ITH Poker Forum

[lefty100]

If I remote logged-on to a PC in, say, Malaysia, and transferred funds from an account in, say, Panama would I be able to sign-up to Titan and other European (or Gibraltar) poker sites? Or is there an easier way? This is NOT to avoid reporting income or IRS obligations but to expand poker horizon. And would it be legal, assuming I reported income as required?

[nsidestrate]

I know some people who access sites via a proxy server when they would otherwise be banned from using them because they are US residents. The biggest problems are securing a matching address to IP (they generally both need to be from the same country) and providing ID that matches the address provided which could be required at any time, especially if you try to cash out.
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It is not more illegal than playing on Stars. Many people believe that it is not illegal to <span style="font-weight: bold">play</span> poker anywhere. Even if you believe it is illegal, it is extremely unlikely that you would ever face prosecution.

[toronexti]

Someone mentioned to me that the best way to do this would probably be over a VPN connection?

[nsidestrate]

The easiest way is to have someone you trust overseas where you can set up a machine and use their address (or even their identity if you aren't too concerned with qualifying for live tourneys). From there you can use a variety of virtualization techniques (Citrix-based terminal emulation stuff, VPN, SSH tunnels, proxy servers, etc).
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Alternatively, you could rent a Windows box through a hosting service and do the same thing, although there you run a higher risk of being detected if the overseas operator is actively trying to snoop out such things. I suspect most of them have no interest in catching you, since you will be paying for their service.

[lefty100]

My idea was to simply "own" a computer that was parked on a shelf in a friend's pantry in a foreign country. I would log-on to that computer and work remotely from its desktop using the software and apps therein. I looked up VPN on Wiki and found that there are a dozen "virtualization techniques"; e.g, with Remote Desktop Assistance software and such from MS that come canned with their professional grade operating systems. The easiest way seemed to be Virtual Network Computing (lVNC) for which there is lots of software (listed on Wiki) including Freeware. If the friend was trusted and no one else could log-on to the PC it would seem to be workable and safe. Thanks to both posters.
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nsidestrate, I don't know what Mark Twain would have thought about poker manuals, pot odds, probability and such, but he said there were three kinds of lies: "lies, damned lies, and statistics." Which could explain his problem with 2 pair.

[nsidestrate]

</span><table width="90%" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="3" border="0" align="center"><tr> <td><span class="genmed"><b>lefty100 wrote:</b></span></td> </tr> <tr> <td class="quote">nsidestrate, I don't know what Mark Twain would have thought about poker manuals, pot odds, probability and such, but he said there were three kinds of lies: "lies, damned lies, and statistics." Which could explain his problem with 2 pair.</td> </tr></table>
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It is a great line and Twain popularized it over here, but he wasn't the first to use it. The guy who usually gets the credit is Benjamin Disraeli, the English author/politician. That is who Twain assigned the quote to, but Disraeli actually never said it in print either. I'm not sure anyone knows who said it first. I love Twain, but he gets credit for a ton of things he never said or didn't say first. <a href="http://www.snopes.com/quotes/twain.asp" target="_blank" class="postlink">Snopes on bad Twain quotes</a>
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I think your plan is pretty sound, but just to be safe I'd be careful to keep my balances low enough that it wouldn't kill you to lose them.

[lefty100]

Mark Twain was a great story teller/raconteur and no doubt used any material he could find. I've also seen the "lies" bit used with different punch lines: lies, damned lies, and politics.
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I also think the remote PC should be OK, although the idea of so much data flying through the ether, encrypted or not, is a bit scary. The banking does worry me. With the G20 summits on bank secrecy and with banks worldwide (with no FDIC equivalent) jumping off of cliffs left and right, I will look into offshore banking carefully. All is months away.

[nsidestrate]

You also need to be careful with the dollar volume. Once you have more than $10,000 offshore you have to report it to the IRS via a special form. This is an area of renewed focus by the feds and the penalties for not filing are very high.

[lefty100]

yeah, CTRs. I played high stakes BJ for years. I wore out on BJ and on Las Vegas in about 2002, but up until then there were CTR info pamphlets on the counters of cashiers cages in places like MGM and Bellagio. Cashiers would even warn you that "it's your choice, but you could wait until after midnight to cash out the rest of those chips." Regrettably I have not had that dilemma in playing Hold'em so far. In accordance with statistics that could happen any day now or never.

[lefty100]

oh, I think you mean that other form. I don't remember the number of it, but I think you mean the one wherein you must advise the T-men of ANY foreign account of over 10k at the end of the tax year. I think you have until June or July of the following year to report that. But it's yet something else to learn about.