Ggb Magazine Podcast

Gaming in Ireland has been operating in a grey area since the early 2000s when British-style membership clubs began to be established. A new set of gaming regulations has been set up recently along with a new regulatory scheme. JJ Woods has been consulting on gaming projects around the world for more than 30 years and is the unqualified expert on gaming in Ireland. While he is optimistic that the new regulations will help grow the Irish gaming industry, he says specifics are few and far between because lots of issues need to be decided. He spoke with GGB Publisher Roger Gros from his office in Dublin in January. (Listen to podcast abv., or view the video at the bottom). GGB: Why don’t you give us a little thumbnail of what gambling in Ireland looked like before the recent regulatory reforms were considered? JJ Woods: Somewhere around the late ’90s or 2000, the law was circumvented when private members’ clubs started to open all over the country. This was the first time that live gaming was offered, largely