Joined: Mar '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 45 (F)
Posts: 2261
A few days ago I noticed that I was no longer allowed to play poker,I thought this was probably due to the new UK gambling terms and this was confirmed in an email. As I opened this account through BankrollMob I thought I would let any UK players see the Email I received.
Thank you for contacting us.
Please note that due to license restrictions, players from the UK can only join our Casino and Games section. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to place sports bets and the poker section has also been disabled.
Kindly be advised that we will not be transferring the funds to the main account, you will still be able to log into your poker account and to request a withdrawal normally.
We wish you lots of fun and success with mybet.
If you should have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us per email or telephone.
Best regards, Sven Voss mybet Customer Support
Mybet did not contact me to tell me this prior to the change so if you have money in your account it is probably time to withdraw.
Joined: May '13
Location: Mauritius
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 2688
Yeah sad the gambling laws sucks in UK they regulated it so people could play now you cannot , it is like America where you could play poker before where you could play but due to law people lost money and so on and you cannot play poker in the US, if US had controlled over gambling they would have made a lot of money just like UK did in taxes on gambling and so on. Anyway good luck if you in the UK and hope you get to play poker in other site!
Joined: May '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 2064
Posted by klash23: Please note that due to license restrictions, players from the UK can only join our Casino and Games section. Unfortunately, you are not allowed to place sports bets and the poker section has also been disabled.
Joined: Mar '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 45 (F)
Posts: 2261
I know yout,I thought that also. The poker software is ipoker which is the same as William Hill,Coral and Paddy Power and lots more that are quite happy for UK players to play so I don't really know why MyBet is any different.The main owner is a massive German firm so it's not really a dodgy site,maybe they just didn't want to pay 15% tax on poker profits but slots and casino obviously make big profits. At least UK players still pay no tax on gambling......Yet.
Joined: May '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 2064
Well, we kind of do now with poker... not direct tax - but the reduction in VPP is a kind of tax.
Mentioned it a few times before in other threads, but the UK will never make gambling winnings taxable... don't want to bore you with the tax laws, but basically if a profit of something is taxable, a loss has to be tax deductible. So the government would lose millions paying tax refunds to donks, while smart, winning players find a way to hide their winnings and avoid tax
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Greece
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 14136
Well here you are wrong yout85. Who told you that they would follow your way of thinking if they wanted to tax gambling lol. It is very simple (and you can say that i am talking from experience ), they are taxing only your winnings. Just like that. One easy way.
Joined: Feb '13
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 2372
Out of interest yout, I am assuming the technically could, by changing the law with regards to taxes. My question is, of they can do that, how many laws would they have to change?
Joined: May '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 2064
Well the point is that they (the government) really don't have to. Gambling companies are heavily legislated in the UK - So instead of the players paying tax on their winnings, the companies themselves pay huge fees for gambling licences. This is why all Poker sites used to be based in places such as Malta that don't require licences. The government were aware they were missing out on tax revenue, but also knew that collecting the correct amount of tax from the players would be very difficult at best, and impossible at worst.
So instead they changed the gambling licencing laws, rather than the tax laws to say that all people gambling while resident in the UK, must be doing so through a company that holds a UK licence. This is why companies such as PokerStars were forced to make Pokerstars.co.uk - at a substantial cost to them, which they then pass on to the players by way of reduced FPP.
They COULD change the tax laws on poker, by classifying it as a sport and then any profits made from it would be subject to tax. But then that would cause many more problems. Not only would they not be able to charge companies for licences, but any player that also ran a business of any kind, or was self employed, would be able to set the losses from poker off against their company profits, drastically reducing the UK's tax revenue.
The poker sites operating in the UK now, will pay tax on their profits (rake) like any other company has to do - the majority at 40% as they earn substantially more than the £10,000 free pay limit... But for individual players, if someone ran a company at a profit of £15,000 and made £5,000 losses at poker, their tax bill would be zero... while if at the same time someone who was signing on and collecting £4,000 in jobseeker's allowance made profits of £5,000, they would still fall below the tax free pay limit and wouldn't have a tax bill.
If the same two people both made £20,000 in profit (company owner) and £20,000 in losses (jobseeker) respectively, then the company owner would pay tax on the £25,000 over the free pay limit at 20% so would pay £5,000 in tax, but the jobseeker would not receive a refund as they wouldn't have paid any tax at source. So the government could want to implement something like this as they would increase their tax revenue.
The problem being though, that then the government would have to take a gamble itself, on the hope that people winning were earning more money through work than the one's losing (as if it were the jobseeker winning £20k rather than the business owner, they would only pay £2,800 in tax - 20% of everything over £10,000)... so it far from guarantees increased tax revenue.
The way it is they know they will be receiving 40% of the company's profits and collect the licence fee... whereas if they taxed the players, the company would move abroad to a tax haven and the government would lose the guaranteed revenue from them... and only collect tax from players earning more than £10,000 a year.
It's totally and utterly not in their interests, and therefore will never happen.
Hope I've explained that well... and sorry if you fell asleep half way though
Joined: Jan '13
Location: Philippines
Age: 57 (F)
Posts: 857
yes.helllo.good day to every each and every one of you.probably it is because of tax.like someone is demanding for a return that never think for many years.omg i think we cant no longer live if we dont pay tax .monster people search money fora reason of bussiness and we civilians are most affected and punished for every law they wanted to think
Joined: Mar '09
Location: Greece
Age: 47 (F)
Posts: 14136
You have just described the current scenery here. But i think you are missing something. Politicians just dont care about a single thing and if they found a new way of earning more money, they will pass a new law in just one day. And the complexity of getting the taxes never was, is, or will be an issue. Not in UK or all over the planet
Joined: May '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 38 (M)
Posts: 2064
I understand where you are coming from mober, and in a way you are right... but in another (more accurate) way ....you are wrong.
Yes, they COULD tax players on winnings, but then they would have no right to insist on companies being based in the UK, as it would be classed as a profession, and as such would be covered be EU regulations that we have no control over. There has to be an "open workplace" so companies such as Pokerstars would move abroad and the UK government would lose out on their profit's tax, and their gambling licences.... the amount collected from winning players would be a drop in the ocean compared to what they get from Pokerstars.
In Greece, I believe they do tax players on winnings, but then none of the sites are based in Greece, so they are not collecting tax from the companies.
....you are wrong.
