Tunisia - SOMUCHPOKER

Tunisia follows the Egyptian model when it comes to gambling – yes, land casinos are legal but only for foreign patrons. You have to show your passport at the entrance and most of the games are played with foreign currency.

It’s no surprise that the locals aren’t that keen on gambling. After all, Islam is the official state religion in the country. A 2013 Pew Research Center study, which is cited by Simon’s Online Gambling Blog, found that only 2% of the population finds games of chance morally acceptable. The Islamic sacred texts strongly condemn gambling, referring to it as “maisir”.

Therefore, all of the land casinos in the country rely heavily on foreign investments. Some venues are under Italian, most are under French ownership – after all, Tunisia was under French rule until 1956. It’s the French influence carried over from the previous century that allowed the Muslim government to let casinos operate in the first place.

However, Tunisia is not a great place for poker action. Only 2 of the 4 licenced casinos reportedly have poker rooms, and it’s hardly the focus of these venues. That’s barely any information posted about poker on their websites.

Worldcasinodirectory.com, for example, only lists 1 poker table across the 3 poker rooms (one of those rooms, Casino Europe, is already closed, that info is out of date) – evidently, that’s absurd. Rather, they only have concrete information about that one table at the Grande Casino Du Cedre.

Famous Tunisian Poker Players

Currently, Imed Ben Mahmoud tops Tunisia’s all time money list on Hendon with $604,296 in career earnings. He has a gold bracelet from the 2012 WSOP Europe held in Cannes, France. He finished first in the €2,700 No Limit Hold’em – 6-Handed event for €147,099. That is the biggest single live tournament cash of his career to date.

The only year the Tunisian Poker Open was held, in 2009, he finished second in the €1,000 Main Event for €3,500, losing the heads-up battle for the title to Philippe Bruzzeze from Belgium.

As for online poker, the biggest winner from Tunisia is the player playing under the screen name “dontworryimfine” on Full Tilt and “dontworryimf” on PokerStars. He has amassed $272,054 in online MTT cashes during his career.