Let's raise some money!
Private citizens and their poker federations in both Norway and Sweden have been raising money for different purposes. In Sweden, the money is for affording the lawyers needed to appeal in the recent cases in which private poker clubs have been visited by the police. Nobody wants to risk getting an appointed lawyer who doesn't care, so all the cases are handled by the same lawyer. There are, as far as I understand it, different ways of defending the clubs. One is to claim that the state is correct to define poker as a game of luck, but that the state monopoly on luck-based games is against EU law. Another is to define poker as a game of skill, so that it isn't covered by the law. The third line of defense, which is the most likely one, is to attack the law itself. The law was written before anyone had come up with poker tournaments, and there is a passage stating that "[poker] incites players to make larger and larger bets as the game progresses." For a freezeout tournament, that is simply not the truth. It's going to be exciting to see what the defense chooses to do, but I'm hoping and believing they will go with the latter way. I don't mind if the state casinos have a cash-game monopoly, but I think that any club in the country should be able to organize freezeout tournaments. If they succeed in defining poker tournaments as a game of skill (thus not a hazard) and cash games as gambling, the profitable tax situation for winnings within the EU will be unharmed.
In Norway, the reason for raising money is completely different: Recently, several clubs have been robbed! The robbers assumed that the players wouldn't dare reporting the crimes, since clubs and poker games are illegal in Norway. However, after one incident in which the robbers were disappointed by the modest amounts of cash at one club and assaulted some of the players present, enough was enough. The police are now investigating the crime wave, but the Norwegian poker community is, as mentioned, raising money themselves in order to reward anyone who can unearth the identity of the robbers involved. Are we back at the dangerous road games that Doyle Brunson and T.J. Cloutier mention in their books?
Upcoming events
In an effort from local clubs to legalize poker by switching the focus from gambling to sport, there will soon be a "Finnkampen" ("the struggle against the Finns"), a competition between Swedish and Finnish clubs, with the finals being held in Estonia. The exact setup is kept secret for now, but it's going to be a team event and will be interesting to observe.
Finally, there's the event that's had all of Scandinavia wanting to speed up time for a full year: the
EPT event in Copenhagen in January. Considering that the number of Scandinavians at earlier
EPT events has been roughly 40 percent, there's a possibility of the number reaching well over 60 percent in Copenhagen. There's even a rumour going that the "English only" rule at the tables will be changed to "Scandinavian only." OK, that last part was a joke, but the event will sell out quickly; if you plan on playing, I advise you to enter early. See you in Copenhagen!
Ola Brandborn is a blogger and writer for poker.se.
