Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

How many of you non-US guys has this happened to: you make a deposit from your bank and the exchange rate used to change from your local currency (mine is pounds sterling) to US$ is lower than the actual. Then you find some easy games to play and you play better than your opponents but have some bad luck, either bad beats or a long cold run of cards, and finish with about 5% up on your original US dollar amount. Then you cash out back to your local currency. When it arrives in your account you find it's less than what you originally put in. Although you "won" you actually lost.

As far as I can tell most poker sites do this, and if you are playing middle or high stakes games this hit with the exchange rate could actually be higher than the actual rate!! I know that at party they can send you a cheque in US dollars but my local bank then charges me an unfair exchange rate when I deposit it.

What is the law on how much poker sites are allowed to alter the exchange rates to screw us out of our money? Have you got any tips on how to minimise these extra fees? Thanks.

Re: Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

Always leave enough in the site or in neteller to go through some variance.

Re: Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

I have also noticed this however i never really get to fussed about it. I just allow a fraction more for any transaction coz i know i get less

Re: Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

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Always leave enough in the site or in neteller to go through some variance.

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You still get owned at 1.9% uncapped when you decide to cash out from neteller... The stupid thing would be to convert money in an out constantly and that can be avoided but you can't really avoid cashing out (as a winning player)

Re: Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

No,but thats what I meant.To avoid deposting/cashing out/depositing.Just always make sure you leave plenty to handle downswings.

There is no way to avoid the exchange rates unless you don't exchange ever.You could have a dollar account in the UK and wait for a favourable exchange rate.

Re: Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

Have Neteller or the site send you a cheque in USD and then take that cheque to the bank. This should help alleviate some of the exchange. Also, you lose less if you do it less often.

Re: Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

Yes I don't cash out often because of this, but sometimes there's a good bonus offer on another site and nothing on the one my money is currently in, so if I'm short of cash I have no choice but to cash out.

I've read that the US dollar is in a bad way at the moment, if that's true then it's currently I good time to put money into a new site and a bad time to cash out.

Re: Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

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How many of you non-US guys has this happened to: you make a deposit from your bank and the exchange rate used to change from your local currency (mine is pounds sterling) to US$ is lower than the actual. Then you find some easy games to play and you play better than your opponents but have some bad luck, either bad beats or a long cold run of cards, and finish with about 5% up on your original US dollar amount. Then you cash out back to your local currency. When it arrives in your account you find it's less than what you originally put in. Although you "won" you actually lost.

As far as I can tell most poker sites do this, and if you are playing middle or high stakes games this hit with the exchange rate could actually be higher than the actual rate!! I know that at party they can send you a cheque in US dollars but my local bank then charges me an unfair exchange rate when I deposit it.

What is the law on how much poker sites are allowed to alter the exchange rates to screw us out of our money? Have you got any tips on how to minimise these extra fees? Thanks.

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Do you think this is any different to what banks/travel agents do to you when you exchange foreign currency?

Unfortuately, getting screwed on exchanging money is not exclusive to poker sites.

Sheriff

Re: Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

Try and cash out through Party - very good exchange rate.

Re: Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

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Always leave enough in the site or in neteller to go through some variance.

[/ QUOTE ]

You still get owned at 1.9% uncapped when you decide to cash out from neteller... The stupid thing would be to convert money in an out constantly and that can be avoided but you can't really avoid cashing out (as a winning player)

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If you use a debit card, Neteller first convets your $US to $CAN (charging you 1.9%) then when you withdraw, they convert the $CAN to whatever currency you are withdrawing to (charging you 1.9% again).

If you get a cheque from Neteller, any bank that is not US eller Can based will charge an unreasonable amount of money to clear it.

In other words, there is no way out....

Re: Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

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What is the law on how much poker sites are allowed to alter the exchange rates to screw us out of our money? Have you got any tips on how to minimise these extra fees? Thanks.

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Theoretically they could charge you what they like, however they don't charge you anything it is your credit card company that applies the fee.

Example you deposit $100 on Pokersite; the Pokersite receives $100 less the fee they pay to the credit card processor. The creditcard processor charges your bank $100; your bank then converts the $100 to GBP plus the commission percentage added on that will be stated somewhere in your Terms and Conditions.

The exact same applies the other way round. For instance most UK banks charge between 2-2.5%, however as you may recall from Nationwide advertising they don't presently charge a "tip" for foreign exchange!

If you want to bonus whore then my advice to you would be to open a NETeller account, but make sure that you open it in USD [1] so that when you cashout of site A you can then redeposit into site B.

Good luck!

John

[1] If you set your NETeller in GBP then you get charged 1.9% by NETeller every time you deposit or withdraw funds to NETeller. If you set up in USD then you only get charged the 1.9% when you fund NETeller by internet banking. Trust me when I say you are better off only paying the fee once if you plan on being a BW

Re: Exchange Rates: The Stealth Rake
 

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How many of you non-US guys has this happened to: you make a deposit from your bank and the exchange rate used to change from your local currency (mine is pounds sterling) to US$ is lower than the actual.

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Define "actual". The rate you see on cnnfn.com or in the Wall Street Journal or the London Financial Times is an institutional rate, for trades of millions of dollars. You cannot expect to get that rate on an exchange of mere hundreds or even thousands. (How do you think Thomas Cook makes its money, anyway?)

Also, the single number you see is also the midpoint between the buy and sell rates, which are usually a couple points distant from each other. Even if you were to go to your BANK and trade dollars for pounds, and then trade those pounds back for dollars, you'd lose several points on the combined trades.

Thus, take the number you see in the media, and lop off about 3-4% against you (no matter whether you're buying or selling) for a fair market rate of exchange.

The also figure that the online sites and eWallets like NETeller aren't currency markets. The number in the paper changes daily. The rate at online sites likely does not.

Jester