German Media Heils Popularity of Online Poker

April 12 - Between 200,000 and 290,000 German citizens regularly enjoy a game of online poker, according to a report in the popular publication, Deutsche Welle. This is despite a law specifically stating that online gambling is illegal.

On January 1st of this year, Germany's new anti-gambling laws came into effect, allowing its citizens to gamble in controlled land casinos only and banning them from gambling online if it involved the exchange of money. Restrictions were also placed on casino advertising.

The new law plunged German online poker and casino gambling into a grey area. While the law forbade them to operate, no German has thus far been prosecuted. It is also next to impossible to prosecute the online casinos themselves, with most of them operating from offshore locations such as Malta, Gibraltar and the Seychelles.

As a result of this ban, German online poker and casino operators remain unregulated and do not contribute anything to taxation in the country. It is estimated that about half the revenue from the country's regulated gambling industry makes its way into state coffers in the form of corporate tax.

Despite all these issues, the Deutsche Welle report showed that German online poker is on the rise. In 2006, online poker players spent 1-million Euros gambling online and it is believed that this number has increased significantly since then.

The game's popularity also receives regular boosts with the appearance of stars such as tennis ace, Boris Becker and surgeon-turned-poker-player, Michael Keiner, who promote poker through endorsements and newspaper interviews.

The Deutsche Welle also touched on issues such as problem gambling, bringing in comments from psychologists who bemoaned the lack of social monitoring in the country.