United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland - SOMUCHPOKER

  Online Poker Legislation in the United Kingdom

The Gambling Act of 2005 essentially made online poker fully legal in the country, granted the company offering poker gets a licence from the Gambling Commission, the regulatory body which was set up by this legislation. Amendments added to the bill in 2014 allowed even foreign companies to apply for licences, which means that UK residents truly have 100% freedom of choice if they wish to play some cards online.

There is an abundance of online poker rooms to choose from, the biggest ones being pokerstars.uk and Natural8-GGNetwork. There are some that are specifically for UK and Ireland players only, such as Sky Poker.

   Live Poker Legislation in the United Kingdom

The Gambling Commission states in its guidance for licencing that “poker is a card game which involves elements of both chance and skill and is therefore classified as a game of chance”.

Thus, you need to have permission from the GC to host poker in your casino. Other venues that don’t hold a gambling licence can get so-called “temporary use notices” (TUN’s) if they wish to put on an occasional poker tournament. 

The piece of legislation pertaining to casino gaming in effect today is the Gambling Act of 2005, last amended in 2014. 

  Live Poker Venues in the United Kingdom

The best known British poker club is probably Dusk Till Dawn, located in Nottingham. Owner Rob Yong frequently plays high stakes cash games and tournaments against the best players in the world, drumming up publicity for his casino in the meantime.

DTD offers £1/£1 and £1/£2 cash games running 24/7 – the games types available are No Limit Hold’em, Pot Limit Omaha, and Dealers Choice. The highest stakes tables are £10/£25, although there isn’t always a game running on those stakes.

The casino also hosts WSOP Circuit and partypoker LIVE events – two of the biggest poker tournament series in the world.

Grosvenor Casinos is a big gambling franchise with an online and dozens of land casinos across the UK, including in London, Coventry, Manchester, and Newcastle. The biggest venue in the franchise is The Grosvenor Victoria Casino in London. There, you can find NLHE cash tables from £1/£1 up to £50/£100, as well as PLO (£1/£1-£10/£25) and Dealers Choice (£1/£3-£10/£25) tables.

They put on 1-2 tournaments a day. They are exclusively NLHE and the buy-ins range between £37 and £1,100. One of the best known UK poker tournament series is hosted by the same company, the Grosvenor UK Poker Tour – events are held in numerous cities in Great Britain year-round.

Other popular live poker rooms in the country are in the Empire Casino in London; and the Aspers Casino in Stratford City.