEGAL ADVICE BEFORE ORGANISING ANY EVENT AND DON'T LISTEN TO 'CARDROOM LAWYERS'.

I looked into this in some depth.

Basically it's illegal, but mostly down to one passage in the gaming act. I can't find the passage in the act looking now but it basically says that setting up a poker tournament outside of a casino or public dwelling is highly likely to breach one or more of the clauses of the gaming act and so, as such will be considered illegal. I spoke to police, magistrates, lawyers, the gaming board and even the dept of sport and culture of the Govt and the answer was basically, no not at this time. the rules concerned are mostly about rake, profit and advertising. I would suggest if there's no juice, you do it behind closed doors and don't advertise it to the public you'd be ok, though still breaking the law.

The last line is not strictly correct - it is possible to stage a legal event. BUT I will stress again seek professional advice.

How do the TV companies get round this?  They profit from it and they advertise.

i wondered about that

Private game. No juice. The players are playing for a prizepool of which the TV companies are looking after as agents. Control over who enters the premises etc.

thanks guys, if I take it any further I will seek legal advice. I've often wondered how the Univeristies managed to get around the problem. They all have thriving poker clubs and games!

ROI is outside the durastriction of the wonderful GB however i'm sure they will have their own rules.

As stated before as long as no rake is taken and its classed as a private game (invite only really) with no advertising to public (keep it strictly on forum hehehe) then whilst not legal you could possibily pull it off. Theres a lot of private games poppin up here and there and the first series of LNP wasnt legal at all they just made it very hard for the GB to get them lol. The Gaming act (section 3 relates to Cardroom) is so out dated and due to be ammended soon but yeah its best to get legal council first off tho

I second everything that has been said. An unusual place to try, but probably more informed than most private games are University Poker Societies. They have to comply with GB and have been told the ways to do it.

What about this bit regarding TV companies?  They may not charge juice but they certainly are profiting.

Tried to run a satellite for poker den. Whilst getting gaming board approval I found out that they take £1000 out of prize pool for dealers!! Hence no satellite!

So thery take a grand out of the Prize Pool, the guys pay their own entry fees, Poker Den add nothing, then they sell the prog all round the world and make a bomb.

Gotta hand it to that nice Mr Hearn eh, Poker's biggest benefactor, eh?

Yup Indeed!

£8500 x 6 = £51000

Winner gets £50,000 and has no choice its written in contract.
Our gaming board inspector had a fit when he saw it.

That's exploitation at it's very worst.

53.   The promoter’s decision is final in any dispute and will be accepted by all players. Failure to accept a ruling will be subject to the penalties detailed in Rule 17.

54.    £1000 of the total available prize fund for each sit & go will be allotted as a gratuity payment to the table staff.

55.   The players should always refer to the event by its title PartyPoker.com The Poker Den and make themselves available to attend press conferences and/or television interviews at any reasonable time during the Event if requested by the Event Director, Television Director and/or the Tournament Director.

When I first saw this and the fact that there was £1k taken I thoght it was a damn liberty, just like you.

I heard Hearn being interviewed and said he wanted to get into poker promotions as where else do you get the contestants providing their own prize money.

yeah we had a similair thing with apoker den satellite here, had 40 odd people up for it but on night about 6 turned up lol.

Its shocking that they can get away with it here ein blighty, tipping is illegal and the fact that tey "import" staff for these things and then force the players to tip as such is ludacrous.

There would be no poker programming without the players and hence noone would stump up ridiculous ammounts to screen it then so it makes no sense to treat players this way, until the guidelines are suitibly changed (which may never happen accordingly due to far too much say so from the wrong people) then i guess we have no choice. i strongly disagree with the people in charge of bringin poker to the masses being involved purely for financial gain but i'm sad to say thats the way it seems. Some say they love the game (i'm sure Hearn does it makes him millions) but would they accept this if they were a player??.

But how on earth they get round this in programs screened in the UK i have no idea because guidlines state ALL money collected MUST be returned to players in the form of a prize unless they have some weird way of palming it off as juice money i guess

The more I dwell on this, the more scandalous it seems. Maybe the dealers have to pay to be there, too!

One more reason why a governing body is needed. Mr Hearn must be rubbing his hands together & saying "FISH"........

They might as well be paying when it says "floor staff" it is not neccessarily the dealers, I have heard the dealers get next to nothing.

This begs the question why play in these events? 

It is relatively easy to set up a poker tournament in Ireland outside of a casino, unfortunately there are a lot of unscrupulous people running them at the moment. There was an event promising a €10,000 Gtd payout in Mullingar last week. They did pay out €10,000 but with 247 runners and an average spend of €100 they creamed about €15k off the top, not bad for a nights work.

There are many other examples similar to this happening all over the country.

It is not all bad as The Irish Poker Tour run by Pokerevents is well run and they pay out 100% of the prizepool. Although on the smaller €50 events the juice is 30% on the entry and 20% on the top up but you do get dealers and a well run event. They have a €1000 event happening in January in which they expect to get 500 runners for a €500k prizepool. It will be a 3 day event and held in the Citywest hotel where the Irish Open was this year. Most of the entrants will have qualified from their hotel events so the standard will be a lot lower than most most €1000 tournaments. It may represent good value to all you blondeites. As far as I am aware there is no registration fee on this as they have a decent sponsor. Plus it is being televised.

Mike - email me details of the Jan tourne in Ireland - may well come over and bring Stace!