What is your definition of Regulation?

[Richas]

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We already pay taxes.The real crush of regulation would be on the sites.Those are the ones who are not paying taxes,not the players.Although,this taxing of poker sites could effect us as well,by companies who try to pass their new burden to players through higher rake.Free market would hopefully control this to an extent.At least this would seem logical.How exactly does it work in other countries where it is regulated and sites are taxed???If someone who lives somewhere like this could chime in and explain the actual effects that would be great.It is a very interesting question,and id like to hear from someone who is living it,what the reality of playing online poker under government regulation is.

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The situation in the UK is like this. The betting shops (William Hill, Ladbrokes etc) pay a 15% levy of their take to the taxman, this is on top of their normal corporation tax etc. This replaced a 9% tax on all bets (you could pay it placing a bet or lose it from your winnings, this was the only UK tax on gambling winnings). The bookies agreed to this deal a few years back and have since concentrated on upping their revenues via electronic terminals in shops etc so that both the bookies and the taxman get more - as a result of an increase in gambling. The punters are happy as they feel 9% better off and given the competition of betting exchanges the bookies have not been able to fix the book by anything like 9%.

In Gibraltar/Antigua etc it is a bit less clear as they don't talk about it but the scuttle but is that taxes are about 1% of revenues. The UK gov is yet to outline what tax regime they would have for dedicated online operations, they would like 15% as this way it matches the B&M operations but it's unlikely anyone would come onshore at this rate. The problem for the UK is if they set a lower rate the local firms will go "Oi, what about us" and the treasury wants the money. It's likely they will need an online/B&M difference but this would make all the bookies try and push all the punters online.

Anyway the conference was not just about regulation it was also about taxation. They will not admit it but the 32 governments were trying to get a cartel where they all agreed a minimum tax take. Gib/Antigua may not be keen to lose their competitive advantage but today's press with gov ministers putting pressure on the Treasury by talking about nobody coming onshore suggests they made progress but not near 15%.

My guess 5% and an agreement to work on joint regulation so that a licence in 1 country can be ported to another for a fee and a cut of the 5% on revenues from that market. This is just a guess though, the negotiations will be long.

In short though the tax on the companies should not really hit the rake or the punter much, it is likely to hit the house margin in a competitive market. We all know they are making superprofits today, the market will push the rake down and because only authorised sites will be allowed to advertise the real market will be of regulated sites.