The Conceptual Foundation of the Gambling Club
The gambling club is a separate, specialised form of gambling business, and understanding it begins with two concepts. Article 3 of the law defines the club table — a specially equipped table on which a game proceeds between players by means of bankque (cards); the cards in the game may be dealt by a representative of the organiser of the gambling game as well. The gambling club, in turn, is a specially equipped building or part of one where the organiser conducts bankque games through a club table or tables — the classic poker-club format fits this definition exactly.
The same article contains the concept of the gambling tournament: a game conducted by the holder of a casino and/or gambling club permit through a club table. One significant restriction also sits here: where the holder of a casino permit uses a club table only for a gambling tournament and does not pay the gaming business fee established for the club table, it has no right to receive income from conducting the tournament. The tournament may be organised both on the object organised under the permit and outside it.
The Exceptional Permit Regime
Article 11 includes the organisation of a gambling club as a separate sub-item on the list of activities subject to permitting, but one of the paragraphs of the same article places this permit in a special frame: a permit for organising a gambling club is issued only in the municipality of the city of Tbilisi, to the holder of a permit for organising a casino and/or a gaming machine hall. Moreover, the gambling club must be arranged independently of the casino hall and/or the gaming machine hall, as a separate object.
Two practical consequences follow. First: opening a poker club is possible only for someone who already holds a casino or gaming machine hall permit — an independent start-up company cannot enter this market directly. Second: the club permit is tied to the base permit, and its validity is determined by the remaining term of the permit on whose basis it was issued; the termination of the base permit annuls the club permit as well. Under the general rule, a permit under this article is issued only to an entrepreneur registered in Georgia.