Explore Denmark's Growing Poker Scene and Gambling Laws

Denmark has a small but growing gambling economy.

Although the European Casino Association only lists 6 licenced casinos in the country on the Jutland Peninsula, they brought in a combined €58 million in 2015 – the latest available data. Their revenue was up by 3.5% compared to 2013. Visitorship was up by 10%.

In the meantime, online gambling revenue has also shown an around 1% growth year-on-year at the end of 2018. What’s even more promising is that casino games, including poker, are taking a bigger chunk of that market too – gambling in most European countries is dominated by sports betting.

In Denmark, however, casino games account for 33.5% of the Danish gambling revenue, and the money they brought in increased by 16% in 2018 year-on-year.

Also, the Danish gambling market is often cited as an example for other countries in terms of its safety and its recent growth.

Poker is quite popular in Denmark. They’re one of the 11 nations to have a WSOP Main Event champion outside the United States.

Famous Danish Poker Players

The Danish man who claimed the World Series of Poker Main Event title was Peter Eastgate in 2008. At the time, he held the record for the youngest Main Event champion, winning at the age of 22. However, his record was broken the very next year by Joe Cada.

Eastgate beat a 6,844-player field and won $9.120 million along with the most coveted title in poker. Mostly thanks to that prize money, he’s #1 on Hendon’s all time money list for Danish players with $11.131 million in live tournament earnings.

Gus Hansen, the “Great Dane”, is one of the best known poker players in the world. He has $10.728 million in live tournament earnings, has won a WSOP Europe heads-up event, and was a regular feature on classic poker TV shows such as Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker.

These days, he’s famous for frequently posting videos from Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio on his Instagram account. Bobby’s Room is the world’s most famous super high stakes cash game room.

However, Hansen’s legacy is somewhat tainted by his horrible online poker result. He’s lost over $20 million on online cash games – more than anyone in poker history. However, he was featured on People Magazine’s “Sexiest Men Alive” list in 2004.