Poker operators doing business with Ireland, both live and online, are facing confusion as 2025 approaches. A new regulatory framework passed into law in October, and scheduled to go into effect in 2025, will cover all forms of gambling, but it contains no code specific to poker, whether of the live or online variety.
That's a problem for existing operators, of course. The new Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland will replace a patchwork quilt of Irish gambling laws that date back as far as 1956, and it is supposed to cover all forms of gambling available for Irish punters. Somewhere in the legislative process, however, poker was all but overlooked in the drafting of the framework, which in its current state is a 220-page behemoth of legal code.
As for poker, it is mentioned only once, 190 pages deep, in a subsection on definitions that is carried over from a 2010 act dealing with gambling premises. But as for the rules, stakes, and other legal conditions that are to apply to the game, the new regulatory scheme is silent. That has existing Ireland-facing operators confused and a little bit worried, while definitely making a push for more guidance.
Consumer protection and sports betting the focal points
Compared to the true focal points of the new regulatory scheme, poker is probably viewed as small potatoes. The framework is consumer-oriented, delving deep into problem-gambling protection and consumer-safety measures, and as it applies to gambling forms, it's heavily weighted toward sports-betting issues.
That leads directly to the largest issue confronting poker operators: in its Schedule 4, which defines the maximum stake or wager and winnings to be allowed, the max wager is set at just €10, and the max winnings at just €3,000. To date, the only categories to be carved out and allowed larger stakes and winnings are lotteries and certain charitable games. Ireland's national lottery is exempted from all limits.
The caps as currently defined make offering poker all but impossible. Tournament poker would be all but destroyed, with perhaps only some small-stakes online tourneys able to be run. Live poker events and festivals would simply not be feasible.
The same holds for cash games, of course. All games except for micro-stakes would quickly bump into the wagering or pot caps, and as for live tables, only fixed-limit games at €5/10 or less -- relics from the past for the most part -- could be offered. Those games wouldn't draw enough traffic to be worth the offering.
Gavin: "We hope poker will receive its own exception"
Among the many poker offerings that could be wiped from Ireland's scene could be the iconic Irish Poker Open, the second-oldest poker festival running anywhere on the planet. The IPO has endured some bumps in its past, even being shelved briefly at one point, but is has returned in recent years with force.
In a recent piece for VegasSlotsOnline, which has Irish ownership, Irish Poker Tour CEO Fintan Gavin detailed the looming sinkhole for VSO's David Lappin. Gavin and the IPO (which has already been slated for 2025) are among several poker operators who have reached out to the new Gambling Regulatory Authority about the definitional issues facing poker, but no poker-friendly changes have been made to date.
The issue with the caps on wagering and winnings is intractable, according to Gavin, but redefining poker's legal status could be the easiest fix. “As far as I know," Gavin told Lappin, "the €10 max stake with the €3,000 max payout isn’t being applied to horse racing on account of it being classified as a sport. and we hope that poker will receive its own exceptions so that the game is still stageable. I sincerely hope that representatives from the government reach out to learn about how poker operates. I think if they do that, then a sensible, practical and coherent provision for it can be written into this law.”
Representatives of online operators such as Flutter Entertainment, which has its roots in the famed Irish gambling site PaddyPower and is also today the parent entity of online-poker giant PokerStars, fear that the oversight, if uncorrected, could drive gamblers to black-market sites. That's been the case in Australia, where that country's regulatory overhaul didn't explicity ban online poker, but left no channel for the game to be licensed and regulated, thereby driving all reputable international operators out of the country. A similar fate could await Ireland's online poker players in the coming months.
Featured image courtesy of Irish Poker Open/Danny Maxwell
