Title basically explains it....but I am an American with nothing other than a passport and some money that would like to open a european bank account in order to play on such sites as winamax, stars.fr, coral poker (ipoker skin with good RB, but not available to south american players afaik). I'd also like to setup Neteller just for a backup money option (currently use my skrill ATM card for 90% of my life expenses).

I'm not positive of cashout rules for each site, but do not need to maintain the actual account once I have the poker sites open, as I will be cashing out to Skrill/Neteller whenever possible. I'm currently in Spain, but will be in Germany the month of January, and open to go live somewhere for 1-2 months afterwards in order to complete this process.

Current contenders are: Germany (lots of paperwork, they report to the IRS), Estonia (their new e-citizen regulations look appealing), Budapest/Prague (many poker ex-pats live there, so obv possible), Romania/balkan countries....?

I'd rather keep it fairly cheap - eastern europe is the main place I'm looking. Any suggestions, experiences, advice, or warnings from dat 2p2 community?

Thank you oh so much, peace players

does this link help ?

http://www.ascot-advisory.com/Offshore_Banking.htm

thank you... but not a ton and I've seen that before when researching offshore banking in Uruguay...which I was told was a breeze but in the end I was finallllly allowed to open a student account claiming that I was there studying...the account had 1k/mo deposit limits, I could go to a single bank in town, and 4-5 branches wanted a notarized form from my american accountant verifying source of funds and paid taxes, and also the wire xfers to skrill worked but not the other way around. Was a huge headache and essentially didn't work for what I needed at the time. I need more country specific and personal info direct from americans so I don't get myself into moving to a foreign country to be shut down at every bank I go to.

For example - I know for a fact that I can go to a variety of branches in Mexico with my passport, $500, a lease agreement, and a utility bill from the same address and get an account opened that same day. Ecuador is also very do-able. I believe Costa Rica, Panama, Argentina as well.

I'm discounting Spain, Italy, France, UK (too expensive), Portugal (future regulations and EU friends saying it was a headache to get an account there).

afaik winamax and .fr only do cashouts to said european bank account (you can deposit using netteller/skrill, but cant withdrawl)

If that is not the case please let me know

I just got back from a euro trip, I opened an account in Prague and got set up with online banking

I think they only required my passport, I had an apt lease but dont recall them looking at it. The Czechs are pretty lax as a whole

You will not get an account easily in CR.

Panama hasn't had bank secrecy in a while, if that's what you're after.

LOL banking in Argentina, were you recently awakened from a 15 year coma?

If anyone is able to open up an Estonian bank account in USD via the eresidency thing, holla back.

awesome, thanks for sharing man. Prague is on the top of my list for places to get this handled where I'm 90%+ sure that it would be successful.

Did you get on .FR or winamax as well and how was that process?

just brought up as examples, and im focusing on europe, just have experience in latin america. and yes, all 3 of those countries, although 'easy' is relevent, americans can open bank accounts. speak spanish or hire a residency lawyer if you don't imo - could be the source of troubles for alot of people.

will do, seems like they've only recently been making progress and public announcments on this.. I heard more info and the first e-cards were being released in 2015. Regardless seems like not the worst idea to get free residency in the EU...

you mention 'in USD' and thanks for that, I def overlooked that before but imagine it would make things cheaper/easier in the long run.

Headed to banking capital of Germany tomorrow, have a free place to stay for a couple months and if I can't get the ball rolling on banking there I'm off to romania, hungary, CZ, estonia, cyprus....wherevaaaa. ahhh so much research to do

Yeah, I got on .fr and winamax

.fr was a pain in the ass, but that was probably an isolated incident. There were 5 of us that all created accounts on the same day w/ same address so they thought we were creating multi-accounts and it was just a huge pain dealing with lol french people through email

With no problems though you should be able to get up and running in like 7-10 business days I imagine. They send you a code through the mail to verify address is the main thing you wait on

You need the bank account 1st because both sites require different bank codes to prove you have the account. Both sites had super similar processes so I'm assuming they follow whatever French regulations are in place

i hear luxemburg is quite easy.. switzerland used to be but not anymore.. i saw somewhere germany got pretty hard but not impossible at some banks..
give luxemburg a try

awesome, ty for the info man. I'm assuming you're back in PDC already - so you figured out some way for cashouts to work while out of the country - would you mind explaining here or in PM. Site ---> Czech bank and then you just use your debit card or then forward the $$ to Skrill/Neteller?

Also didn't realize the whole visa issue for Europe. Can only stay 90 days in a 180 day period. Exiting and re-entering the EU does not reset this time frame.

This makes romania or cyprus a bit more appealing as it's non EU. I'll have been in the EU for 2.5 months already by the time I get around to opening that account, and timewise that just doesn't work without overstaying my visa - for which I hear can be huge, 5 figure fines

Cyprus is part of the EU.

