Gambling in Ireland is deeply ingrained in their culture and is both completely legal and very popular, and this popularity continues to grow, especially since the internet has provided even more access to it in recent years.
Gambling was wide open in Ireland until 1956, where the country finally came up with a law regulating it at least somewhat, and this resulted in casinos being outlawed in the country. This wasn’t going to stop the Irish people from partaking in casino gambling though, as they quickly took advantage of loopholes in the law to get around it and many gambling clubs sprung up. (1)
These clubs weren’t casinos in the technical sense but they did offer casino gambling, but on a smaller scale to ensure they weren’t considered proper casinos. Some of these establishments are called clubs but some are actually called casinos. These aren’t casinos on the grand scale that you see in other countries but they are indeed casinos in the true sense, where you can play casino games and poker as well at some of them.
18+ T&C Apply – Min £10 dep. Neteller/skrill excl. Wagering 40x on bonus amount within 30 days. Bonus Irish Online Poker Sites max bet £5. There is currently no internet censorship applied to online gambling sites in Ireland, whether lottery, sports betting, casino or poker related. As such a VPN is not necessary. However if you experience difficulties downloading poker clients in the future or while travelling outside Ireland, follow the guidelines below. The best online poker Ireland sites will often run on the same software or platforms. This is a good thing for players, as it means you can often play against a wide variety of players from other operators. When looking through our list of the top poker sites in Ireland, you’ll likely come across the following platforms. Most online poker sites will allow credit card deposits for Irish players, and this is great news as it means you likely don’t need to sign up for an additional account with a third party. In many situations you can also withdraw winnings straight to the same card you used to deposit, however it is a sensible move to check this with your.
So there are 14 such casinos in Ireland, with 8 of them offering live poker. To give you an idea of the scale that we’re talking about, Ireland’s largest casino, the Emerald Casino in Dublin, has 24 tables for table games, 24 gaming machines, and 22 poker tables. (2)
So this is actually a good amount of poker tables but you can see that the size of the operation in total is actually quite small for a modern day casino, which typically would feature hundreds of gaming tables and hundreds of gaming machines although many would not even have this many poker tables.
Poker is pretty popular in Ireland actually although sports betting still is the big kingpin of gambling here and there are a lot of betting shops in Ireland as well as a very active online sports betting market. Paddy Power, the largest land based gaming provider in Ireland, has over 200 betting shops in the country as well as almost that many in the U.K. and they are also have a significant presence in the online market here as well. (3)
If you are partial to live poker though there is a good amount of action here, especially if you live in the Dublin area, but almost all the poker action is situated here, although there is a club in Dundalk with some poker as well, although if you live elsewhere you are going to have to look to other options.
Of course there are plenty of other options and those options consist of playing online, which is very easy to do and extremely convenient as well, and online poker is completely legal to play in Ireland, and it isn’t even regulated as of yet, although the Irish government has been looking to do that and are currently working on a plan to do so.
As opposed to a lot of other places, the taxation rate on gambling in Ireland is extremely low, with only a 2% tax and even then this only applies to sports betting, so this isn’t the case where the government has gotten greedy or seeking to punish gamblers with higher taxes or try to make too much money off this and end up stifling the market too much, leading to less revenue. On the contrary, Ireland isn’t looking to limit anything here, they just are looking to extract a little revenue from all of this.
Online Poker In Ireland
Since the online poker market isn’t regulated right now in Ireland, there isn’t any taxation on it at all, although it’s true that players do pay a tax of sorts as the poker sites they play on do pay tax in the jurisdictions they reside in, and this does end up getting passed down to players in terms of the rake, although it’s not really a substantial amount and the locales of these poker rooms are chosen specifically to limit taxation.
So Ireland’s scheme isn’t looking to do too much here, they are not greedy when it comes to land based gambling taxation and they aren’t looking to be when it comes to online poker as well, and are only proposing a 1% tax on online poker, which seems pretty reasonable.
Of course online poker sites prefer to pay no additional tax at all so they are fighting all of this. The 1% rate is on gross gambling though so it’s not quite as small as it may appear, even though its less than is charged in some other countries.
How this would work is that if a player pays 5% of pots to rake, this would end up bringing the rake rate up to 6% if the entire amount were passed along to them, which is significant but not overly so.
The Irish government has been working on this since 2013, by way of a bill presented to the Irish parliament, and they are still working on it in 2015, and part of the concern here has to do with how this will all fit into the EU rules on free trade and how they have viewed licensing of gambling in other countries. (4)
This new legislation will not seek to segregate Irish players, something that is particularly important when it comes to poker although it really doesn’t make any real difference to other forms of gambling, so they are to be commended for that, and therefore the scheme may end up being workable, and in a country the size of Ireland, a segregated market likely would not work very well at all, since the poker market would not be able to compete with the larger sites and few poker players would therefore want to play on Irish sites.
