Poker in Austria: is it legal, where to play, and the CAPT Million

Is online poker legal in Austria? For you as a player, yes in practice — no offence applies to an individual who plays on a foreign-licensed site, even though Austrian law licenses only one online operator, win2day, and does not license foreign rooms. Austria is a poker country with a complicated rulebook. Vienna's private card rooms were once among the busiest in Europe and hosted EPT and WSOP Europe stops, but the current Glücksspielgesetz reserves casino games, poker included, for the Casinos Austria licence, and the independent rooms closed. Live poker today means Casinos Austria: Baden, Linz, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Graz and Bregenz all run poker, with Casino Baden as the flagship and host of the CAPT Million.

Austria at a glance

Legal status of online poker: No Austrian licence exists for a foreign room. The Glücksspielgesetz grants a single online concession, held by Austrian Lotteries for its win2day platform. Playing on a foreign-licensed site is not an offence for the player; the legal exposure is the operator's, and Austrian courts have repeatedly allowed players to reclaim losses from operators without an Austrian licence.

Regulator: The Bundesminister für Finanzen, under the Glücksspielgesetz (GSpG). Casinos Austria holds the land-based casino licences.

Minimum age: 18. § 25 Abs. 1 GSpG permits casino admission only to persons who have completed their eighteenth year — "Der Besuch der Spielbank ist nur Personen gestattet, die das achtzehnte Lebensjahr vollendet haben."

Player tax: None on your winnings. Austria taxes the game rather than the player: § 57 GSpG charges a Glücksspielabgabe of 17.5% of stakes on Ausspielungen with participation from Austria, and 45% of annual gross gaming revenue on elektronische Lotterien under § 12a, with games in a casino licensed under § 21 exempt. The levy is owed on the Ausspielung, not withheld from a prize. Professional-scale play can still be assessed as income.

Operators we verify for Austria: GGPoker, on its international site, operated by GG International Limited under an Isle of Man licence. There is no locally licensed Austrian version of it.

Biggest live event: the CAPT Million at Casino Baden every November — €500 + 50, with €1,000,000 guaranteed.

Sources: § 25 Abs. 1 and § 57 GSpG in consolidated form, read 12 November 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice.

Is online poker legal in Austria?

Austrian law grants a single online gambling licence, held by Austrian Lotteries for its win2day platform, and Casinos Austria holds the land-based casino licences. There is no offence for an individual who plays on a foreign-licensed site, and hundreds of thousands of Austrians do; the legal risk sits with operators, and Austrian courts have repeatedly allowed players to reclaim losses from operators without an Austrian licence. GGPoker serves Austria on its international platform. A reform of the Glücksspielgesetz that would open the online market to more licensees has been discussed for years; until it passes, this is the position.

Live poker in Austria

With the private card rooms gone, Casinos Austria is the only live game in town, and its offer is better than its monopoly status suggests. Casino Baden, half an hour south of Vienna, spreads pot-limit hold'em and Omaha cash games daily and runs the country's busiest tournament schedule, culminating in the CAPT Million every November, a €550 event with €1 million guaranteed and Day 1 flights across the country. The Casinos Austria Poker Tour (CAPT) also stops in Linz, Salzburg, Innsbruck, Graz and Bregenz, and Salzburg's Neujahrsfestival and Royal Bounty Festival are fixtures of the calendar. Note that Austrian casino rules mean cash games are spread as pot-limit rather than no-limit, and that the Vienna casino itself currently lists no poker.

Austrian players

Austria punches above its weight: Vienna is home to a large community of online professionals, several German high-roller stars such as Ole Schemion have made it their base, and Austrians regularly feature on EPT and WSOP final tables. We are building out profiles of the country's top players.

If gambling stops being fun, the Spielsuchthilfe in Vienna offers free, confidential help.