Raid in Barcelona on Poker Tournament

CasinoAffiliatePrograms.com (CAP) was running their Affiliate Series of Poker (ASOP) in September in Barcelona and ended up being raided by undercover police. CAP has now released a statement over the whole affair that happened last week in Spain.

The tournament took place at the Hotel Princesa Sofia and involved 42 players. Although it was a freeroll tournament, the police still raided it and seized the tables and chips used. According to the press release from CAP, they had made every effort to follow local Spanish laws and were taken by surprise at the raid. They had allegedly cleared any legal problems as it was not open to the public and it was a freeroll.

Alex Pratt who organizes Euro Cap events had this to say “We don’t put these tournaments on without permission, which is exactly why we have a specific registration system and a number of checks that affiliates go through to gain the password. This is on top of a number of other components to ensure we run an event that is completely legal. We obviously checked on Catalan and Spanish law prior to this event. The issue at this point seems to have arisen from a little-publicized change in Catalan law that occurred within the past year.”

Fines against CAP were very minimal and no arrests were made. The tournament will resume but online with added rewards. Pratt also added “This unfortunate event does nothing to detract from the prestige of the ASOP tournament. We will ensure that all participants can resume their games in an online format, and as a gesture of goodwill, we are increasing the prize pool for the online event."