A Taxing debate

[AlunB]

I know the guys from betfred, bet365, willhill very very well from my time in Gibraltar and hats exactly the kind of stuff they will be doing. I'd guess that somebody form each of the above logs on t blonde every day.

The poker reps maybe (Is Vali still at WH btw? Top bloke) but doubtful the sports guys. The poker industry is so much smaller than we all think and it's a minnow compared to sports betting and horse racing. I imagine Tikay and co get the table right at the back near the toilets at the SkyBet Xmas do.

Lol, right on both counts Mr C.

Compared to Sports Betting, Poker is positively tiny.

Globally, the amount wagered on all Online gaming is absolutely huge. The Internet caught everyone off guard, & regulation - not just gaming, everything, especially legal areas such as defamatory comments, & "libel" generally - have not been policed or Regulated because they fall outside the structure of tradition legal jurisdictions. They have to be Regulated.  We've had 10 or 20 years of freedom, but it ain't been all good.

It'll take a while to get right, & upset a lot of people, & even harm some, which is regrettable, but it has to be done. You just can't have a multi trillion business unregulated. (Or multi billion in the case of Online Poker).

Call

[tikay]

I mean at a time where governments are doing lots of negative stuff to the industry I'm sure their experts are swooping around forums etc, do we need to have a huge debate in here. Maybe best to say nothing kind of thing.

Ahh, gotcha. You typed "taxi debate" which sort of curve-balled me, sorry.

I think you are being a shade paranoid here & I don't agree that it is unwise to discuss this.

I can't imagine that anything written on a two bit poker forum will change how Governments think. It'll be on others forums, too. We can't really censure or ban such a debate because we think it might be bad for us.

Some folks believe that we should not discuss Bookmakers tactics on Fred, as they think the bookies spend all day surfing blonde in case someone gets £10 @ 5/1 on a 4/1 shot. I don't buy that either, not for a second. The bigger bookies are taking bets via automated software processes, in the run up to big events they are taking thousands of "BPM" ("Bets Per Minute"). The notion that they have a little man sitting there, spying on blonde, can't be serious.

Same with the UK Government, or the Tax people, they have better things to do than read every UK "specialist" forum.

For the record, I think regulation, broadly speaking, is not only very necessary & overdue, I think it is a good thing.

I do regret that some players will be inconvenienced, &/or negatively impacted, but it is what it is, it is needed.

How come a "major" bookmaker asked Blonde to delete one of my posts then?

Very good.

Well they sponsored blonde at the time, so that may have had a bearing on matters. Bookies sure as hell don't have hordes of staff monitoring forums. 

   

I doubt they monitor TFT, but some sure as hell have Google alerts for their company name switched on.

Far too much of a coincidence that a "stale" price is flagged up on blonde that has been there for days and is chopped within minutes of appearing in the thread.

Maybe not all bookies, but some for absolute certain.

EVERY bookie, in fact every business, has google alerts.

Can you imagine how many google alerts, say, Wm Hill get in an average day? 20,000? 50,000? Not sure I buy that some poor chap reads all of those within seconds of them appearing. For starters, there is some time lag before google alerts even reports them.

If a stale price suddenly gets action, especially in a thin market, the bookies software ought to insta flag it up.   

[tikay]

I know the guys from betfred, bet365, willhill very very well from my time in Gibraltar and hats exactly the kind of stuff they will be doing. I'd guess that somebody form each of the above logs on t blonde every day.

The poker reps maybe (Is Vali still at WH btw? Top bloke) but doubtful the sports guys. The poker industry is so much smaller than we all think and it's a minnow compared to sports betting and horse racing. I imagine Tikay and co get the table right at the back near the toilets at the SkyBet Xmas do.

Lol, right on both counts Mr C.

Compared to Sports Betting, Poker is positively tiny.

Globally, the amount wagered on all Online gaming is absolutely huge. The Internet caught everyone off guard, & regulation - not just gaming, everything, especially legal areas such as defamatory comments, & "libel" generally - have not been policed or Regulated because they fall outside the structure of tradition legal jurisdictions. They have to be Regulated.  We've had 10 or 20 years of freedom, but it ain't been all good.

It'll take a while to get right, & upset a lot of people, & even harm some, which is regrettable, but it has to be done. You just can't have a multi trillion business unregulated. (Or multi billion in the case of Online Poker).

Call

If you are suggesting the global Online Gaming market is less than a trillion (& to be fair, you'd likely know that far better than me) I'd be very surprised. Then again, I'm not exactly sure what a trillion is.

[AlunB]

If you mean turnover, as in all the money bet in the world endlessly recycled, then maybe it might get close to a trillion.

But most estimates of global industry have revenues at around $40bn annually, which I personally think is a bit toppy.

For example PokerStars annual revenue is around $1bn, which makes the global poker industry approx $2bn using a pretty crude estimate. Most of the 'expert' data people have it at around $4-5bn so not sure where they are finding the rest of the revenue, unless they know something pokerscout doesn't.

[tikay]

If you mean turnover, as in all the money bet in the world endlessly recycled, then maybe it might get close to a trillion.

