Prague Votes No to Gambling Licences

In the very week which sees the WPT, EPT and several other tours arrive in Prague for the Winter Poker festivals -a huge part of any player's European itinerary- Prague City Council has voted through measures which will see “a drastic reduction in the number of gaming establishments.”

The month-long Prague City Council discussions were finally voted on three days ago, and the resulting no vote on gambling will see 212 gaming sites have their licences revoked come January 1st, 2016.

This will leave 101 establishments in the city with ‘casino licences’ according to local reports, but several districts – Prague 4, 5, and 7 – will have none at all when the new regulations come into effect. They wll now be considered “zero-tolerance zones”. There will also be no new licences issued under the terms of the Council’s decisions.

Although it is expected that the larger casinos and hotel-run establishments will be safe for the moment, many smaller gambling outlets – including dozens of the popular ‘Herna’ non-stop bars – will be outlawed in a phasing-out process.

These places generally offer slots and other gaming machines and are targeted at locals, with Prague’s mayor Andrea Krnáčová describing “a variety of sociological and pathological phenomena,” associated with this type of establishment.

ČT24 reported that almost 769.1million Kč (Czech crowns; 26 Kč =€1=$1 roughly) of the 913.4 million Kč ($/€35million) total gaming taxes taken by Prague in 2014 came from slot machines.

A public poll earlier in the year had seen an almost 50-50 split on the subject of gambling in the city, and the Council had been discussing the matter since late-October, before finally falling on the side of the no vote on Thursday.

The big poker tours are unlikely to be affected in the short-term, as they take place in the biggest hotel casinos such as the Hilton (EPT), the Corinthian (WPT) and various larger-scale casino establishments peppered throughout the city centre and beyond, as reported in this very recent article. However, the more distant future is decided unsure.