fwiw these plans are horrible I had looked into them. You pay the full bill+international addons and get 100 text messages, 500 or 1000 minutes and the data is essentially unusable in Canada.

Yes, but you keep the same phone number. Obviously convenience has a price.

I have 1 left, lowering price to $500.

I want to move to Canada just long enough to get my Stars account re-opened and then travel around to various other places and continuing playing on Stars. Does anyone have any advice pertaining to this plan?

Will I have any trouble with Stars re-locking my account if I'm registered in Canada but playing from Hong Kong, Malta, wherever?

How much time do I need to budget in Canada to get my account re-opened?

Ike I think I would plan on staying there a month. Because wherever you stay in Canada will be a short term lease, I'd make sure to clearly explain your plan to stars. They generally want to see a long term lease. I planned on staying in Vancouver for 2months only then moving to Mexico and they were fine with it. However it did take them like two weeks to verify my account.

Afaik there's nothing stopping you from playing in other countries. However I also think stars only allows you to cash out while you are physically in the country your account is registered to. So you would have to travel back to Canada to make a withdrawal. I have no idea if that rule applies to large player transfers though

In my experience it only took about 5 days to get my account unlocked after submitting my lease, canadian bank account and internet utility bill and that was the first week of September when I'd assume there was a high volume of these change of address requests for WCOOP.

You shouldn't have any problem traveling and playing while you still have an active lease in Canada. We have yet to see how Stars would handle an active account with no real home address once your lease is up that is playing abroad. Technically you should inform Stars as soon as lease is up I guess if you don't have a permanent residence I'm not sure how they'd handle that.

Also, I can let people know how Stars will handle larger player transfers from outside your country of residence later this week from the PCA. I doubt there will be any issue though.

I got approved with a 2.5 month lease. Someone I know got denied going for a 2 month lease. I'm not sure if there is a minimum lease length they want to see, but they will at least want an explanation of what you are doing after that time, and then my impression is that it is a manager's call.

The lease I sent to Pokerstars was only for one month and they didn't have a problem with it or require more explanation.

I just cashed out via Echeck ($2650 CAD) to my CAD bank account from Mexico. It's my first withdrawal outside of Canada, my country of "residence", and it was approved within about 6 hours.

Do all Canadian banks allow echeck deposits/withdrawals? If not, which bank do you recommend to go with. thx

As far as I know, yes. As long as you have a routing # and account #, I don't see why not.

I live outside of Detroit, about 20 minutes from the Windsor, CA border. Ideally I would like to rent a place in Windsor, get set up on the sites, and go back and forth frequently, playing only while in CA.
It would be obvious to border that I was not trying to stay in country illegally, since I live so close. One thought I had was to claim that I was dating a girl in CA - sure I could find someone to back up this story - which would easily explain frequent visits and short (several days or so) stays and returns. Or how about "Im going to gamble at casino windsor"?
Would appreciate any feedback/suggestions . . . .
Thanks!

Don't lie to them...they will call your "gf"

I mean if I was fortunate enough to have your situation, I would just rent an office space in Windsor and drive back and forth every day. You don't need any sort of paperwork and you'll see the border agents day after day who will get used to talking to you.

And if you're not doing anything illegal, why lie in the first place?

I would certainly be happy to do that, but from what I am hearing and reading, the more frequently you come and go the more questions you will get . . . and as I understand it the response of "well i'm just going back and forth every day to play on line poker" will not be considered sufficient.

I thought there were people that commuted daily both ways for jobs - couldn't you say it is work related?

they will almost certainly call your non existant employer and/or those people may have special passes to get across border easily. DON'T LIE is the key here. No upside, a lot of downside (being banned from Canada)

basically if the average person might see your schedule and think "drug dealer" you probably don't want to use it when running into border agents.

frequent crossings with out a clear documented purpose that can be verified by other people is a great way to get yourself a lot of attention and kicked out at the border. Our relatively wide open border crossing with Canada is mostly due to people not abusing it for stuff like this, which they really don't want. It might be legal but they don't have to allow it and likely aren't going to like it.

Again, they'll have absolutely no problem with you if you're a familiar face. The reason people have been worried about going to Canada is that you have to make them believe you're not trying to move there. You're not going to live there. You're going to go back and forth every day and technically never spend a full day there.

