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Poker in Belarus

Introduction

Capital: Minsk

Population: 9,508,000

Currency: Belarusian Ruble (BYN)

Timezone: UTC+3

Belarus was part of the Soviet Union for much of the 20th Century. Thus the Communist regime completely suppressed gambling for decades. The Soviet rule started to soften in the 1980’s, that’s when the first land casinos started popping up in the USSR, mainly Russia.

Belarus became independent from the Soviet Union in August 1991. In October the same year, the Belarussian Council of Ministers created the first gambling legislation. That is very quick for a newly independent country – many former Soviet nations waited many years to introduce their first pieces of gambling legislation.

With online gambling, however, it took much, much longer. According to an article on CalvinAyre.com, the head of the government’s Ministry of Taxes and Levies drafted legislation in July 2018 in which they set up a licencing scheme for foreign online gambling site operators. In that draft, he also proposed they’d raise the legal gambling age from 18 to 21. The first Belarussian online casino licenses were given out in April 2019.

In 2009, Belarus’ superpower neighbor, Russia decided to restrict games of chance in their country to only 4 designated “gambling zones”. This pushed a lot of traffic to Belarussian casinos and poker rooms, as due to the large distances in their homeland, many Russian gamblers decided to travel across the Belarussian border instead in search of some action.

Famous Belarussian Poker Players

Mikita “fish2013” Badziakouski is one of the world’s most successful high rollers in our time. He has cashed for over $29 million in live tournaments which puts him in the top 15 biggest live tournament winners of all time.

He’s a regular in the Triton high roller series’ super high buy-in events, of which he won three. In July 2018, he won the HK$2 million Triton Main Event in Jeju, South Korea. He got $5.257 million for that victory – that is the biggest live tournament cash of his career to date.

Badziakouski started off as an online player, playing under his iconic screen name “fish2013” on PokerStars. There, he played high stakes NLHE cash games and tournaments.

Needless to say, he tops the Belarussian all time money list on Hendon. Second on that list is Ihar Soika with $3.488 million. His biggest score on the live felt is from August 2014, when he won the €10,000 NLHE High Roller 8-max event at EPT Barcelona for €747,200. In 2017, he came very close to winning a WSOP bracelet – he had a runner-up finish for $675,995 in the $1,500 NLHE Monster Stack event.

– Playing Live Poker in Belarus –

   Live Poker Legislation in Belarus

 

As we wrote in our intro, the first gambling law in independent Belarus was created in October 1991. It held the wordy title “On the procedure of giving out special permits for certain activities and state registration of enterprises conducting business without creating a legal entity”. 

As of now, private companies can apply for land casino licences in Belarus. However, all applicant companies must have an office address available in Belarus. They also have to comply with a number of other requirements – for example, none of the shareholders or directors on the board can have a criminal record. 

 

  Live Poker Venues in Belarus

 

In the capital city of Minks, there’s quite a few choices for poker players. They can play No Limit Hold’em or Pot Limit Omaha cash games at the Joker Poker Club and at the Guild Poker Club.

As for tournaments, the Zett Poker Club also in Minsk has a packed schedule, according to pokerdiscover.com. They run an event with guaranteed prize pools every afternoon. The buy-ins range from $10 to $150, while the guarantees are between $400 and $3,000.

The Belarus Poker Tour was taking place between January 3rd and 13th, 2020. However, the venue is not a casino or a card room – it’s a night club/restaurant called Cotton Hall in Minsk.

Outside the capital, you can find poker rooms in the cities of Vitsyebsk (No Limit Poker Club), Brest and Orsha.

 

 

– Casinos and Poker Rooms in Belarus –

Zett Poker Club

Guild Poker Club

Joker Poker Club

  Online Poker Legislation in Belarus

As we wrote in our intro, the Ministry of Taxes and Levies created a licencing scheme for online gambling in 2018. The first licences were issued in 2019. Before that, gambling on the internet was illegal in the country.

Evidently, this turn for the better doesn’t mean that every major online room will be fully licenced in the country – the licence application is a long process.

However, that is a fact that none of those major online rooms – PokerStars, partypoker, Unibet, Natural8, etc. – restrict Belarussian players already. Players in that region can access their virtual tables easily – you can often be seated at a table with Belarussian players.

Zett Poker Club outside
Zett Poker Club

Zett Poker Club in Minsk is part of Carat Casino in the capital of Belarus. The poker club offers daily cash games starting at 6pm. There is also a monthly series of tournaments.

Minsk
Guild Poker Club

Guild Poker Club is located in the heart of Minsk in a slot hall called “Golden Watermelon” and is more than 15 years old. It has three tables and it even hosts a Poker Guild School.

Joker Poker Club Minsk outside
Joker Poker Club

Joker Poker Club is located in the heart of the Belarus capital Minsk. It has 4 poker tables with shuffle machines and offers daily tournaments and cash games.


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