New UK Legislation

[Doobs]

Don't think Party are going, was under impression they successfully applied for a licence?

The French sites obv a big loss, playing on stars.uk should be no different though assuming the cuts to rakeback aren't too drastic.

I read on 2 plus 2 that the cut for supernova in other similar countries was only about 10%, so you get 33% instead of 37% rakeback.  So it isn't as bad as I feared.  

[Ant040689]

Thanks for clarifying guys.

So no poker site closures aside from the french facing ones?

[doubleup]

A few skins will prob go I'd think.  But it's difficult to know what's going on - you have to look up ElectraWorks Limited to find Party.  So although Rational is there for Stars, it looks like firms are using separate companies for UK licensing (which seems a bit odd as they wouldn't pay any tax on a Brazilian playing on the UK license).  I can only imagine that its to get around the grey market issue. 

[cambridgealex]

So if I was to rent a property in France, get a French bank account and utility bill and say to winamax / .fr "hey I live in France now" , I would be allowed to play on their sites? Even tho my passport is british I and I opened my account in the UK?

Just trying to work out how to get round it. And it seems every question is not really answered in a way that furthers my understanding much!

[doubleup]

Def - if you live in France you can play on .fr  

edit - in fact you MUST play on .fr

[Ant040689]

Sorry for furthering more, but what if you have a property, in say, Ireland, that you rent and pay a utility bill and so on, but you effectively do not live there, and still stay in your second residence in the UK. Would you be free to play on the French sites all year round from the UK?

Of course you have changed all of the addresses on the poker sites to your residence in Ireland.

[Doobs]

So if I was to rent a property in France, get a French bank account and utility bill and say to winamax / .fr "hey I live in France now" , I would be allowed to play on their sites? Even tho my passport is british I and I opened my account in the UK?

Just trying to work out how to get round it. And it seems every question is not really answered in a way that furthers my understanding much!

Might just run that by the wife.  Fancy selling the house and moving the kids to French schools so I can play poker withe French people.  Sure will go down well.  She gets grouchy about me climbing the stairs to play poker.

Would love to be young enough to take that step or go to Barcelona to play.  I really can't see any reason why you can't just prove residence in France and play.  But having said that companies effectively getting double taxed for operating in France and selling to UK customers wouldn't be something I'd expect either. 

[doubleup]

To Ant040689

If we start from the position that you are an Irish stars player.  So from Ireland (at the moment - I believe they have plans as well) you can play .com and .fr.

So you come over to the UK and Stars pick this up and have a problem.  As an apparent Irish resident you won't be eligible to the UK tax, so you won't play on .uk, but the big question is how have stars organised their corporate affairs.  If I had to put money on it, I'd guess that .uk is a separate company and effectively a skin of .com and the UKGC license only applies to that .uk skin.  If that is the case, then .com .fr simply won't have a license to provide poker in the UK, so they won't allow you to play. 

[Ant040689]

To Ant040689

If we start from the position that you are an Irish stars player.  So from Ireland (at the moment - I believe they have plans as well) you can play .com and .fr.

So you come over to the UK and Stars pick this up and have a problem.  As an apparent Irish resident you won't be eligible to the UK tax, so you won't play on .uk, but the big question is how have stars organised their corporate affairs.  If I had to put money on it, I'd guess that .uk is a separate company and effectively a skin of .com and the UKGC license only applies to that .uk skin.  If that is the case, then .com .fr simply won't have a license to provide poker in the UK, so they won't allow you to play. 

Bleurgh to Ireland also having plans on legislation.

Ty for the explanation. Seems it's best to let the dust settle before seeing whats what.

[DMorgan]

At the moment yeah that would be fine, but stars is pretty lax on how much time you actually spend in the country that your account is registered from.

One problem that may come up is verification for withdrawls etc, sites can ask for that whenever but most need a utility bill/bank statement that is dated in the last 3 months so you need to be able to pick up post etc from the address that your account is registered to.

The UK players in Budapest have a sweat with the new regulations here. Some sites are blocked already here (mainly UK bookies) but more are being added to the list including Pokerstars, effective in just over a week. Best case scenario the sites aren't blocked and we can all get Hungarian bank accounts and register our accounts in Hungary, worst case it all gets blocked and we're looking for a new city for next summer.

[pleno1]

will real money transfers be effected?

[DMorgan]

Can't see why they would be. All of these moves are to make it easy for the UKGC to see stars' UK activities and tax them, but its a tax on the rake box not on the players so money leaving and entering the system shouldn't be affected. They mentioned the removal of auto rebuy in the press release, I'd imagine if there were changes to something as big as player transfers that would have been in the press release, or at least some allusion to it

[pleno1]

you cant for example transfer to players on stars.bg/be etc afaik

[AndrewT]

Anyone who currently makes a living from online poker really needs an exit strategy - their income stream is too vulnerable to external events.

[tikay]

will real money transfers be effected?

I am only guessing, I have no idea, but I think it highly unlikely the UK version will allow money transfers "cross-juristiction".

Whilst we all know that, for the most part, these Transfers are legit, the GC would be concerned at the possibilities it gives to potential money-laundering. Two way street, that, the GC would be equally concerned whether that dirty money was inbound or outbound, as they have no traceability.

However, I have no info on that at all, it's just a pure guess.