The winner of last year’s inaugural World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) in London won’t be welcome at this year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas.

Annette Obrestad, from Sandnes, Norway, won the Main Event of the 2007 WSOPE on the day before her 19th birthday.

But she won’t be able to compete in the Main Event of the 2008 WSOP.

In fact, she can’t even be a spectator at the event.

That’s because Obrestad, now 19, isn’t old enough to legally be in a Nevada casino.

State law in Nevada requires one to be age 21 or older to gamble, or even be in, a state casino.

The laws in Europe aren’t so strict–one only has to be age 18 or older to gamble in a casino in the United Kingdom, for example.

Therefore, at age 18 last year, Obrestad was old enough to compete in the ‘07 WSOPE.

She won the $20,000 buy-in, no-limit Texas hold ‘em WSOPE Main Event and took home a $2 million top prize.

The WSOP created the WSOPE last year to capitalize on the popularity of the WSOP in America and expand the brand to Europe.

The WSOP no doubt would have loved to have had its first WSOPE winner at this year’s WSOP to go for two Main Events in a row–and guarantee massive publicity.

But that won’t be the case.

In fact, Obrestad, who is expected to compete in this year’s WSOPE in September, won’t be allowed into the WSOP next year, either, since she’ll still just be 20 years old.

The first time she’ll be able to come to Las Vegas and compete in the WSOP will be in the year 2010, when she’ll finally be 21.

Until then, she needn’t bother to even come to town.

Las Vegas has a city-wide curfew, and no one under 21 can even be on the streets at night.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.)