About Us

Founded on April 29, 2009 as a global governing body for poker - a non-profit federation based on the same legal criteria and principles as those of other mainstream sports - the International Federation of Poker (IFP) was established in Lausanne, Switzerland, a venue symbolizing international sports cooperation.

The IFP serves as the governing body to which National Poker Federations can affiliate. Its goal is the promotion of poker as a Mind Sport played without any discrimination as to race, sex or creed.

As well as organising major international tournaments, both team and individual, the IFP will be working to standardize tournament rules, as well as compiling international rankings alongside each member-nation’s own national rankings. The IFP will also draw together all the arguments, evidence and testimony gathered around the world by national federations or their equivalents which have been called upon to contest restrictive laws or punitive taxation. A series of academic and legal studies can be found in the IFP Library.

Above all, IFP will be working to demonstrate that poker is a Mind Sport of strategic skill, not a mere game of chance, and so to win it exemption from gambling legislation throughout the world.

IFP Founding congress in Switzerland