But most estimates of global industry have revenues at around $40bn annually, which I personally think is a bit toppy.

For example PokerStars annual revenue is around $1bn, which makes the global poker industry approx $2bn using a pretty crude estimate. Most of the 'expert' data people have it at around $4-5bn so not sure where they are finding the rest of the revenue, unless they know something pokerscout doesn't.

Well that's an odd one, because as you know, one player can take a tenner & end up with a turnover of £100 or more in a day, very easily. So the bloke spent £10 but the turnover was £100.

[AlunB]

If you mean turnover, as in all the money bet in the world endlessly recycled, then maybe it might get close to a trillion.

But most estimates of global industry have revenues at around $40bn annually, which I personally think is a bit toppy.

For example PokerStars annual revenue is around $1bn, which makes the global poker industry approx $2bn using a pretty crude estimate. Most of the 'expert' data people have it at around $4-5bn so not sure where they are finding the rest of the revenue, unless they know something pokerscout doesn't.

Well that's an odd one, because as you know, one player can take a tenner & end up with a turnover of £100 or more in a day, very easily. So the bloke spent £10 but the turnover was £100.

Yeah it's a bit of a nonsense metric and is only used by people looking for a dramatic headline.

bet365 had a turnover well north of £20bn last year, but "only" posted revenues of £1.3bn for the same period.

In other words they only actually turned over £1.3bn in a real sense. The rest was just money working its way around the system as a theoretical concept before it dropped into anyone's bank account.

[pleno1]

No the poker guys are mainly useless there as we know but there betting teams are much bigger, think you'd be surprised by some of the "smaller" stuff they do or even pay others to do.

[DMorgan]

Surely taxing any system that allows play across borders that include the ability to offset losses are easily worked around. You'd just dump all your profits to your mate in Amsterdam and take a long weekend picking up your cash every month

[AlunB]

Surely taxing any system that allows play across borders that include the ability to offset losses are easily worked around. You'd just dump all your profits to your mate in Amsterdam and take a long weekend picking up your cash every month

It's interesting quite a few people had adopted the, if the law moves against you move against the law approach.

Do you think most poker pros would rather resort to borderline criminality than simply pay tax?

[pleno1]

Surely taxing any system that allows play across borders that include the ability to offset losses are easily worked around. You'd just dump all your profits to your mate in Amsterdam and take a long weekend picking up your cash every month

It's interesting quite a few people had adopted the, if the law moves against you move against the law approach.

Do you think most poker pros would rather resort to borderline criminality than simply pay tax?

yes.

[arbboy]

borderline criminality is a bit over the top surely?  Moving to another country you are 100% legally entitled to under EU law to reduce your expenses as a business is hardly 'borderline criminality'.

[pleno1]

he spoke about chipdumping

[The Camel]

Surely taxing any system that allows play across borders that include the ability to offset losses are easily worked around. You'd just dump all your profits to your mate in Amsterdam and take a long weekend picking up your cash every month

It's interesting quite a few people had adopted the, if the law moves against you move against the law approach.

Do you think most poker pros would rather resort to borderline criminality than simply pay tax?

yes.

Have you no social responsibility?

Why shouldn't you pay tax?

Everyone else does.

[arbboy]

Surely taxing any system that allows play across borders that include the ability to offset losses are easily worked around. You'd just dump all your profits to your mate in Amsterdam and take a long weekend picking up your cash every month

It's interesting quite a few people had adopted the, if the law moves against you move against the law approach.

Do you think most poker pros would rather resort to borderline criminality than simply pay tax?

yes.

Have you no social responsibility?

Why shouldn't you pay tax?

Everyone else does.

Thousands of people on benefits too lazy to work with children don't pay any income tax (even though they 'earn' way above the personal tax allowances in benefits in some cases having effective gross incomes of £60/70k pa if you gross up the net value of their benefits) should they not feel an even bigger social responsibility as they have children/keep having children whilst on benefits who are a much bigger drain on the system than poker players who take very little, if anything out of the social security till, and are usually single?

I am not looking for a ruck here but there are possibly millions of people in the UK who don't pay income tax and another several more million who pay very little if they do.  The main reason i choose to become a professional gambler was the tax advantage of being legally allowed to do it.  There are not many other upsides and plenty of downsides as listed before.  If in 2005 i would have been taxed on it in line with any other job i would have probably chosen to have stayed in paid employment tbh.

[doubleup]

Surely taxing any system that allows play across borders that include the ability to offset losses are easily worked around. You'd just dump all your profits to your mate in Amsterdam and take a long weekend picking up your cash every month

It's interesting quite a few people had adopted the, if the law moves against you move against the law approach.

Do you think most poker pros would rather resort to borderline criminality than simply pay tax?

yes.

Have you no social responsibility?

Why shouldn't you pay tax?

Everyone else does.

If I was a young person in Europe today I would have absolutely zero social responsibility.  Ridiculous house prices, massive youth unemployment caused by austerity to protect the wealth of the rich, propping up the banks for the same reason.  I couldn't possible criticise someone who decided to look after themself.