People are reading way too much into the wording. European owned companies like bet365 and unibet operate under Australian licenses for sports betting with no issue under the IGA I don't see how poker would be different. Yes, it's a possibility but it's unlikely, the committee specifically invited Betway, a UK company give testimony to the committee I see no reason why they would do that if they weren't open to allowing other companies to operate and seemed receptive to the idea of Betway entering the market if it was legal for them to do so.

By onshore I believe it's most likely they mean 'possessing an Australian license to operate legally and paying tax on their Australian business' not '100% Australian owned and operated'.

Keep in mind it's all speculation until the report is out in October anyway and legislation will be at least months past that date

For the sake of clarity, it would take Pokerstars about 5 seconds to set up an Australian company and become an onshore operator.

Don't forget, we operate on Betfair Australia but trade on the global market.

We have literally no details yet. Let's all take a deep breath, enjoy the good news and wait and see what information emerges.

Thanks for the clarification guys

2 reasons

1) Evidence from most of the other countries that have gone through same process lead them to being segregated.

2) This government has been incompetent from day 1 and given 0 ****s about the poker community and what we want why would that change now.

lol they voted for a hearing on it, if they actually gave zero ****s they'd just tell us we're SOL and move forward.

Wonder if Crown will take a shot in a licenced online market

What do you guys think about this new pokies law suit against crown and aristo is it bad timing for us or not?

segregated poker for aus would be horrible. not only will there be like no players we wouldn't have access to the sites everyone actually cares about. i hope the campaign doesn't settle for something like this and that it is understood that this is worse than the situation now

Everybody knows segregated markets wouldn't work. There is no need to keep restating it, obviously the AOPA and all of us as Australian online poker players will lobby against them and explain why should a segregated player pool would be a mistake if it is proposed. It's more likely that the government will follow the UK model IF they decided to go down the regulation path given how frequently it was mentioned during the hearings, and that's still an if at this point, but we'll hopefully know more in October.

Also the black market sites are not going to leave regardless so youll be able to play on Ignition/china/bitcoin/acr sites regardless of what happens because those sites don't care that the law is in Australia that's WHY they're offering their services here.

You know what? I never thought anything of this.. but here goes..

1. Last time I used neteller was in March, for a withdrawal
2. Last time I deposited to stars from Neteller was Feb 2017
3. Only option I had to withdrawal was Neteller , for around 1/3 of my balance, other 2/3 I could use either Neteller or skrill
4. Neteller charges US$12.50 for a withdrawal, plus 3.99% to convert to AUD, plus the exchange rate is around 5-6c lower than the official xe rate.
5. My bank charged me a $12 fee for this 'overseas telegraphic transfer'

last time this took 7 days

Guess its all just one last screw over

Pretty criminal really...

Guess that's why Bitcoin is the future.

But now I'm wondering if Bitcoin is anonymous? I have to give heaps of ID to buy it at an exchange and then move it to blockchain and then move it from block chain to a poker site... seems pretty traceable... plus I'm not confident in my method anyway... hmmmm, advice anyone?

Hi Evryone,
Just heard Sam Maiden on sky news reporting that David Leyonhjelm has secured a "liberty offset" to progress our case on online poker tied to the media reform changes that are going on at the moment. Nothing definite but he's secured an agreement with Mitch Fiefeld to look at it and also has flagged it with Nick Xenophon as well and has some support. Sounds like promising developments are underway.

I'm going to message a few of the bitcoin experts I know in the poker community and see if someone can post a basic guide for beginners

Also good news re: Leyonhjelm gaining concessions for the govt to look at it, if Tudge and Fifield are legitimately on side we should win as they're the most relevant people in the Liberal Party in this area

You're correct that it's not really anonymous. Every transaction is public. But only the bitcoin addresses are seen, not who the addresses belong to.

It's true that if you give your ID to an exchange and then buy bitcoin from them, they will know that the first address the bitcoin goes into belongs to you.

But after that first address it's unclear. They won't know whether you sent bitcoin to another address you control, or sent to a friend, or sent it to buy something online, or sent to a poker site.

