Hi all,

US pro looking to do some traveling through these countries. Curious what the online poker laws are in each and which ones would be good to stay for a few months to grind.

Also banking, housing, currency exchange info would be great as well.

I'm fairly certain you can play on every euro site from these 3. 100% sure about Hungary.

Cool. Is Party available there?

Pretty sure RIO Poker is as none of those were on the prohibited countries list.

I would be shocked if any of the major EU pokersites weren't available in Hungary. It is easily one of the top online poker destinations in Europe as a result of this and its low cost of living.

Poland a year or 2 ago seemed like it was getting ready for some heavy regulation but that seemed to disappear. So it should be fine as of now, but I would say def don't move there.

Croatia I know little about but I'd also be surprised if there are any restrictions on poker sites. The weather is better but I'm guessing Budapest >> Zagreb.

Also, I've known several non EU players get long term visas in Hungary so its dooable if you want to stay longer than the 3 month tourist time.

You can play on every site in Croatia atm, but seems like that could change in a few months; government decided they want to shut down foreign betting sites, we dont know yet will that happen or when, and will that affect poker sites

Housing- probably best on Airbnb; you can rent a place for cheap compared to west european countries. Its low season for the next few months so you can get a nice place on the sea for cheap. I would recommend Split, Zadar or some smaller city on the coast

probably 500-1000$ can get you a decent place, depends what you are looking for

You can exchange USD in every money exchange place

You definitely don't want to go to Poland. Many Poles moved to UK/Malta to play poker. Politicians are being bribed by domestic biggest lottery owner who is trying to take the whole online casino market by force. Therefore in theory if you're a rebel and play on forbidden rooms then you are forced to pay ~80% taxes on online poker winnings + mandate for your "crime". In practice I haven't heard of anyone being prosecuted for it, but from time to time it's heard in the media that "brave police force shut down "illegal gambling activity"" aka poker tournament with 10$ entry for friends. They're doing it to show off how they battle illegal gambling and to scare people off. They're also fighting online gambling sites by forcing ISP to block them. That's how stars and pp can be accessed from Poland by opening pstars-249624.com or w/e and same with party. Generally they're fighting it and I wouldn't fight back with authorities.

Hungary may be cheaper than Croatia, but Croatia seems to be nicer.

Zagreb is extremely cheap but its super boring, if u wanna lock down and grind its great, fresh air, safe and cheap

I spent most of the last 5 years in Hungary and I'm fairly certain someone can't setup an 888 account there anymore. If they already have one, they're fine. But if they don't they may have to jump through loops. Other than that, yes they're all good to go (Stars, Party, Stars.ES, RIO, even ACR). I do think iPoker Hungary is also not allowed. I could be wrong, but I think that's accurate. Maybe 1 of the skins is allowed?

I moved last August so I'm not sure if anything has changed since then but my Party/Stars accts are still Hungary and they work fine.

Croatia and Poland I think you should have access to every site named above without issue including setting up new ones.

Why is 888 not allowing new accts there?

Not sure of the reason. I had to set mine up in Austria in 2017 so that info was accurate as of then, but my acct still works + it still worked until I left Budapest.

I just googled "888 poker hungary" and one of the top links that showed up was hu.888.com or something and it had a poker link but it's dead.

But then I also saw this:

https://888-external-en.custhelp.com...l/a_id/568/p/4

And in that eligible countries list neither Hungary or Magyarország is on the list. So dunno for sure, I just know that I wasn't allowed to make one in 2017 and I think it's still the case.

lol, saudi arabia and yeman sure. hungary...sorry bro

Poland

I lived in Poland in 2016. No problem accessing and adding money to Bodog. That was my primary site.

Locally though and this is crazy.. poker was banned. There are no legal live games. This from a country where you can buy vodka at 3am from a gas station.

In Warsaw they had legit casinos mostly with slots and electronic games. Small casinos in the middle of busy sidewalks, sort of like convenience stores. So gambling itself is not outlawed.

My theory on this after talking to my Polish friends is that the polish government actually doesn’t want poker because it’s a skill game and a means to a good livelihood for a small percentage of skilled Polish — and man the average polish dude is smart. Look into how difficult it is for Polish to open their own businesses and sell overseas vs overseas businesses opening up there. It’s sad and depressing once you befriend a lot of Polish and see why so many are pessimistic about alll world views.

What kinda visa do they get for those non EU players who wanna stay longer than the 3 month tourist time?

No idea what visas are available in Hungary. If you want to stay longer, then just go there as a tourist and immediately hire a visa person to do the paperwork for you. I'm sure there are forums or expat facebook groups that could answer more specific stuff.

Poland:
-888, ipoker, some other sites banned since ~2017 (rio, party and stars work)
-live cash games are prohibited, there are tournaments in some casinos with 25% tax withheld from the prizepool -.-, tournaments with non-monetary prizes worth up to I think 2k PLN are allowed outside casinos

A state-owned company holds monopoly on lotteries & they recently started their own online casino and that's why they started banning online gambling in ~2017. Our politicians are not very smart tho so stars and few other poker rooms are still accessible here (although there is something called the registry of forbidden domains and for example pokerstars.eu is there and is banned by some ISPs but you can play using their client without problems).

I'm not sure if it's extra difficult to sell overseas as a Polish company but yeah, in general entrepreneurs have to face many difficulties here.