Norway moves towards legal online poker
Norway could offer legal online poker for the first time under a government proposal designed to pull players away from offshore poker sites.
The Ministry of Culture and Equality has launched a public consultation that would allow state-owned gambling monopoly Norsk Tipping to operate both online poker tournaments and cash games.
The consultation remains open until November 29, 2026, but Norway is not proposing to open its online poker market to international operators such as PokerStars or GGPoker.
Instead, Norsk Tipping would have exclusive rights to offer legal online poker in Norway, maintaining the country’s gambling monopoly while giving Norwegian players a locally regulated alternative.
International operators would remain outside Norway’s regulated gambling system.
Culture and Equality Minister Lubna Jaffery said the government believes providing a regulated alternative is preferable to leaving Norwegian poker players entirely with foreign operators.
“We know that many Norwegians play online poker,” Jaffery said.
“Therefore, it is better that we get a responsible and safer offer here in Norway, rather than unregulated games at foreign, commercial gaming companies that are driven by profit.”
The potential Norwegian poker market isn’t insignificant, with a University of Bergen survey conducted in 2022 estimating almost 90,000 Norwegians played online with foreign operators each year.
Norsk Tipping now estimates the number could be between 100,000 and 150,000.
The proposed legal product would, however, operate under significantly tighter restrictions than players encounter at most international poker rooms. Players would face a maximum loss of NOK5,000 per day and NOK10,000 per month, while customers under 20 would have a much lower NOK2,000 monthly loss limit.
Tournament buy-ins would be capped at NOK2,500, while cash-game buy-ins would be limited to NOK1,000. The maximum cash-game big blind would be NOK10.
Players could use no more than four tables simultaneously, and the poker room would close completely between 1am and 7am.
Those restrictions could become the biggest challenge for the proposal, with restrictions like this making it hard to compete with the offshore poker sites, that don’t abide by these rules.
Lower-stakes recreational players may find the proposed limits sufficient, but serious poker players accustomed to larger tournaments, higher cash-game stakes and round-the-clock international liquidity may have little incentive to switch.
That makes player liquidity particularly important. Poker differs from conventional online casino games because customers need other customers to play against.
A relatively small Norwegian-only player pool combined with strict limits could make it difficult to maintain active tables across multiple formats and stakes.
Norway has already taken increasingly aggressive steps against foreign gambling operators. Payment blocking has been used for years, while DNS blocking of gambling websites was introduced in 2025.
Major international poker operators including PokerStars have previously withdrawn from the Norwegian market amid that regulatory pressure.
The government now wants to supplement enforcement with something Norwegian poker players have never previously had: a domestically regulated online alternative.
If the proposal proceeds, the real test won’t simply be whether Norsk Tipping can launch an online poker room, it will be whether Norwegian players actually choose to use it.
