Key points:

1. Poker sites will have to:
- buy a license for 5 years, 100 000 000 HUF (roughly 338000€)

- pay 22,5% tax after rake revenues

- keep a mirror server providing datas about hungarian players for the tax authorities

2. players' poker income is tax free

3. operators that don't buy the license, will be put on a blacklist and IP banned by the ISPs.

I have a question though:

If a country bans a specific operator because it didn't buy license, will the operator ban players playing from a hungarian address?

Dude in France they said " you won't pay taxes on your poker income " now every poker player who binked a big tournament lifetime and/or who won 100k+ in online poker got targeted by the IRS who asks people to pay +80% of what they won ...

If that is all revenues, then you will have ring-fencing, so goodbye liquidity.

Why?

few corrections:
License is 100 million HUF/year, for max. 5 years
20% tax + 2,5% tax (this 2.5% can be max 50 million huf)
mirros servers are NOT needed (but access to hungarian players data is needed.)
NO ring fencing

Unless i'm missing something, the 22.5% on GGR (its actually a bit less for online sites, they get a discount on the 2.5%) isn't the major hurdle, its inline with denmark and i don't see why it would mean no shared liquidity (quite the opposite, sites would only get licenses if they could spread liquidity internationally).

The cost of a license, however, seems prohibitive.

OP do you have a source for it being passed? Was it part of the large tax bill passed yesterday? It's passage was expected but i can't find any primary source.

you're right, sorry

It is passed, although I've found the news only in hungarian sources yet.

for example:

http://www.origo.hu/gazdasag/2013062...sejatekot.html

Thats great many thanks.

The law expressly states that winnings will not be subject to income taxes.

Just curious, will the initial fee(338k euros or whatever it is) be deductible off the taxation over the course of the 5 years? Like can PokerStars pay the license fee, then deduct ~67k euros every year from their share of taxation that they owe?

it's 338k € / year PLUS the tax on revenue

If Pokerstars get a license, why wouldn't they be liable for tax on the entire gross revenue of their worldwide operation? France doesn't ringfence by law but because of the tax situation pokersites have to ringfence their operation with the subsequent liquidity problems.

Our interpretation of the law is that only play attributed to Hungarians will be subject to the tax. PokerStars can set up a Hungarian subsidiary, PokerStars.HU, which only Hungarians play through, and play attributed through that client (likely weighted contributed) will be subject to the GGR tax. This is how it works in Denmark, Estonia and Belgium.

Spain and France are explicit that this cannot occur. All play on the site is subject to the tax, regardless of the location of the player.

betfair's betting exchange responds by raising commision from 5% to 6% for Hungarian customers...

Well why didn't you say that in response to my original comment instead of a completely unhelpful "Why?" (when it is perfectly obvious why based on the original post)

I was asking why you felt the tax amount had any bearing on this decision. Even if the GGR was 2.25% rather than 22.5%, PokerStars still would not put all their play through this and pay all their revenue to Hungary just to maintain international player pools.

But i'm not all-knowledgeable, and i know you follow a lot of regulation stuff closely, so I was asking you an honest, non-rhetorical question. You said "If that is all revenues, then you will have ring-fencing, so goodbye liquidity," which didn't make sense to me, so I asked why you think the tax was relevant.

so.. Hungry can ban online gaming and then pass a law to allow it less than a month later? Come on America. Get your ****ing **** together

wait, so does this mean banks in Hungary are now free to transact with online poker sites and people can use debit cards and/ord direct deposit methods?

only with the ones which bought license

I might be pessimist, i just don't see any site buying this lisence ( and if it does , its only gonna be stars which kinda sucks alredy ).

A: Stars know players will move out who makes the good money for them, randnom players doesnt make too much for stars as payments are low in this country, they dont make their money by 50$ deposits

B: IF they allow this to Hungary, why wudn't other countrys ask for the same thing?

I think the reason behind all this that Hungarian grovement wants the sport betting & casinos to be their own - Cause this is not just about poker, its about online casinos & sport betting sites too, who won't be able to pay out this money, and people living at Hungary will use the Hungarian sport betting options & casinos.

some news:

-rooms can go for license already (non of them came out with a statement yet)
- IP blocking will come to effect on 1.Jan.2014.

Hungary is more democratic than America. It's sad, but true.

lol

link

Source?

Does anyone have a link somewhere?