UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

OK, so the forums are filled up with a load of posts from american citizens speculating/panicking about the law which passed(which I would be if the same thing went down in the UK, so fair enough).

But I thought I would start a thread non-US players. Does anybody have any usueful/important information about what the effects will be for us as online poker pros.

Obviously, this is a huge blow, since USA provides the majority of the poker market, so we will lose tons of fish, and games will be harder. But I was thinking more along the lones of how worried we should be that similar actions will take place in the future in the UK, for example.

As far as I see it, the UK, European, australian etc online poker is still pretty stable and there should be no MAJOR problems for us to continue making an income.

Comments/gossip appreciated??

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

You guys seem to be heading in the other direction. IIRC, i-gaming becomes legal and regulated in 2007 (with sites doing business in the UK having to register with the gov't).

The real question is will they allow you to gamble on the internet while wearing trainers? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

And yet are nancy short-bus politicians have sent us back into the stone age. Maybe we'll see you guys again in another lifetime. For now, our puritan leaders will lead us to the green pastures of absolute moral truth. THANK THE LORD

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

Yes, I'm glad I do not live in the USA, since poker is my income and I never want another job. Hopefully our government will never turn crazy and decide playing cards on the internet is a deadly sin and must be banned.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

I can see one benefit. On sites like VC, the fixed payout freerolls should have fewer players if the americans disappear.... Also sites like Ladbrokes which only accept European players could grow if some of the global sites fall.

I think the real issue here though is how this plays out in the public perception. Will the wife of a typical fish, who loses 100 quid a month, start to panic that her husband might be breaking the law because she's seen it on TV or read it in the Daily Mail... Will Mr. G.B. Fish stop playing?

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

I think online poker is very safe here in the UK. The government can see a big pile of cash coming their way from the sites they are going to licence soon. Gambling laws for B&M casino's have just been relaxed as Zele says we are going the other way. Anyway if a bill was introduced to parliament it would have to go through as one bill not be attached to another un-related bill as that type of thing in the UK would be classed as totaly un-democratic and would never be allowed. Infact I thought it was only Banana republics that allowed that sort of thing to go on.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

if online poker in the uk got banned I would be totally screwed. However thankfully we seem to be moving the other way, especially when the supercasinos come in, its gonna be a free-for-all and i just hope I have a large enough BR to play the largest games offered

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

From Australia here.

Our government is great when it comes to gambling. All legal and no tax. They pretty much turn a blind eye to offshore gambling. Heck, it's a free world/country/whatever. There are a number of Australian based, Australian licensed gambling firms as well.

My only concern is the effect this legislation will have on the juicyness of the games.

I just can't believe the hypocrisy that is the U S of A. All talk of freedom and liberty, and people can't even play poker........sheesh, it's a disgrace. Your government are a shameful organisation who do not care for you as citizens only for their own interests.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

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The government can see a big pile of cash coming their way from the sites they are going to licence soon.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are any sites planning on licencing though? I dont see why they would have, and even less likely too now.

They are licenced in Gibralter and dont have to pay taxes I cant see any reason why they would come back to the UK and pay taxes.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The government can see a big pile of cash coming their way from the sites they are going to licence soon.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are any sites planning on licencing though? I dont see why they would have, and even less likely too now.

They are licenced in Gibralter and dont have to pay taxes I cant see any reason why they would come back to the UK and pay taxes.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, the Party CEO was quoted just before the law passed saying that they were in discussions with the UK government and that the only issue was the "competitiveness" of the tax take.

This law makes it vital for Party to have the EU and UK onside as it is such a large chunk of their remaining market and only the EU can make progress for them via the WTO. They will pay the tax to ensure that the EU market remains open to them and to have the chance of getting back into the US. Having Gib or Antigua is not good enough for them in terms of consumer trust and political clout.

