blonde poker forum

https://pokershares.com/pokershares#/ (https://pokershares.com/pokershares#/)

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEYBtOHzOiA

I am looking forward to a few 0.9 mark ups.

presumably illegal in UK?

Site looks great. Amazed he's got it licensed.

https://fastoffshore.com/what-we-do/packaged-services/online-gambling-license-in-curacao/

$20k and access to a photocopier doesn't look to be the most onerous of licensing requirements.

This.  Shame he can't offer a sporting index style two way offering for the really big events where he knows none of the players would deliberately donk their stack off to land a gamble with him because the buy in to the MTT is much bigger than the amount they could ever win from him by tanking the event so we could see how strong his opinion exactly is by offering 2 way prices and how tight a margin he would work to (thus showing how confident he was in his valuations/prices of players).  ie allowing a punter to not only buy a player but also sell their action as well and turn Timex into the buyer.  

For example Timex makes a player 2.0 mark up he offers you the chance to buy him at 2.2 and sell him at 1.8.  He should be equally happy with both bets if he is confident in his valuation.  Two way action would obviously smooth his variance as well as in theory he just nicks the 0.4 units risk free if he gets balanced action.  Obviously in reality, like bookmaking, this very rarely happens.

Much easier to offer a one way price on an outcome and potentially shaft customers with a terrible offering.  I could offer evens Rooney to score on Saturday but not have to offer the two way price (obviously with a margin built in for my effort) for him not to score.

The function to buy fractions of percentages seems to be what is missing here. Lots of casual punters would like to throw down 10 bucks on Negreanu in a 10k event.

Obviously this is a business that thrives on big single bets rather than lots of little ones though.

Hundreds of small casual punters are way more likely to take bad prices than single big hitters who you generally only see if you have priced up something incorrectly.  The old margin v volume debate.

Business model has to be to attract recs in small numbers I think. I'd be pleasantly surprised if those buy options are going to be profitable very often. He'll get absolutely filled in if he tries to go on thin margins if he'll lay decent amounts.

If we get a spread index like Arbboy says then it really gets interesting

As a game of opinions poker skill could be even better than sports.

Will he close/restrict anyone's account for winning?   Has this been discussed by him?  If he offers up to 10% of a player can one punter just hoover the entire 10% even if he is a winner and has the best of it?  Are his opening prices 'fixed' until the whole % offered is sold or if a serious judge comes in and backs player A will timex increase the buy price for future punters in the same event who buy subsequently?

I assume he thinks he can price these things up better than anyone else and is happy to take on all comers to begin with.  When reality sets in that some people will beat him long term how will he deal with that?  Not like he can do it quietly like bookmakers do to punters because he will only be restricting shrewdies who will instant post on forums about being restricted so i assume it won't happen right?

Laying 2 way action to a population rich in scumbags is going to be the road to ruin, surely? 

To be fair to him, nobody else has the bankroll/cajones to do this, so it can't be such easy money.  And there is little evidence he is setting any terrible prices.  He priced up the cate hall grudge match at tight margins for instance.

Easy for people to mouth off from the sidelines without risking a dime.

Sure i appreciate it isn't easy and the scumbag factor is massive.  Also the potential to get screwed in deals is there.  How does he settle a deal like 9 high like a boss had when he 'bought' the trophy?  Official result only?  So many pitfalls to dodge.  Good luck to him. 

PokerShares ‏@pokershares  11h11 hours ago
@JonyMunro 100%. Limits will be larger for people we trust than most users & like a sportsbook we'll cut off people we think are beating us

Limits will be larger for people who lose long term he means then? How is there a trust issue?  Surely you pay for your action before the bet is placed so why does trust even come into it from a customer's point of view.  They are taking all the risk trusting Timex to pay surely?  Secondly cutting high stakes pro A because he is beating you isn't going to stop you seeing his action as he will have 50/100 other high stakes mates who can simply put the bet on for him. 

Just watched the YouTube clip and its seems to me he has kept it as simple as possible. Seems to me that if the process is as easy as he makes it sound this could become quite popular in the community.