So is Romania

I haven't thought or cared too much about cashouts yet, Im just gonna cross that bridge if I build up enough money there to get uncomfortable leaving it on the sites. Im just now starting to grind again after taking ~4months off

Czech gave us an option to open the accounts in kroners or dollars, so we all chose dollars

Im assuming with the internet banking I can just go pokersite--->czech bank (paying whatever fee stars or winamax charges going from euro--->dollar) and then do a bank wire from my czech bank to us bank only paying the ~$30 fee the czech bank charges

The best way financially would be to have a USA euro account and make your European account in euros but I didn't feel like opening up a BOA account in euros or whatever that would entail, plus I dont plan on using too many euros in the future so it wouldnt really be of too much benefit to me anyway. If you plan on grinding epts or something in the future this would no doubt be a great idea

Afaik in Spain you need a NIE number (wich you get easily in 2 weeks) then you can open bankaccount. Dont know if they like gambling transactions though.

I would guess you can get one in Germany. No idea how that works for foreigners, could recommend bank though and you can send them an email.

yes they are, but not a part of the schengen zone - so the 90 day visa thing when entering EU from a schengen country essentially starts over and you get a new visa + stamp when you enter these countries, from what I can tell

awesome, yeah I'll do dollars or euros for sure. You used Raiffeisenbank correct? You might be Cole's friend he was telling me about your guy's setup.

I would assume the same with the cashout process you described - my biggest concern is a year or 3 down the line if my czech bank sees I haven't been there in years they may close my account - I have no problem leaving $500-1000 in the account so they think I'm coming back though.

I keep as little money as possible in the US and don't go back, so getting $$ there not a concern ever

Spain poker is only within the country, I wouldn't be able to register with any other euro sites. Germany from what many are telling me is very difficult to get an account without a residency visa - if not impossible. Prague sounds like the best/easiest option by far at this point

Regarding opening in prague - did you need a lease agreement as well or just passport and some money? Would be ideal if I could go there for the weekend and open an account, toss a friend's address on it and send the verification codes to him while I bounce to another continent - seeing as my visa will expire soon anyways

We opened LB-BW bank accounts which I think was bought by another bank right after we opened it. I believe its called Expobank CZ now but honestly not sure.

I do not know Cole, but maybe one of the guys I traveled with do I don't know.

If the bank closes yeah that would suck but having to take a trip to Europe wouldn't be the worst thing in the world

I told the banker that I will never have any money in the account and exactly what I was using it for and he said it was no problem, but I didn't specifically ask if they close dormant accounts down.

edit: just saw your comment about the USA. I'm not sure the best way to access money for use outside of the USA, my plan was always to just wire it from Czech--->BOA whenever I get a score. I'm reasonably sure my other friends are thinking the same.

thanks so much for your input man, very relieved to hear some success stories from multiple people at multiple banks. Sounds like I'm on my way to Praha!

Any expats with a European USD bank account where you can wire from Stars in USD without the processor converting to Euros (and paying the currency vig)?

I thought this would be standard for European USD bank accounts (vs. Mexico where an additional step is required given that Mexican banks hold their USD deposits off-shore, triggering the necessity of the Stars processor wiring in Euros), but it sounds like that might not be the case.

also gramps, estonia is out. Note : Residents of Belgium, Italy, Danemark, or Estonia are not allowed to play on PokerStars.fr.

There are countries absent from that list.

What country can a person get a usd bank account where u can do online wire transfers from skrill to that countrys usd bank account then online wire it to a usa bank account? From canada, it was very easy before skrill left as u would withdraw from stars to skrill usd to canadian bank usd then wire to usa bank. However i had to do it physically each time though. Someone told me they didnt need to with hsbc canada and they could initiate wires anytime and didnt need to be in canada. But since skrill no longer works in canada, that person said they got a bank acct in costa rica and now can do online wire from stars to skrill usd to costa rican bank acct to usa bank acct.


What other country besides costa rica offer this where u get usd bank acct and do online wires and pay the standard wire fees? That person said they couldnt open a costa rican bank acct by themselve and needed service or lawyer to help. Thus go there open usd bank acct and use it mainly to withdraw from skrill usd to it, then wire to american bank then pay lesser fees? So basically europe is the best option then? The thing is if u only plan to go there for short time to open a usd bank acct, then dont go back there again, would that be an issue? That person who got costa rican usd bank acct said his whole prpose of going to CR was for that usd bank acct for his online wires to american bank acct to save fees.

how about malta?

Probably all segregated countries in the eu are cut off and non eu is likely cut off. If u try to get to pokerstars.segregated, it will redirect one to .home, until using proxy, that for some reason might work.

That post was in response to a deleted post. We have strong, muscled, wildly competent and astonishingly handsome moderation in this forum.

Hey man, did you manage to open Czech bank account?