Italian residents are not allowed in the hotel or casino. Elsewhere the Malta Poker Championships have been cancelled because of CONVID-19.

King's Casino

The coronavirus continues to make its mark on the world of poker and this week King's Casino in Rozvadov announced they would no longer allow Italian residents inside.

They made an announcement on their Facebook page saying (this has been Google translated into English):

In order to safeguard the health of our international guests and prevent the spread of the CONVID-19, we have chosen to completely limit access in all areas of the casino, not even accepting hotel reservations, to all residents from Italy indefinitely, canceling from now all the events of March and April 2020 that target mainly target the audience mentioned above. Given the constant evolution of the situation, we will follow any new developments, in the hope of removing this limitation to an audience to whom we are very fond of, giving timely communication via our channels as soon as possible. We inform you that, unless there are new provisions, the Poker Room events calendar remains unchanged from May 1, 2020 onwards.

Malta Poker Championship cancelled

At the time of writing the coronavirus has 94,239 cases and 3,219 deaths. The vast majority are in China but Italy has been the hardest hit European country, with 2,502 cases and 79 deaths. Today the Italian Education Minister announced all Italian schools would be closed for two weeks to contain the virus.

Italian players in particular appear to have been targetted for exclusion (rather than any other widely affected region) because King's Casino host events aimed at traveling Italian residents.

Earlier this week an Oregon casino closed down after and employee contracted the virus and two Asian poker events have been cancelled because of it. Yesterday the Malta Poker Championship at Portomaso Casino, which takes place between May 23-24, also announced it was being cancelled due to uncertainty around the virus.

One event which has currently pledged to go on is the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. They completed their schedule this week and confirmed there were no plans to cancel amid growing speculation the event might be particularly vulnerable to CONVID-19.

Are you changing your poker plans because of the coronavirus? Let us know in the comments: