There are few if any people that do not know that it’s illegal to play online poker in America, but how many of us know that the same applies to a part of the United Kingdom? This is Northern Ireland and a move is afoot to get the law changed and most, if not all, of us British poker players support their quest to have the freedom to play this great game.
The story really begins for us around 2006 when a private members club called the Cavendish Club was raided by police during a major monthly poker tournament. Police seized both club’s poker equipment and members’ cash. The club’s representatives attended a Magistrates Court to challenge the seizures and to also attempt to have poker recognised as a game of skill so that it would be an illegal activity in Northern Ireland under the Betting, Gaming and Lotteries Act. However, their pleas fell on deaf ears as the Resident Magistrate deemed that poker was not a game of skill and is therefore illegal to play, commercially, in Northern Ireland.
It seems that it perfectly ok to play games of chance such as the lottery, or betting at the bookmakers, but they do not permit the playing of poker, which we all know has a large element of skill, psychology and mathematics involved. Some laws are very strange!
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