The UK has set the laws up pretty much how the respectable firms wanted (no kids etc etc)it would be a bit stoopid not to move into the safe harbour.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

I'm a european Pro too.
My guess is, that if you can afford to lose 50-80% of your winrate, you'll be fine.
Otherwise consider a Plan B.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

Which sites would you guys consider safe to have money on at this time? I'm from Sweden, been playing on Titan as of late, lots of fish there. But I have withdrawn my cash for now as they didn't give me a clear answer to my email on what they thought about the legislation and the affect it would have on them.
Do you think that there is any risk of any site going down/running away with your money?

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm a european Pro too.
My guess is, that if you can afford to lose 50-80% of your winrate, you'll be fine.
Otherwise consider a Plan B.

[/ QUOTE ]

50-80% is way too high in my opinion.

If you just played at party for the last 5 years then maybe you are worried but there are lots of sites and lots of european fish out there.

The only issue will be if there is a purely mass migration of US "sharks" onto the sites without the fish.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

[ QUOTE ]
I'm a european Pro too.
My guess is, that if you can afford to lose 50-80% of your winrate, you'll be fine.
Otherwise consider a Plan B.

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems that a good portion of the Americans on the popular European sites were multitabling TAGs or bonus whores. I anticipate that the games will stay the same, if not get better at the small-mid stakes levels.

The tight sites will be the Full Tilts and UBs, if they continue accepting US players. Party, Crypto, Tribeca, B2B should all remain decent sites, although it might be tougher to 8 table.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm a european Pro too.
My guess is, that if you can afford to lose 50-80% of your winrate, you'll be fine.
Otherwise consider a Plan B.

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems that a good portion of the Americans on the popular European sites were multitabling TAGs or bonus whores. I anticipate that the games will stay the same, if not get better at the small-mid stakes levels.

The tight sites will be the Full Tilts and UBs, if they continue accepting US players. Party, Crypto, Tribeca, B2B should all remain decent sites, although it might be tougher to 8 table.

[/ QUOTE ]

Enough US sharks will find loopholes to play at Party to make the games pretty dry, while the fish won't take the hurdles.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

The best players will still make money, this just hurts the players who only only won because they beat the average fish. I don't worry about still winning money, the quantity concerns me a bit.

Look at the bright side, the sunday tournaments will be less bingo =)

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

FWIW - I'm not a pro, but I do play low limits as a "second job"

Log onto a cryto, they've already barred the US players. Games still look fine to me, in fact if anything the 1/2 and 2/4 looks to be a little looser than it was last week!

Mat

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

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The best players will still make money, this just hurts the players who only only won because they beat the average fish. I don't worry about still winning money, the quantity concerns me a bit.

Look at the bright side, the sunday tournaments will be less bingo =)

[/ QUOTE ]
I never said the games will get unbeatable.

Over the last 80K hands I ran like 180$/h while 3-4 tabling and I am prepared to grind for like 40-90$/h for the the next few years to come. And I would be glad, if this even was guaranteed.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I'm a european Pro too.
My guess is, that if you can afford to lose 50-80% of your winrate, you'll be fine.
Otherwise consider a Plan B.

[/ QUOTE ]

It seems that a good portion of the Americans on the popular European sites were multitabling TAGs or bonus whores. I anticipate that the games will stay the same, if not get better at the small-mid stakes levels.

The tight sites will be the Full Tilts and UBs, if they continue accepting US players. Party, Crypto, Tribeca, B2B should all remain decent sites, although it might be tougher to 8 table.

[/ QUOTE ]

Enough US sharks will find loopholes to play at Party to make the games pretty dry, while the fish won't take the hurdles.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is the point, the US fish and n00bs will stop playing, the army of TAG Multi tablers will find a way around it.

Games will be dryer!

