by Mario Alfonsi | Published on Jan 5, 2012 | Updated on Jan 6, 2012When you hear the words “government regulated poker”, most people immediately think of the post Black Friday situation that is going on in the United States. Little do they know that Belgium is way ahead of them and thanks to the new year will be allowing its citizens to play on the sites which it has approved. PokerStars is just one of three online poker rooms that citizens are allowed to play on; in addition to PokerStars Belgians may also play poker at Partouche.be, and GPWin.be. The thing that is different about Belgium’s online poker as opposed to many other countries is that players can compete against world players. Usually when signing up to play through a domain name that ends in your designated country (such as .be) players are sometimes limited to competition only from their own nation. France and Italian players on PokerStars are not as lucky as Belgians in that they can only play people from France or Italy and no where else.If a Belgian is caught playing poker on a site other than the three named they can be imprisoned and face a lot of criminal charges. Another rule for these poker rooms as well as any future rooms is that they must be a part of a land-based casino. Immediately one must think PokerStars does not fit that equation, but in Belgium the world’s largest poker room has made a partnership with Circus Groupe, which own Casino de Namur. The other two sites available for Belgians have been in the poker industry through land-based casinos for some time now. Another very confusing and concerning part of this entire story is that players do not know whether the money they make off of poker is taxable or not. This may not seem like a big deal, but if you are supposed to report it on taxes and do not, you can potentially get yourself into trouble.
