Poker in Luxembourg

Casinos with Poker

• Pooker Frenn

Luxembourg, the smallest of the Benelux nations, has a long history with gambling. Its first casino, Casino Bourgeois, opened in 1882. Now, it functions as a contemporary art institution under the name “Casino Luxembourg”.

Currently, there’s only one licenced legal casino operating in the entire country. However, since they only have around 600,000 residents, that is actually not a bad “per capita casino ratio”…

The sole gambling house is Casino 2000, located in the capital city of Luxembourg. According to the European Casino Association (ECA), they employ around 200 people and bring in around €50 million in revenue per year. However, they do not have a running poker room.

Luckily, there is one small poker club as well outside Casino 2000. Also, the national lottery (Loterie Nationale) has some shops where you can buy tickets.

As for online poker, there’s a much bigger selection for Luxembourgers. While foreign sites don’t have local licences, they are not hindered in any way by local authorities either.

Famous Luxembourger Poker Players

Evidently, given the nation’s small size, we don’t have many high stakes crushers coming out of Luxembourg.

Currently, a man named Jimmy De Barros Livramento tops the country’s all time money list on Hendon with $239,800 in live tournament cashes. In September 2018, he won an €1,100 WPT Deepstacks NLHE tournament for €50,000. That is the biggest single live tournament cash of his career to date.

He’s followed by Jeremy Baldisseri on the Luxembourger players’ list. He has $187,473 in career earnings. His biggest score is a 7th place finish from an $1,100 Wynn Poker Classic event for $48,506 in June 2018.

As for online poker, a player playing under the screen name “ok-ok willdo” has racked up over $470K in MTT cashes. He plays on a number of poker sites, such as PokerStars, 888 and partypoker.

“Chilaar23” has $332,000 in online tournament cashes – both of these players have won more on online tournaments than their country’s top live earners on live tournaments.

– Playing Live Poker in Luxembourg –

   Live Poker Legislation in Luxembourg

The current gambling legislation in place in Luxembourg was passed in 1977. While it technically prohibited gambling, it also allowed for certain exceptions, for example historical “gambling providers”.

Poker got its own exemption from the Ministry of Justice in 2007. Venues can organize poker games as long the amount of money staked by one player in the game is below €50. Despite that, there’s only one poker club in operation.

Live Poker Venues in Luxembourg

As we wrote in our intro, unfortunately, the only land casino in Luxembourg, Casino 2000, no longer has a poker room.

If you’re looking for poker in the country, you can visit Pooker Frenn in the commune of Dudelange. There, despite the supposed legal limit, you can play €150 No Limit Hold’em tournaments – although usually only once a month.

Evidently, this amount of action is not enough for an avid poker player. Therefore, most Luxembourgers travel to nearby countries with a bigger casino market for poker games. Their destinations are usually The Netherlands, France, or Belgium, with poker clubs within driving distance from Luxembourg.

– Casinos and Poker Rooms in Luxembourg –

  Online Poker in Luxembourg

Online gambling isn’t differentiated from land based gambling in the Luxembourgian gambling legislation. They’re defined separately, but the same rules still apply: in order to operate legally within the country, an operator would have to get an exemption from the Ministry of Justice.

However, in practice, it’s very different – just like we saw in many other countries. Luxembourger players have a wide choice of the biggest online poker rooms out there, since their government luckily does nothing to keep them out of the local market, or to punish their players. Local companies, however, cannot offer internet gambling.

So whether it be PokerStars, Natural8, Unibet, or partypoker, Luxembourgers are not restricted in any way from playing on those servers. You can see some players with Luxembourg as their location in some major tournaments on these sites.