Polish online casinos for Real Money

Firstly, land-based gambling has been legal in Poland since 1920. Ustawa o Grach Hazardowych (known as the Act on Gambling Games) defines those laws. Despite gambling being illegal in the USSR (which included Poland), it wasn’t until 2009 that new gambling legislation came to the forefront to define what Poles could and could not do. Land-based casinos were quickly built, and since 2018, slot halls have also been legal in the country. All casinos currently belong to the state-owned monopoly, Totalizator Sportowy.

Online gambling remained largely unregulated in the first decade of the millennium. In 2011, Poland took measures to legalise and regulate online gambling. However, it is worth noting that not all forms are legal. Poles are permitted (via an amendment to the original act) to play online lottery games, participate in internet raffles, and place sports bets at online bookmakers. However, these sites must only cater to Polish players.

To date, poker, and online casino games (deemed games of chance) are not considered legal in the country, at least not online. Therefore, Polish players must look to offshore casinos to get their fill of these games. Fortunately, there are plenty of options for them to choose from.

In 2017, Poland threatened its own players with potential prosecution if they played at illegal sites. However, under EU law, Poland is not permitted to punish or prosecute its players who choose to gamble at these offshore casinos, assuming those sites are based in another EU member state. However, Poland has taken measures to attempt to blacklist and block access to those offshore casino sites. This is seemingly the middle-ground between prosecuting players and licensing offshore casinos. The blocks are nothing a half-decent VPN won’t be able to skirt around.

All gambling licenses (whatever form of gambling they take) are issued by the National Revenue Administration. To be eligible, a company must either be Polish or be affiliated as a Polish subsidiary, with a representative living in the EU country.

Poland’s additional gambling regulation states that only one casino and bingo hall may be present per location (namely a city), but ferries and cruise ships are exempt from this rule. Only the state-owned monopoly is permitted to offer slot machines to players, and even then, they cannot do so online.

Online sports betting is legal in Poland, so that is naturally one of the Polish gambling scene’s most popular ways to bet. In terms of casino games, slots are quite popular, predominantly because they, alongside poker games, are relatively unavailable outside of land-based casinos. There are a few popular poker players from Poland. Lottery gameplay is also popular, but not on the same scale as casino or sports betting options.

Poland isn’t home to too many casino software developers. Moreover, as there are no legally licensed online casinos, you won’t see any homegrown brands there. Instead, you need to look at offshore casinos. There is little point in us rattling off a list of developers, though, because as we’re talking about offshore sites, the array of software providers present at each casino can vary wildly.

Given that all Polish casinos are (by definition) offshore and international casinos, precious few of them only accept Polish players. Despite that, it is not uncommon to see the Polish zloty offered as a currency option at these sites, while Polish-friendly payment methods and even, in some cases, the Polish language may be offered as options. Don’t expect that at all sites, though. Indeed, a good number of casinos that accept players from Poland will make them use the English language/euro currency combo for gameplay.

Any player (assuming the casino accepts them) can technically join Polish casinos. However, if you want to join a Polish-licensed sportsbook, you’re out of luck. The key term here is “Polish licensed”. To obtain such a license, Polish sites can’t accept players from outside of Poland. Fortunately, there is an abundance of offshore sportsbooks and casinos that accept Poles, so you aren’t limited to choosing homegrown domains.