After Malta, Great Britain, the Italy, the France, and recently the Greece, it is the turn of the Netherlands. This is the announcement by Jaap Oosterveer, Minister of public health and Justice: "it is a big change but it is a new Government with a more liberal approach". According to Fredrik Teeven, Secretary of State for security and Justice, the country should offer licenses for poker, bingo and sports betting. Remember that it is in the Netherlands can be found the Coffeeshop, place where soft drugs are tolerated.
Today, according to the evaluation, 200,000 players would play in an unlawful manner.
Poker and online games, will be governed by the State.
In 2010, a court in the Netherlands ruled that poker was a game of skill. To quickly return to the story, a man was charged with having organized illegal poker tournaments. He was found not guilty by the Criminal Court in the Hague. Dutch judges ruled that poker was a game of skill and not gambling. However, earlier, in 2006, the accused had organized a Texas Hold'em poker tournament ' em without a license and was then convicted by a Dutch court, holding that poker is a game of chance.
When the judgment of not guilty, the Court had disposed of taking account of the argument of the defence, which was based on research conducted by Ben Van Der Genugten, Professor of probability and statistics at the University of Tilburg. Professor Tilburg has developed a mathematical method for determining if Texas Hold'em is a game of chance or strategy. According to his method, Texas Hold'em would be a game of skill more than of chance.
According to an estimate fast of the Dutch Government, revenues generated by the licensing for the online game will generate revenues of approximately EUR 10 million from 2012.
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