Hello everyone,

After some research it appears that this is a somewhat complicated issue. I'm an American regular on full tilt who may be moving to Italy within the next year. It appears that there is a lot of change taking place in regaurds to Italian online gaming laws. I was wondering if anyone could elaborate on these and explain how they would apply to an American citizen living and playing professionally in Italy. What sites can/should I be playing on? Can I still play on full tilt? And any information on Italian and/or American tax laws for someone in my situation. Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

as a US citizen the IRS expects you to file and pay tax for 10 years after you leave, and that is if you give up your citizenship.

paying taxes in italy or the US will provide you with a tax credit for the other country, they have a tax treaty.

Yes you can still play on full tilt. You can play on Pokerstars.it, PartyPoker and other european sites.

Thank you for the responses. I definitely won't be giving up my citizenship, it will be more like an extended vacation, I definitely plan to come back to the US. Does anyone know if you are required to pay taxes on poker winnings in Italy? If not I will be best off just filing in the US as a professional, correct? Also, do we have any members from Italy that can comment on the current state of online poker? I have done some research and it appears that it is pretty much fully legal, however, I have read that you can only play against italian players. Since full tilt hasn't launched a .it yet will I not legally be able to play there if I were to go today?

Couldn't you just run some VPN software to hide your IP? I'm from the UK and that's what I do whenever I go to Vegas as without it you cant play on the iPoker network.

A synopsis of the current state of online poker in Italy:

http://www.online-casinos.com/news/news0710432.asp

need to be carefull with VPN and not have it on the same machine as your poker client. i know full tilt france is not found of VPN. possibly the same in italy. don't know for sure, just pointing it out.

If you used VPN, you would still be able to cash out because you are registered to a bank account in the US, or am I wrong about this?

If you have a job in Italy and are paying enough taxes to Italy, basically no problems. If not paying enough taxes to Italy, you figure to have a problem in the long run. Playing professionally in many EU countries, including Italy, doesn't rate to work in the long run as winnings are tax free. Paying those taxes to another country, then maybe, but then getting a long run permit to stay is another thing.

I don't understand why people want to play FTP when there are so many more profitable sites out there, let alone play it from Italy. Italian sites have the best games online. Italians divide them into two classes: .it sites (regulated sites with only Italians on them) and .com sites. The .it sites only have donkaments now and won't have cash games for a while yet. So for a cash-game player I recommend Italian-centric .com sites. Italy has a list of blocked domains but it's easily bypassed, either by using alternate domains or by switching your DNS to Google's which doesn't filter anything. Get yourself a Moneybookers account and find a good agent (who market the sites directly, unlike the web-based model elsewhere, and process payments for you).

Self Made, I would have no problem switching sites, in fact I would prefer to play on some of the sites that you can't play on in the US. I was just wondering if Full Tilt would still work since that's where I have my current roll, however, I would have no problem switching. Could you perhaps suggest a few of the Italian-centric .com sites? Also, for what are you suggesting the moneybookers account and I'm not sure what you mean by agent.

This is sort of true. I was recently corrected on this myself, and was told you only have to pay taxes after you give up your citizenship if you make over a certain amount per year. I think that number was 250k+, but don't remember the exact amount. It was at least 100k, but pretty sure it was near 250k.

If you're under that amount you can just give up your citizenship and leave.

Many U.S. citizens relinquishing their citizenship are subject to the expatriation tax. For 2011, the tax generally bites on unrealized gain of the covered expatriate’s property to the extent it exceeds $636,000.

A simple example of an unrealized gain is real property (e.g. land) that has appreciated in value from the original purchase price but has not yet been disposed. The expatriate subject to the rule must, among other things, file a Form 8854.

They're planning a .it (regulated, Italy-only) site but I don't believe it's up yet. I believe they've already blocked Italian players. Therefore you couldn't play from Italy if they knew you were playing from Italy.

I think it's best I don't do so here.

It's the standard online gambling payment processor outside of the US, so you'll want to get an account.

I basically described it before:

The pre-.it sites in Italy have primarily been marketed by agents, not online like much of the rest of the world. These people traditionally work locally, know their customers, and process deposits/cashouts in cash. An internet cafe or a B&M poker club may also be an agent for an online poker room (one reason agent sites are so soft). You can certainly find trustworthy ones without meeting them, however, and work with them online and with Moneybookers. For the best and biggest Italian-centric .com sites it's the recommended (and occasionally only) way to interact with the sites.

slightly off topic,

arent the .fr and .it sites in clear violation of EU law? its only a matter of time before they're rolled back right?

No, the Balkanization of poker is fine with the EU as long as they don't apply different standards to foreign and domestic companies.

Hey self made,
could you contact me to get intouch with your agent?