I doubt that any kinda "national" law that would put european sites on ban would not pass the EU court and Belgium would have big problems.

but then again, they are the center of EU and might somehow bend the laws in their way

To somehow make order at online poker is a very good thing, but they just need to find a proper way. The biggest problem is that most sites are located somewhere where there are no taxes and they make HUGE profits (like PS) which is pain in the ass for EU and every other country.

But if the somehow manage to make order on this field, then more legal poker sites will come alive, which is only good to poker. Such sites would need a bank coverage for their money, etc..

The following are purely out of curiosity (since I don't live in Italy), but:

1) What kind of traffic do you think pokerstars.it cash games will get when they start up?

2) Can Italian players get some sort of mailing address in another country and therefore be able to play on .com? How difficult would it be and how prevalent do you think this is right now? What does stars do, if anything, regarding verification of residency?

The first English colonists arrived in the new world in the early part of the 17th century (the French arrived a little earlier). The Spanish also set up shop in what is now Florida, Cuba and a few other islands.

Obviously, everybody knows that apart from Native Americans, Blacks and Asians, nearly everyone in the US is of European descent.

yeah i know that but you had a sort of moneymaker effect you know industrialization

People keep forgetting that Italy is already doing this and the EU has done nothing to stop it. Unless someone brings it to the EU High Court they won't intervene.

Also someone mentioned getting a license earlier. If its anything like Italy & France, you can't just pick one up, they cost a couple hundred k.

VluggeHenkie, the difference between Belgian and Dutch people isn't that big at all.
And actually I don't see what your random history input is doing in this topic.

Half the Belgian players would probably drive 10mins till they are in another country and start an account there then drive back after they cashed some mirrions.

waaaaay offtopic:
I'm belgian with a bunch of dutch friends and i don't think there's that big of a difference. You have the minor language differences and some even smaller differences in culture but apart from that we're pretty much the same. It's not like with europeans vs asians... It's more like flanders vs wallonia which has differences too.
Also don't forget that we used to be the same country untill somewhere around 1830 belgium got independent.

Anyway, didn't mean to offend anyone, just wanted to point out that it seems to me that the rest of the world doesn't care about the small differences between our two small countries and it all falls under "those dutch speaking people".

lol @ this comment!

This is probably why french speaking belgians are in the 5 first places of profit in "real life" tournaments... ?

1st Belgium Davidi Kitai $ 1,390,383
2nd Belgium Pierre Neuville $ 613,084
3rd Belgium Jamel Maistriaux $ 520,377
4th Belgium Antonio Guida $ 383,654
5th Belgium Daniel Dodet $ 369,367

Your comment was almost as funny as this subject is NOT funny..

Stupid Belgian governement... They do it against all european laws..
Another politician who want to be recognized at least a little bit.. whatever it takes.
And also, lot of pressure of the real life casino (PARTOUCHE!!!) who wants to win more money that they do by killing every online competitors..

solid proof. so jamie gold is one of the best LIVe MTT players right?

This is not the subject of this topic, but Dodet, Neuville and (of course) Kitai are in my opinion clearly the 3 best players in Belgium.
Ooh.. anyway, Kitai lived a long time in Antwerpen if that can makes you happy

Anyway, i repeat:

"
And also, lot of pressure of the real life casino (Partouche and Circus, big big big casino companies) who wants to win more money that they do by killing every online competitors..
"

I have really a bad feeling about it.. but i agree with what i have read somewhere in this topic: We are in Belgium, so it will take aagggggeeeessss to be in application.

Has anyone got any news about this?

+1

+2

+3

But I didn't hear anything on the news or whatever

Well, I recently got a popup on pokerstars about special promotions for Belgian players and introduction of team belgium. I would think that they would not do this if they were to "officially" stop serving belgium customers in less than a year, so I think they aren't too worried about it.

I guess this is worth of posting:

In Humo this week (belgian weekly magazine, they have a very good reputation for being very professional) there is a small (one full page) article about the criminality surrounding belgian casinos.

The commision of games of chance(probably not the correct translation) claimed that mob and other criminals often have ties with belgian casinos, although sometimes the casinos were forced into these ties(but not always). They talk about Patrick Partouche, (former?) boss of casino Knokke and how he was running an illegal pokersite for quite a while which got him in trouble and that he seems to have ties with Michel Soret, big time criminal of Cote D'Azur and is now under investigation for these and other activities.

Etienne Marque(chairman of commision of games of chance) then continues to speak about some serious criminals being connected to belgian casinos in the past. He was very careful not to say anything about gambling venues(online or offline) not located in Belgium. He finished saying he was very worried about this criminality surrounding belgian gambling venues.
The article finishes mentioning that the PR of Casino Knokke were unwilling to comment on the article.

I know that some papers were reporting when the new bill was announced that foreign sites would not be affected by the ban and that it was targetted towards local sites. I thought "they have to be wrong cause there aren't any belgian pokersites", but there seem to be or have been some afterall...

Maybe they won't ban foreign sites after all and it was a big fuss about nothing?

playing online poker was never illegal in belgium, offering it was

i know a lot of people were saying that playing online poker is illegal (even some high ups like the president of the kansspelcommissie) but if you go look at the text of the law it's not in there

Perhaps its time for some Italians, French & Belgians to hit the European Court of Human Rights and fight for what is theres - the ability to play a game of poker online with whoever the hell they want in whatever country they want.

3th? what number is that? stopped reading after that

just stop posting too

So was this another level of the belgian government?

There is no active goverment in Belgium, nor is there a senate. There are elections scheduled on the 13th of June, but they aren't legal... so it is not 100 percent sure that elections will take place correctly, nor that the results will be accepted in the parlement. In case the elections, and their results are accepted, half of the political parties will still not agree to make a goverment before the other half stops their colonisation, and agrees to put this black on white. Plausibly, a reform of state will take place IF a goverment is formed, where the southern half of the country would partially have to give up funding from the northern, during post-depression.
I think a game of cards is out of their interest the next few days...

I know as I am (also?) from belgium, but like you prolly know we got quite a couple of governments over here, and I have no idea wether the ones that fell were responsible for this stupid ass law.

I am originally from there, but moved to Finland a long time ago, but I still follow the political circus in which my fellow countrymen act (allthough I admit that ridiculising their behavior is to some extent unnecessary, since at least partially their behavior is merely elicited by the political and social circumstances).
And I assume that the federal goverment (or more correctly, the senate) was responsible... allthough not unlikely in the future this might become the jurisdiction of a local goverment...
Which city are you from?