Donner's Letters

It's been a very good month for Netherlands tournament players. The Dutch are claiming their seats at final tables of big tournaments, and are winning some in the process. The PartyPoker Million V cruise saw Peter Dalhuijsen take down first place in one of the no-limit hold'em side events. Abel Meijberg won his first big event at the €2,000 buy-in Bregenz Open in Austria. With a growing group that's travelling from tournament to tournament and accumulating experience, return on investment, and the occasional grand prize, I won't be surprised to see Holland make a huge mark on the European Poker Tour next season. With online poker gaining in popularity by the day, there is a huge pool of dedicated players who are eager to learn. Young and fresh, they can not wait to challenge the rest of Europe, putting into practice what they have learned from the numerous poker forums.



However, the Ministry of Justice is still not pleased with online poker sites. Minister of Justice Piet Hein Donner wrote letters to poker and gambling sites urging them to stop offering their services to the Dutch community. Even Dutch websites sporting banners of poker rooms received a similar letter. For the poker rooms, ultimatums were set and threats of lawsuits were made, accordingly.



As for the foreign poker rooms – and they all are foreign – their reactions can be put somewhere between "Let Mister Donner come down to Gibraltar and we'll see what the judge decides" and "We looked at your complaint thoroughly, but did not find a reason to refund you. We hope you still enjoy being a customer of pokershmoker.com." In other words, they are not impressed.



Now, for the "gambling portals", the websites offering links to poker rooms, things are quite different. They are based mostly in the Netherlands and, without any doubt, fall under Dutch jurisdiction. There are no precedents in this case, and it could well be that a huge lawsuit is going to settle the legal status of gambling sites, portals, and poker forums, once and for all. What I wonder is: How is Minister Donner going to check whether any Internet site is offering any links to a poker site? I hear the Internet is getting pretty big lately!



In the meantime, Dutch customers of online poker rooms and casinos do not seem to worry. As I said in my column last month, online gambling is not strictly prohibited in the Netherlands. Even if it were to be, it is close to impossible for the government to detect it. Only one major credit card company, Visa, says it is tracking its customers' transactions to gambling sites. But at the same time, Visa declares that it has, at this moment, no problems with online gambling, and has never passed on any information to the Dutch Ministry of Justice. Right now, it seems the Dutch customer is in the clear.



If his big plan of asking kindly does not work out, Minister Donner's next step is to have Holland Casino experiment with the Netherlands' first legal online casino. This way, the minister will try to compete with the foreign online casinos that are trying to tempt us decent Dutchmen into gambling addiction. Don't get me wrong, gambling addiction is a serious problem and should be fought, but offering another casino to the Dutch market does not seem to be the way to do that. It seems that Minister Donner does not care much about the prevention of gambling addiction among his citizens. His top priority seems to be the loss of profits on gambling caused by the foreign casinos and poker rooms!

You will hear more from us at PokerInfo.nl regarding the reactions of the poker industry, and the government, and any possible lawsuits. Also, I hope to be reporting another few wins for Dutchies in big tournaments next month! If the government will allow it, we will keep on practicing, and soon will take our place on the European poker scene.

Anthon-Pieter Wink is a writer for PokerInfo.nl.