In his decision, the judge said that the poker modality is not gambling, which is prohibited by law. Although released in some states, a group of Texas Hold'em participants in Barra itself, has already been arrested and has had problems with the prosecution.
Different personalities of national poker celebrated the decision in their social networks. The first one was Igor Federal, former president of CBTH and one of the main responsible for the development of the activity in Brazil. He said the decision is an evolutionary step.
"RJ could not stand behind the rest of the country. Still, poker tournaments were closed as a game of chance. This is no longer the case in the whole world. Let's evolve !! ", said Igor Federal in his Twitter account.
Another key name of poker that expressed about the judge decision was André Akkari, former world champion and ambassador of the activity around the world. He said the move was smart and congratulated the journalist Ancelmo Gois for the news release.
"Congratulations to all those involved in the Rio de Janeiro case regarding poker. Incredible as Rio does not come good news constantly, we have to celebrate. The delay there is notorious. Congratulations to Ancelmo Gois for the article also, only with intelligence our country can get out of the hole," commented Akkari.
Even with this restriction and the need for permission documents, Rio de Janeiro has been the scene of major poker events with continental and world reach.
Between September 25 and October 2, 2018, the city hosted the WSOP Circuit Brazil. The event hosted thousands of players from several countries and awarded the Main Event champion with more than R$ 1 million (US$ 255,000).
Due to the success of the WSOP Circuit Brazil, partypoker -that was a partner of the first event- decided to hold Millions South America, a regional poker championship that also has great success with the participation of important names of poker, distributed R$ 28 million (US$ 7m) in prizes and was part of the official calendar of the Secretary of Sports of Rio de Janeiro.
Source: GMB/ O Globo