I imagine you'll have your car searched occasionally or something similar, but I really doubt you have anything to worry about.

Re: pizzle. It isn't very hard to prove that your purpose for traveling from your house in the Detroit burbs to Windsor is to play online poker.

I've talked to probably a dozen different people at border crossings ( I went to Detroit for my Nexus pass interview and cross at the Peace Bridge in Buffalo) and everyone has been pretty understanding about what I'm doing. This is coming from a monotone overweight robot.

Just be f honest.

So, I just got into Canada tonight. We wanted to stay until the end of May but they said we can only stay until the end of March. Has anyone gone through this? Is their anything we can do to extend our stay?

Gotta post more info.

Did you fly in/drive? What did you tell them? Did they staple something to your passport?

Two of us drove up to Vancouver in a car fully packed. We told them the truth about everything. We did not yet have a place to stay and we are looking now. We told them we wanted to stay through May and then head back for the WSOP.

They said we do not have enough relevant ties (never had any jobs, don't own any properties) to the USA and that we could lose all our money and not be able to afford ****. One of us showed a bank statement of 12k, the other one 40k. I'm guessing the bank statement with only 12k might have been bad to show? This person has a bunch more than 12k but was the only bank that could get access to statement.

They stapled something to our passport and told us we have to come back on or before march 21 and get the paper stamped or whatevr.

Thanks for any help guys, much appreciated.

When I moved to canada last year, Stars asked me what I was going to do after my lease was up. I literally just told them I am going to country hop and play poker while I can't live in canada. I plan to be there at least a third of the time in one city or another though. They had no problem with this.

Ive been living in argentina for 2 and half months now, cashing out to mb and to my cd bank account no problem from abroad.

If they ever ask me whats going on, I will just verify my new address in whatever country I am currently staying in.

Either way, I still try and keep as little money online as possible, and most of it in my cdn bank just in case (the bank wont ever take your money, but after BF I don't know who to trust in the igaming world tho, even MB).

There is so much terrible advice ITT, I just want to clear this up, not just to help you guys, but to make sure us poker players who have already done this don't get ****ed somehow by a barrage of misinformed pokerefugees blowing up our spot by freaking out.

Rule one: FLY, customs is easier than the border patrol walking the border. Pack light, don't bring a car full of monitors and a bed etc. Bring one or two suitcases, spend the extra 200 bucks a month, and rent furnished. Costco a monitor and return it when your 3months is up. Full cash refund, no questions asked ive done it a thousand times.

Rule two (this is the important part, which ironically will be quite wordy and take up the rest of my post): Keep EVERYTHING simple.

You are traveling. You have some money saved and you are traveling. Tens of thousands of people go to canada from the US for this reason every year. Book a return ticket a month from then, after all you may want to come back! You can cancel it after you are in the border if you don't want to come back. This is border patrol, not the NSA... once you pass go, you are in country with a cookie cutter 6 mo travel visa stamp in your passport.

DONT SAY ANYTHING ABOUT POKER at the border,

let me repeat that, say NOTHING about poker at the border.

If you say anything about poker or "working" or "online shipping consultant" at the border, you are simply too stupid to play poker for a living. This is 2012, you are an american, and the stakes are higher. Don't make up fake girlfriends, family members, anything like that. Tell them you heard toronto was cool.

Remember, you aren't lying by saying you are traveling. Thats what you are doing! The reality of the situation is, you are taking a trip, you aren't even sure that canada is somewhere you want to be as of that moment. if you don't like what canada has to offer you, you will pack up and leave. You even have a return ticket!

At the moment you are at the border, you aren't an international man of mystery pro poker player in canada seeking to open foreign bank accounts, you are simply another unemployed loser visiting a country, nothing more.

Bank isn't an issue either. If you are traveling somewhere for a few months, it is entirely practical and justified to have a bank account in the local currency so you don't get stuck with outrageous ATM fees. Tell them you saved the meager amount of money you are depositing to open the account over the years. You don't have to come up with some outlandish lie as to why you have 1000 dollars.

Cliffs: Keep it simple, You are unemployed, with a small amount of savings, and you are traveling for some weeks. If you want to cover your bases 100% book a return ticket, you don't have to use it if you don't want to. Nothing more.

Still haven't read about anyone getting approved for the 6 month extension. Eh eh?