Poker News

Jonathan Raab

The UK’s first fully regulated poker club has recently been granted its license to operate and will be opening in late November. Dusk Till Dawn is the brainchild of Nottingham entrepreneur and poker player Rob Yong.

Rob had been keen to take poker out of the casino environment, believing that exposure to other forms of harder gaming was detrimental to poker players. But unlike other poker only clubs, which have been operating in the UK for the past few years, he did not wish to flaunt the laws and authorities by opening an unregulated venue. He sought to obtain a full casino license, but not for the provision of other forms of gaming.

Nearly two years later he was finally granted this license, which was the first and also the last of its kind. Not long afterwards the Gaming Board of Britain was disbanded and replaced by the Gaming Commission. Under the new regulatory regime, any new casino license awarded will not permit poker-only venues because there is a stipulation of a minimum number of hard gaming tables each venue is required to have.

This leaves Dusk Till Dawn in the rather enviable position of being the only legal poker-only venue in the UK, with no immediate chance of any competition. The club will eventually have 45 tables. It will be the largest Cardroom in the UK and one of the biggest in Europe. Since the Gaming Commission came into operation at the beginning of September, it has become much harder for the unregulated venues to carry on trading. The Gaming Commission, unlike its predecessor, has the authority to shut down unlicensed premises, so the threat of closure has forced most of the existing clubs to make significant changes to their status.

In the past, the Gaming Board could only shut venues with the co-operation of the police. Since most local constabularies had better things to do with their time, this rarely happened and most clubs were left alone to go about their business. Whereas places such as The Gutshot Club and The Western in London had previously been fairly upfront about their status as poker venues, they are now much coyer about it.

In order to stay within the law they are now operating as private membership clubs and have to offer a variety of other leisure pursuits in addition to poker. The Gutshot club has renamed itself as the Powerhouse Sporting Club, with chess and other games also available in addition to poker. They now also charge an admission fee rather than being an open house to all. The website of the Western club lists the venue as a fishing club, amongst other things. It remains to be seen whether the Gaming Commission will choose to act against any of the clubs.

Since Gordon Brown took over as Prime Minister the feeling is rife that the new premier is not keen on gambling in any form, including poker. The new Gaming Act, which established the Gaming Commission, had relaxed gaming laws, but the industry now fears a u-turn by the new administration. Any clamping down on gaming activities by the new government could be the death knell of these wounded poker clubs that have, until recently, had a free reign to offer poker to players in a non-casino environment. So while times are hard for many of the UK’s poker venues, anyone who lives in the vicinity of Nottingham has a brand new and luxurious venue to look forward to.

Filed under: Poker News