While some feel that this would be difficult to pull off, we can look to some other countries who have recently put into practice such a scheme and this at least has the appearance of complying with EU regulations, although the whole story on that won’t be told until down the road when we see if these regulatory schemes end up being challenged. The feeling though is that they won’t and therefore it is possible for countries to have non segregated online poker and still be in compliance with the EU.
So what this comes down to for Irish poker players is seeing, at some point, certain online poker sites receiving an Irish license and paying a small tax to the Irish government based upon the bets of their Irish players, but right now there are no such requirements so it’s just business as usual for now.
References:
(1) Online Gambling Sites in Ireland
(2) Ireland Casino Stats
(3) Paddy Power
(4) Ireland Postpones Adoption of a New Gambling Legislation to 2015
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Irish poker players have access to some of the best online poker sites in the world. Many of the poker sites have made it extremely easy to deposit for Irish players. Poker is becoming more and more popular in Ireland partly due to the success of some of the top Irish players. Two of the biggest names in Ireland poker have been Noel Furlong and Padraig Parkinson. Both Furlong and Parkinson made the final table of the World Series of Poker Main Event in 1999. Furlong went on to win the World Series that year, with Parkinson coming in third place.
There are also many Irishmen who play poker online professionally, and more and more Irish players are playing on the internet every day. Three of the top online poker sites that accept Irish players are 888Poker, William Hill Poker, and PokerStars. All three of these sites accept players from around the world, so you are sure to find players from many different nations in addition to the Irish players.
Top 3 Irish Poker Sites
#1 Irish Poker Site Online: 888Poker
888 Poker is number one on our list of top Irish poker sites. Two reasons for this are their huge sign up bonus offer, and because they have been known to pay close attention to the wants and needs of their Irish players. The sign up bonus at 888 Poker is 100% match bonus of up to $888. Simply use our link on the table on this page to claim the bonus. You will also get you entries into our PokerNews freerolls. These freerolls are some of the best poker freeroll tournaments that you will find on the internet.
Both of these offers are open to our Irish poker players, and we welcome our Irish players to make use of any of our sign up bonus offers. 888 Poker has been known to pay special attention to Irish poker players, and sometimes they will run special redeposit bonuses or promotions just for their Irish players. 888 Poker has also made it easy to make a deposit to the poker site. 888 Poker offers many different deposit methods including the Laser Card, which is a popular credit card in Ireland.
#2 Best Irish Poker Sites: William Hill
William Hill Poker comes in at number two on our list of best Irish poker sites. When signing up to William Hill Poker use our promotional code NEWSCOM to claim a few different bonuses from William Hill. You will get up to £650 in free money (200% bonus on first deposit), entries into our freeroll tournaments that are held at William Hill, and you can also enter into the freerolls that William Hill Poker holds just for players from Ireland.
William Hill Poker is part of the iPoker Network, which is one of the five largest poker sites in the world. There are many different iPoker skins, but we rate William Hill as the best. They have a poker room, a casino, and a sportsbook. This means nonstop action around the clock. Many Irish poker players like to play no limit holdem, pot limit Omaha, and seven stud – and William Hill Poker offers all of these games.
#3 Top Irish Poker Sites
PokerStars comes in at number three on our list of best online poker sites for Irish players. PokerStars does a lot to cater to the Irish poker market. PokerStars runs the UK and Ireland Poker League, which is a monthly competition that is only available to UK and Irish players. This competition awards monthly prizes based on the amount of play in the previous month. The competition finishes the month with a tournament for players from the Ireland and the UK.
Irish Poker Card
PokerStars.com also sponsors the Irish Poker Championship. The Irish Poker Championship is one of the largest land based tournaments that is held in Ireland every year. PokerStars offers a sign up bonus that is similar to the one that is offered by 888 Poker. Simply use the best PokerStars marketing code POKERNEWS when creating your account to get up to $600 extra and entries into our freeroll tournaments.
More Irish Poker Information:
Irish poker players are playing and winning online every day. The three sites listed above all provide excellent software and customer support. These poker sites have many different poker deposit methods that cater to Irish players. One of these deposit methods is the Laser Card that was mentioned above. Irish players can also make use of some of the best ewallets online, such as Moneybookers and Neteller.
Irish Poker Online
Much like online poker, live poker is becoming more and more popular in Ireland each and every year. Players are flocking to live tournaments like the Irish Poker Open, the Irish Poker Festival, and the Irish Poker Championship. As these events continue to gain more notoriety, you can expect even more growth for poker in Ireland.