In the aftermath of Black Friday, Kristin Wilson saw a great opportunity and grabbed it. The native Floridian, ex pro surfer turned real-estate entrepreneur, embarked on a new adventure that would result in more or less constant travelling across the Americas and Europe - all in the name of online poker.
Poker Refugees has made it their business to offer poker players help to relocate to friendli[...] Read more » Poker Refugees: Crossing borders to get in the game!
Joined: Mar '11
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 55 (M)
Posts: 7371
Dont you find it strange that people are only allowed to play poker online in certain countries? I cannot see the reasoning behind it but i am glad i do not have to do it.Good luck
Joined: Mar '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 45 (F)
Posts: 2261
I think poker in other countries like France and Spain has stricter gambling regulations and other countries have tax laws which means you have to pay tax on winnings,I think Italians had to pay 20% of winnings. Obviously USA players had to move in order to play online but I notice on the televised poker tournaments there are lots of players who say they are based in London now. I remember when we in the UK had to pay tax every time we made a bet,either on your stake or your winnings so we're pretty lucky in England----for now.
Joined: May '13
Location: Mauritius
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 2688
Hmm nice read good article and a good photo, so read it all, well for tax purposes UK has huge tax too, i am doing a tax paper and you have up to 45 % as tax and for France i am not sure but I heard that have a lot of restrictions so before gambling and even winning you have to do lots of formalities and still has to pay tax if you win. So edge is reduced greatly!
Joined: Mar '12
Location: United Kingdom
Age: 45 (F)
Posts: 2261
In the UK you pay no tax on poker winnings. If you are a pro employed by a site and get paid to play in tourneys or are sponsored,ie-get an income from your poker playing from the site you will probably have some tax to pay.If you get a free seat or are paid a fee to play that is classed as income. If you enter a tourney and win there is no tax to pay. The 45% tax band is for high earners and the 45% applies to earnings over £150,000 but over 31k earnings still get 40% tax and 20% under 31k. Though if you live in the UK you will know that rich people in the UK don't pay much tax and if you are a big corporation you invite the HMRC to lunch and tell them what you are going to be pay.
Joined: May '08
Location: Lithuania
Age: 39 (M)
Posts: 10090
so her business is helping poker pro's to pay less tax from their winnings... nice idea, as long as she is able to present the data in front of the "pro" which can help to save him say 100K, she can easily charge 10K for her service...and she mentioned that she helped ~400 players already... that's 4mil in the pocket... the main problem i see here is that she doesn't help poker pro's to relocate to North Korea...
Joined: Sep '13
Location: Bosnia and Herzegovina
Age: 37 (M)
Posts: 1564
addicts just kidding, this is actually nice thing they are doing there.
And btw someone mentioned 20% vat or whatever on top of your regular rake... as if rake alone wasnt bad enough. If countries want 20% or whatever from online poker, they should collect it from rake, not from winnings.
and if they want 20% of winnings, we should be able to ask for 20% cashback from gov, when we are losing money? :o
Joined: Apr '11
Location: Romania
Age: 35 (M)
Posts: 6669
Interesting interview, i think for those that play poker just for fun they cannot imagine what major problems black friday caused to some poker players that lived out of poker...
I do not think this online poker ban trend will stop too soon but i hope that once US will have a clear law there will be more options.
Joined: Sep '12
Location: India
Age: 32 (M)
Posts: 335
Good day An interesting start up ... she had that spark of idea and used the situation very well .. an out of the box venture and she will become a successful entrepreneur indeed there are many tax heaven countries with very minimal or not so stringent rules and regulations .. so i feel the so called "poker refugees" can utilize it to keep their game going .
just kidding, this is actually nice thing they are doing there. 
there are many tax heaven countries with very minimal or not so stringent rules and regulations .. so i feel the so called "poker refugees" can utilize it to keep their game going .
