Alex Wade -
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Alex Wade covers diverse areas as a freelance journalist. He has written columns for The Independent on Sunday, www.timesonline.co.uk and Flush magazine on boxing, legal life and poker. As well as running the Surf Nation blog at www.timesonline.co.uk/surfnation, he contributes regularly to The Times, The Sunday Times, The Independent, The Independent on Sunday and The Guardian, and among other national newspapers has also written for The FT Magazine, The Telegraph and The Sun. He has written for Huck magazine, Wavelength, The Surfer's Path, Coast, Flush, Boxing News, Arena, Cornwall Today and The Racing Post, and contributes features on legal and regulatory developments in the betting and gaming sector for www.gamblingcompliance.com.
Alex's principal interests as a writer are surfing, boxing, poker, law and travel, as well as general features, football match reports (for The Game, the acclaimed supplement of The Times) and book reviews (for The Times Books section).
Alex enjoyed stints as a licensed bookmaker and a sports rights consultant, selling the rights to key properties such as the FA Premier League in territories as diverse as Albania, Georgia and Azerbaijan. He has made a number of media appearances including Sky News, Talksport, BBC Radio 4, BBC World Service, BBC Radio London, BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Radio Five Live.
Online gaming now counts tens of millions of real money players, many in the coveted Asian markets, but as gambling plays an increasingly important role in the virtual worlds it is becoming clear that technology is outrunning regulation on payments, money laundering and player protection. Alex Wade looks at the ways in which Massively Multi-Player Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) cut across conventional gambling laws.
Poker might not yet be quite as popular in Spain as it is in other European countries but Spanish participation in both online and land-based poker tournaments is becoming increasingly commonplace. Despite this, a large number of these tournaments are illegal under Spanish law, at least in theory.
In the four years since Texas Hold ‘Em swept the world, online poker has become a licence to print money for a vast number of operators, as high stakes and humble dollar buy-in players alike took the game on trust. Now, thanks to the scandal engulfing www.absolutepoker.com, that trust has been severely dented, if not, in Absolute’s case, irreparably shattered, and legal remedies are scarce.
If Scandinavia as a whole represents an area of seemingly limitless opportunity for online poker operators, it is in Sweden that the game has found its strongest footing.
A quirky legal framework for gambling in the once brutal and isolated nation has created an apparently free market allowing the establishment of casinos and online sports betting but exemptions abound and tax hikes remain hard to predict.
Although Dutch players are revered on the world poker scene, restrictive legislation in Holland limits opportunities for Dutch nationals to play the game outside of state-owned casinos.
Belgium’s poker devotees are currently limited to playing only in the country’s casinos but rules regarding tournaments have relaxed and liberalisation of online play may yet be on the cards.
Stereotypes of Teutonic rigour and the outlaw world of Texas Hold ‘em do not, at first blush, make for easy bedfellows but the game is poised to boom in Germany, beyond land based casinos, providing the law is prepared to accommodate the realities of card rooms and online play.
Poker players in Scandinavia are suffering more than their brethren around the world, thanks to the zero tolerance policy that appears to have been tacitly agreed to by the authorities.
As part of Gamblingcompliance.com’s series exploring poker’s legal status throughout Europe, Alex Wade notes that whilst poker was recently authorized in French casinos, the game’s online incarnation continues to be stifled by prohibitive legislation.