I think he's referring to the people who you can buy %s of. People he feels won't collude for a shady deal and make the amount bankoftimex pays out increase unfairly.

E.g. He might offer 200% of Mercier to punters but only 5% of Chino Rheem

Fair enough that makes sense when i re read it.

He's going to be on the Joe Ingram podcast on YouTube shortly for anyone interested.

It seems like this could be a great opportunity for relatively unknown, but technically excellent, online players to buy more of themselves at favourable rates. Timex's information will not be adequate enough to price them up accurately because they may not have any significant live cashed yet.

I hope it's successfull for him, but surely just buying property in desirable areas with limited supply (e.g. UK!) would be more lucrative?

Been watching on YouTube and it seems he s pretty much saying that he is just the face of the company and others will be making the prices.

Seems that they are sure people will try and cheat them but if they get caught they risk losing all of their initial money.

How do they account for final table deals?

This is definitely what is interesting. If I bought 200% of myself in the SM and made a final I would obviously be asking others to deal. You could also shaft timex here if you get HU with a friend or something and offer a private deal HU so that your friend loses on purpose.

I am sure that his margins are so large that this has all been taken into account.

They don't seem sure either.

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Someone has a 0.6 markup in the pca ME

It's licenced from Curacao, so they are not permitted to advertise to players in those jurisdictions.

In regards to the UK the main legal difficulties are the banking ones. If they wanted a UK licence for this I think they'd get one very easily and pretty cheaply.

UK USA France and Netherlands are the area that they have to steer well clear of.

Amazing! You have timex and Phil G, not just great poker players but innovators and entrepreneurs also.

I would love to see Timex do well from this. It's truly astounding, where else in "sport" would you see these successful professionals branching out to the slightly unknown and perhaps  risky? Maybe not so much Phil G, but defiantly for this venture.

What do you mean by this? I've played on/deposited on a few sites licensed in Curacao and never had a problem, and as far as I know the sites didn't.

From what he said on the live chat last night it would go by the official result of the tournament (he mentioned stars etc) and then he became abit all over the place but from what I can make out he was saying that they wouldn't just take people's word for it that they done a deal and for those people that try and pull a fast one it against the terms of Service and if they get caught they risk losing all of their initial stake money, he was also talking in large numbers i.e. He knows their are some people willing to risk losing a million to win an extra £150k by doing some scullduggery heads up but but they have to be prepared to lose the million if they get caught.

Didn't watch all of it but to me it very much came across as it he is not the driving force behind this and he even said himself that he is the face of the company not the CEO or decision maker. He also said that they want this to be massive, not a small operation.

Interesting stuff, pretty certain if this works it will start to change the whole landscape of staking etc.

Was planning on launching this exact thing later in the year, pretty disappointed he did it first.

BITB brand worth way more than his surely and if you sort out the legal errors he has made regarding his location to conform to the Gambling commission rules for operating in uk (and whatever it takes to operate in other locations he is struggling with) you could still have an advantage over him i think.  Let him make the mistakes first then do what Sugar does offer a better service at a cheaper price by under cutting him.

How do you prove/disprove if someone actually played it?

Plus re entries for live events how do you deal with them and prove how many re entries a punter had even if you can prove 100% they did play the event in the first place.

they said that for re-entry events they will only do first bullet and in events where it is clearly and transparently tracked. EG pokerstars high rollers

Website seems pretty poor to me too no?

Yes.  Let him make all the mistakes which he will make then jump on him and offer a better product. He only offers Euro's as a currency at the minute.  Surely you get the multi currency thing sorted before you even launch?  The key thing is legality and security of your money as a punter.  His current location to be based doesn't offer that like a more established GC approved location would.

I signed up with my UK address and from a Dutch IP address. Seems foolish of them.

Bit of misconception over the license here imo, a Curacao license is not a "dodgy" license, people think that a gaming license is a very complicated thing but it isn't, basically all it is a certification that you, the business owner, are qualified and suitable to operate a gaming business. Several jurisdictions are permitted to provide these licenses, Malta we all know (nearly every big gaming business has a Maltese license), Aldernay we all know as the license provider for FTP/Stars in the glory days, Curacao is another one. In theory they are all the same, but in practice they differ greatly and it depends where you are and what you are doing as to which is best.