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

Not sure you won't have some other effects. France is actually also following the internet gaming is illegal line and arrested two Austrian executives from BWin. Italy I seem to recall has a state sponsored site and considers all others illegal. Asia is starting to pursue illegallizing internet gaming, especially China, which has the means to enforce it through their internet censorizing system, and has the secondary problem that there is limited credit card use. Canada has the a similiar situation to the US murky legality, which the government could choose to pursue, and the structure of the internet ISP address system may make it very difficult for companies to continue to accept customers from Canada. I hate to be the voice of doom, but some of the companies are not going to survive. They will have to cash out all their American customers, which will be an enormous drain, they all have current debt overhang, their business models are built on having the American market, and their current lenders are unlikely to have much tolerance for new loans to explotate markets of questionable legality. The biggest problem is how the financial markets will see this situation. Will the investment banking people still be willing to put money into internet gaming, even though some people will have lost alot of money. Usually when an industry takes a bath like this as a groups, (i.e., the tech crash), they can be if anything overcautious about reinvesting. I know there are some private equity firms, like the folks that bought Harrah's, that are looking for distressed industries they can buy up on the cheap, and they may buy up the industry on the cheap if they think there is still enough value in the financials. People will quickly put a premium price on the few European facing sites as buyout targets. A few will survive, there will be consolidation, and maybe some new smaller players with less debt overhang, but I don't think everyone will make it. You can check out the link for how the markets are reading it. Don't want to cause panic, but if anyone has a large alot of money in their account, I'd cash it and would suggest caution while it all sorts out. In the meanwhile, a site that is independantly owned, (no American equivalent), and has always only accepted Europeans is the safest if you need to keep a large balance. http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/finan...e09e&k=9340, http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pb...0/1003/BUSINESS
http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?156076
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...mbling-ON.html
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articleb...SURE-GAMING.xml

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

If the fish are gone most of the TAGs will go too. Average TAGs like me would try get real jobs with benefits instead of playing for the equvalent of poker minumun wage below $20/h. There will be an almost natural balance cause the sharks will starve without the fish to feed on.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

[ QUOTE ]
If the fish are gone most of the TAGs will go too. Average TAGs like me would try get real jobs with benefits instead of playing for the equvalent of poker minumun wage below $20/h. There will be an almost natural balance cause the sharks will starve without the fish to feed on.

[/ QUOTE ]
AKA the classic "foxes and rabbits" model.

Juk [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

"Look at the bright side, the sunday tournaments will be less bingo =)"

And hopefully moved to more sociable hours for Euro-players with jobs to go to on Monday.

For UK decent amateurs/semi-pros I think this may have a positive effect. There are going to be some great bonuses opening up as sites try to grab Euro market share, worldwide peak times of big MTT's may well switch to Europe and as 80% of my money comes from Crypto and B2B anyway (very few if any US fish) it isn't going to hurt me much for one..

This doesn't mean that the whole thing doesn't suck but unless you were a Party/Stars specialist I don't see why you would be personally concerned as a Euro-player.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

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...unless you were a Party/Stars specialist I don't see why you would be personally concerned as a Euro-player.

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Does that mean a Party/Stars specialist is not capable of beating other games. [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

LETS ALL PLAY THE MILLION DOLLAR GUARANTEE THE WEEK THE USAS KICKED OFF

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

The danger in Canada will arise only if Stephen Harper remains prime minister for the long-term. He's so pro-US that he's bound to have ideas about copying this new legislation.

There are several gaming software providers based in Canada, so that should help a little. And of course there is the Kahnawake Gaming Commission (a semi-autonomous Indian reserve) which licenses a bunch of these sites. I don't think the feds will go out of their way to piss these guys off.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

My understanding is that Canada was collatoral damage for the short term. Too technically difficult to pick out the Canadan ISPs from US. Could be wrong or too early.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

Well it means they might have to move out of their comfort zone - certainly different sites play very differently at the same level..they may also have to play different games or put up with much worse table selection unless they play something popular like $200 NL 6 max.

Lots of the US bonus whores complained about getting their butts kicked when they tried B2B despite being 'winning players at Party' for example.

Re: UK / Non-American Poker Pros
 

Article with possibility Canada will get knocked off-line discussed,

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Content...4&t=TS_Home