Denmark Seizes Online Poker Winnings of professional

A man whose sole source of support is playing online poker saw his winnings confiscated in a choice by the Supreme Court of Denmark, saying laws against professional gambling apply both to land and Internet.

The Supreme Court of Denmark upheld a forfeiture case against a web-based poker patron, saying he has to give up $28,000 he won playing online. The court's ruling is predicated on a Danish law forbidding professional gambling.

According the the court's opinion, the person in question had used online poker as his sole strategy of support, which violates state law against using gambling as a livelihood. The player must obey Danish law when betting from Denmark, the court said, even though the net poker rooms were run from servers outside Danish jurisdiction.

While online gambling advocates called the ruling unfair, prosecutors said they didn't intend to outlaw online poker, but merely to use existing gaming law evenly to land-based and Internet venues.

"We will settle on a case by case basis whether someone is playing professionally," Crown Prosecutor Svend Larsen told the Copenhagen News.

The case bears some similarity to online poker payment seizures within the US, during which prosecutors are arguing that illegal gambling payments need to be forfeited. Perhaps the most important difference is that US law enforcement can't determine which law it's that makes the gambling illegal.

Published on September 10, 2009 by JoshuaMcCarthy

Read More... [Source: Poker News]