Curacao licenses are generally pretty basic, and as a result you have some limitations which is why you wont see B365 with a curacao license (although i gte you they will have one), they are however a completely legal and official gaming license allowing the operator to run an online gaming business. They are also 5x cheaper than Maltese licenses and benefit from VERY generous tax conditions, this makes them the stand out choice for small/start-up businesses.

Once you have a license you are able to provide gaming, but certain areas (quite a few these days) require you to be licensed by them before you can operate in that market, UK as a good example, you would need a UKGC license if you were to i) market to UK players, and ii) accept deposits from UK bank accounts (POWWWWW - you deposited from Skrill/Neteller I assume?) before you cna get a UKGC license you need a gaming license from somewhere, and Curacao license is fine. However because the regulations are stricter you will have a fair but of dilligence to go through, I'd say that right now Timex would have a hard time getting a UKGC license, 15-25 months squeeky clean trading down the line I imagine he'll have no problems.

Of course, the real nuts and bolts of all this is the TAX conditions, and that is what it all boils down to.

In regards to currency options, you cant have a company account in USD if your main license is in Curacao, you can have GBP but he can't accept bank deposits from UK bank accounts. Multi-currency costs money, sticking to EURO for now seems sensible.

From the outside, it looks to me like sensible business from Timex, he's got a pretty basic but workable website and a basic but legitimate gaming license. I don;t know if he's using an edited version of someone elses software or something he's made himself but no matter how much money you spend there is ALWAYS bugs, there is ALWAYS usability issues, for your first launch, unless you're a massive company getting a site out there that is easy enough on the eye and easy to use with as few bugs as possible is the goal. Start working straight away on your 2.0 version based on the bugs you find and the feedback from your customers.

Is it very basic, YES.
Is it kind of boring, YES.
Does it work reasonably soothly and simply, YES.

I would be happy with that, and I think going slow ad steady instead of going straight in for £250k software+£150k licenses on a project that is unproven and no gte to work is defo the way to go.


Part of the Curacao license is that you do everything possible to prevent players from Holland+N.A/FRANCE/USA from playing, so signing up from a different IP to your address is absolutely no problem....signing up form a dutch IP though is not something they should be allowing - have you been able to deposit?

Would the burden be on the customer breaking the t and c's and as such will have a problem withdrawing? Running the risk of losing not just your deposit but your winnings?

Great write up as well, explaining how things work, makes sense why he would choose this route.

This is what i thought. Also he must have told nobody if you did not know this was coming with your connections.

Unknowingly accepting business from a region where it is illegal is a defence, but usually the region in question contacts the company to remind them that they are committing a crime.  Also not gaf and freerolling customers is obviously a scumbag move.

Ah yeh I did

Curacao licence, same people that licenced lockpoker. Worthless tat.

Yeah, it's the site responsibility to make sure that every deposit and bet they take is legal, not the customers. In reality the sites are bothered only if a) it will affect their license (no customer is worth losing your license for) and b) if it causes you problems with your banking & merchant services.  The second is actually a pretty under-rated issue, as any company with any links to gaming sites engaging financially with companies in highly regulated jurisdictions (cough, america, cough) is going to find their banking activity under huge scrutiny and that's not always ideal...

For the most part though, if you're in the UK and depositing, betting, withdrawing etc and the site knows this they will just chug on merrily and claim ignorance as the repercussions of minor infringements are close to irrelevant, you'll just be told not to do this and be expected to show some measures you are taking to prevent it from happening.

Ultimate Bet had a Malta license...

The license has nothing to do with the security of your money in practice - yes they can force you to segregate player funds, which if you're on a poker site is very crucial, but kind of irrelevant for sports books (which is effectively what BoT is) it's not your deposits you're worried about because you can just deposit to exactly what you want for each bet, it's whether you're going to be paid when you win or not.

I'd say the fact that Timex is backing the project is worth a hell of a lot more than the license in this instance.

I agree and concede that regarding licensing. Just bitter........