Legal issues about Poker in Germany

Wow, what a week ... difficult times for poker players and tournament organizers in Germany!

The coming weekend should have seen two great poker tournaments in Germany. Both had been designed for the average player allowing them to win some great and valuable prices. One was the "Royal Flush Masters" in Dortmund and the other the "Poker City Masters" in Munich. Both events aren't connected and play out individually organised by different organisations.

A lot of tickets had been played out in satellites and around 600 players in Dortmund and 200 players in Munich had been looking forward to play their events.

But then early this week somebody hit the doomswitch and the "Royal Flush Masters" was declared illegal. The organisers tried to move it to the Casino Hohensyburg but it didn't work out due to schedule conflicts.

Of course a lot of players were really unhappy about the situation. But it isn't acceptable that some started to blame the Royal Flush Magazine for being dumb or even more or less accused them for cheating. There's no reason that a well known magazine like the Royal Flush Magazine would be involved in any scheme to cheat on the players. Hopefully the heated discussion calms down and the players will be able to enjoy their event at a later time.

But of course after the cancellation dark clouds started to gather over Munich. They bavarian authorities advised some changes but it still seemed that the event will go through ... until this afternoon. At the end another doomswitch was hit and they declared this event illegal too.

Good thing is that the Poker Royale Kufstein which was one of the partners of the organisers (The Gastro Poker Tour) decided to step in and move the whole event to their casino. Again there will be a lot of players that won't be happy to travel about 90 km to Kufstein. But this is a better solution then cancelling it at all or risking to get raided by the police. And I am sure that those who haven't been in Kufstein before will love the fairly new great tournament room. So let's enjoy a great tournament!