Notícies de l'operador

Austria – Concord closes its last venue as Austrian authorities crack down on poker

The end of January saw the closure of Concord Card Casinos which have been offering professional poker games at twelve locations in Austria since 1993.
La policia financera austríaca va començar a executar la Llei de joc el 2 de gener i va visitar una sucursal de Concord rere l'altra.

A raid towards end of the month at the Montesino venue was the last action for Concord with a € 100,000 guaranteed tournament planned for the following weekend cancelled and all branches of the Concord Group were subsequently closed.

Concord, owned by Peter Zanoni, stated: “Due to the ongoing, illegal and excessive administrative measures against the Concord Group’s operations – despite the national and international provisional legal protection procedures, the management announces that as of today, all of the Concord Group’s operations have been voluntarily closed to avoid that guests and employees are still exposed to the unqualified pressure of the financial police, which is far beyond their competence.
“Atès que ni els responsables polítics, els grups d'interès i els màxims òrgans executius, malgrat les reiterades peticions, incloses les recolzades per les universitats, han estat obligats a posar fi a aquest procediment arbitrari per part de la policia financera i a garantir el compliment de les disposicions estatutàries en d'acord amb la constitució, les nostres operacions han de continuar funcionant de facto ja no és possible", va afegir. "Assegurem a tots els nostres empleats i clients que fem tot el que està a les nostres mans per permetre un funcionament sense pertorbacions en el futur".

Concord plans to take legal action and is petitioning for support.

“400,000 poker players from home and abroad take advantage of this offer every year,” it added. “Our locations were the venues and venues for the world’s largest poker tournaments, which were among the best events internationally.As a result, Austria, especially Vienna, became known and popular in the poker community worldwide.”

“Not only that, the Concord Card Casinos provide 600 jobs for the job market, Austria as a business location benefits from thousands of overnight stays every year through tourism income.The previously free commercial poker game is to disappear from the market through “monopolisation”. This offer vacuum now inevitably pushes all poker players into illegal (online) areas or into neighbouring countries. Domestic goods, player protection, jobs – a decent business, all these things are sacrificed. This initiative [the petition] is intended to bring those specific problems and our concerns to politics and legislation.”

El pòquer només està permès a Àustria als casinos, des de principis d'any. El pòquer només es considera un joc d'atzar des de fa uns anys, abans només necessitava una llicència comercial. A causa d'un període de transició, l'antiga llicència del Sr. Zanoni va ser vàlida fins a finals de 2019. El Sr. Zanoni ha participat en nombrosos procediments davant el Tribunal Administratiu i Constitucional per qüestions fiscals.