Poker Suffers In Hungary As New Regulations Are About To Take Hold

When it comes to Europe and its various countries, Hungary is as full of passionate people as all the others, people that have as much love for gambling as any other country in the Eastern European region. Having established necessary measures to deal with the economic slowdown, Hungary has been dealing with its economic recovery as well as this tough nation can.

Recently however, there have been developments in Hungary’s gambling laws that have created a degree of confusion as regards the local poker industry. It appears that recent government legislation has acted to focus on limiting poker activity to casinos only. Incorporated in recent amendments to government legislation is text that suggests limits to the locations where players can play poker. In addition to this, there are limits on the number of tables in poker clubs, which are set at 10 only. This means that poker clubs will only be able to make a very small profit if all the rules are being followed, and in addition to that, profits are to be taxed at up to 25 percent. This will make it relatively unprofitable for anyone to run a poker room.

The senior representative of the Hungarian Poker Association, Gergely Tatar, said that the current government is in fact trying to put poker rooms. He says that the government is using the new regulations to force all gambling traffic into casinos. On the other hand, poker is known to be by far the most popular form of gambling in Hungary. There are literally tens of thousands of people who are active poker players. Protests are mounting in the form of public demonstrations being directed against the current government regulatory policy. One example of this is what occurred recently in one of the main city metro stops.

Online casinos do not exist in Hungry, a country that does not allow online gambling. Measures have already been carried out to stop citizens from playing using foreign casinos online. The banks in Hungarian have not been able to legally process payments to and from internet gambling sites since June of 2006.

The exclusive rights to all lottery and sports gambling are held by the state run gambling monopoly in Hungary, Szerencsejáték, which also has a major interest in the majority of Hungarian casinos. Because the government of Hungry views online gambling on the Internet as a form of competition to its own interests, it is trying to control it. Meanwhile pressure is being placed on the Hungarian government by the European Union which has been pressuring Hungary to allow in foreign interests into its gambling industry and to adhere to E.U. laws for e-commerce freedom. As the legislation and regulations stand now, poker will not be able to survive, and the poker players are becoming quite vocal.  The Hungarian Poker Association has been asking Laszlo Solyom, the country’s president, to return the bill back to parliament for further debate.

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