Estonian poker forums have been seething the last few days because of the recent decision by the Estonian Tax and Customs Board to order all online operators to block access to foregin online poker sites.


The ban goes for all sites that don't have a license issued in Estonia and at the moment the only site with a license is the Estonian Olympic Casino with another license pending. The Tax and Customs Board published a list containing the names of the sites that should be blocked, among them PokerStars, PartyPoker, Full Tilt Poker, Unibet, and Bwin.

Needless, Estonian players are appalled at the news. "(The ISPs) will get fined ~600 euro as for the first time. WHAT THE F*CK ---> if we were to get caught using proxies, we get fined for ~2600 euros along with the ISP!" writes Harrei Genam on his blog.

Minimum age for gambling in Estonian land-based casinos is 21 and the Olympic online site has the same age limit.

It remains to be seen how effective the ban on the so called "illegal" sites will be, but this kind of censorship is more reminiscent of countries like North Korea or Iran than a EU member state.