You're correct about the process. That's why you buy from an exchange, send it to your own wallet, and then send to the poker site. When you send from the exchange to your own wallet they won't know whether that's an address you control or if it belongs to someone else.

Also, the poker sites play a big part. If they're doing it right there shouldn't be a way for an exchange - or anyone - to know that the address you send a deposit to belongs to a poker site.

The reverse is true for withdrawals. If the site is following best practices the address they send your withdrawal from shouldn't be able to be detected as belonging to a poker site. You have the withdrawal sent from the site to your own wallet. Then you send from the wallet to your exchange account.

Even as a worst case if the exchange is able to tell the withdrawal address belonged to a poker site, breaking the direct link makes it slightly more difficult for them to detect. It also creates plausible deniability because they can't know for sure that you were the one that withdrew from the poker site.

Buy BTC from exchange -> Send to a new address in your own personal wallet -> Deposit to poker site

Poker site -> Withdraw to new address in your wallet -> Send to exchange

Bitcoin beginner story:

Signed up to Cointree. ID verification process was daunting. Had to take a photo of myself holding my drivers license. Had to resend it and they were super fast with their replies and responses. Impressed with their site overall. They charge 3% on all bitcoin purchases. Not sure how good this is compared to other sites exactly.

Used POLI payment method for the first time. They deposit $0.01 in my bank with a reference number attached. I use that reference number to confirm and then it's all good to use. Very easy. Very very easy. It took about 12 hours for the payment to go through and for some bitcoin to be on Cointree.

Bitcoin dropped significantly during that time. Personally dropped $150 or so just while the payment went through. It's still dropping.

Moved the Bitcoin to blockchain. Pretty easy to do. Just clicked on "request" on the blockchain site and then copied the address into Cointree's "send bitcoin" link. Small transfer cost. Opened up poker client. Clicked on deposit. Chose bitcoin. Poker client gave a Bitcoin address. Used the "send bitcoin" link in blockchain and pasted in the address from the poker client. Done.

Had to go to work. When I get home this arvo, hopefully I can start playing.

My justification of the loss of $200 in the process. "If it costs an upfront fee of $200 to continue playing would you do it?" Answer... yes.

Excellent, thanks.

So if they all agree after the 15th of october and have a rough idea what they plan to do whats the implementation process? do they need to put a new piece of legislation through like the amendment just passed? or is it something more simplified?

If you have to ask you'll never know.

3% seems steep. Is there any place that is reliable and cheaper?

I'd like to not keep money in bitcoin if possible. But can't afford to pay 3% per transaction.

Is it 3% just for purchase? or is there also a 3% fee for selling?

Btc markets 0.85% for smaller amounts. Less fee for more transactions/30days

If online poker does get regulated do you think the government will try and tax our winnings?

I'm not super familiar with Australian bitcoin exchanges, or the various methods of transferring money. So the site you used gave you the exchange rate at the time that the money cleared... not at the time you initiated the money transfer?

That method is not as good for someone wanting to buy bitcoin to deposit to a poker site. You want an exchange that will allow you to deposit and pre-load dollars into the account so that when the transfer clears you'll be able to buy bitcoin instantly and send it off.

In doing a little research I have found that CoinJar seems to be one of the preferred exchanges for Australian bitcoiners. It looks pretty user friendly... it's not a full function bitcoin exchange with charts and order books.

They allow you to deposit money into your "Cash Account" first. Once that has cleared you can convert it to bitcoin for a 1% fee.

That way you are only exposed to the exchange rate fluctuations for a short period of time - the time it takes to send bitcoin from CoinJar to your wallet, and then from your wallet to the poker site.

You can also deposit bitcoin into your CoinJar account and convert it to dollars for 1%. Then you can transfer it back to your bank or keep it on CoinJar as dollars until you want to buy more bitcoin.

nice

No as it is still classed as gambling & in Australia we don't pay tax because it isn't considered a profession or a job. However the websites that will pay tax could offset some of the cost in a fee of some sort, who knows.