Goto the site and under contact us you can call them yourself. country code (011) 44 870 383 0232. Tell them you want to wire from canada and to email bank address and moneybookers address. Thats what i did and to get the info they gave me.

on a personal note for country address change got approved thru stars security.
Now waiting for "final manager approval" not sure how long that will take they said a few days.

Pokerstars is by far the best in all aspects. Players, Customer Service, Cashouts.

+1. There's too much paranoia going on. Go walk in with a passport+u.s. id and you're pretty much good to go.

I really like BMO.



write yourself a check

has anyone gained access to their FTP account by moving to canada yet?

Not that I know of. My friend who is a Mexican citizen and has every sort of verification he could possibly need to demonstrate that he is living in Mexico can't get them to update his location and unlock his account.

That is a little worrisome.

Perhaps this may be a silly question, but is he allowed to play on FTP at all? Are they allowing him to make another account and deposit? Or is it just a complete lack of customer support on their end in regards to updating his information?

No matter what he says he gets cookie cutter responses like "We cannot release American funds at this moment." I don't think he's tried opening a new account.

has anyone that has moved to canada and started playing again gotten anything shorter than a 6-month lease?

sorry

yes, friend and I have ballin apartment in the best location as a month-month lease completely furnished

I just crossed the border into Canada for the 4th time in 4 weeks. The border agent sent me inside to immigration....they asked all of the usual questions and i told them the 100% truth that i am here to play live and online poker..... the immigration officer responded "you're good to go, good luck and have a nice day."

I wasn't inside for more than 3 minutes.

Saw a little bit of talk about this so might of been discussed already.

I went to check out Vancouver w/ another online buddy of mine. We told the border agent the truth that we were staying w/ a friend from Canada and looking into moving here to play online poker ect. He moved us long and they claim it was random but I feel we were flagged in some way because at the next stop we had to go through customs. They checked are stuff asked us some questions and eventually denied my friend entrance into Canada from a public intox in 2008 "Unless he could prove how he could benefit Canada." Their examples being a doctor coming in to preform surgery, someone coming in to open a business, or a tourist spending ******ed amounts of money (wouldn't directly tell us how much, just insured we don't have it)

They did say he could go back to the states and be pardoned from his crime, and is welcome to enter. So anyone with a small criminal offense should try to get it off their record before going.

This wasn't my experience at all. The border agent sent us to immigration where we were grilled for an hour. After the first 30 minutes i was certain we were going to be forced to make a U-turn back into the US. Cue wife starting to cry, the border agent started to be more sympathetic and eventually let us in. I told the truth about everything and the immigration officer finally let us in "because i was upfront and honest about everything". Bring every piece of documentation you can in my opinion. If you have a mortgage, lease, letter of employment, current bank statement (with a good amount of cash showing, otherwise it'll work against you), return flight, etc. Our situation may have been unique. First of all the immigration officer seemed to be in bad mood from the start. I know it's common sense but if you run into a person that has a combative personality DON'T try to defend yourself and prove your points. You need to state your situation and then try to play the helpless, lost puppy card. Also, we don't have a mortgage, my wife just left her job, we were driving rather than flying so there was really no way for them to know i wasn't just going to stay randomly in canada (which seemed to be the main concern). We're currently in a hotel in Toronto while we're checking out apartments for a few days. If you're looking on craigslist and you're not paying a big premium in rent, expect to be underwhelmed. Basically if you're not spending $1800+ for a small 1 br place (at least in downtown Toronto) then don't expect too much. Also, after being here for only a day I'd def choose another city like Vancouver, Montreal or even Ottawa if we didn't have so upcoming events to travel home for. Also, as a last note. Be careful when renting off of craigslist. Be concerned if the person doesn't care about credit / background check, doesn't require a lease, doesn't want references, etc. I've heard of quite a few instances where the current tenant is in their last month of staying, so they show the place and get first and last month's rent from 10 prospective tenants only to have the new tenant/s get the police called on them by the actual owner of the place while the old tenant is long gone.

Had a great experience last week at RBC, went in to open an account and very few questions were asked. All I needed was two pieces of ID. I was straightforward and truthful about why I was opening the account, it was not a problem, and I did not have to corroborate my Canadian address. The whole process took less than 20 minutes.

From seeing mixed experiences here I decided to go with a frequent casino visit story with customs. It has worked without a hitch on both trips so far. The last thing I would want is some note on my file to guarantee me a hard time every crossing. Good luck to others considering.

I got a 3month lease then month to month, on a furnished apt.

Border: Got sent to immigration. Waited in line for an hour. Talked to the guy, he was instantly like "so are you another one of these guys coming up to play poker?". Turns out he plays on FTP. Showed him my bank statement with 6 figures plus an email from our landlord, and I was good to go.

Bank accounts: Canadian banks are dicks. Went to Scotiabank and HSBC with Passport, Drivers License, and visitors card from imigration. Both denied because they "dont give accounts to visitors". Went to another bank with just passport and license, got an account.

Basically, walk in with the minimum amount of information, then provide more if they ask. You can provide too much to them and get owned.

Good idea for opening an account, but don't expect to be able to use it for poker.

There are a grand total of 0 reported instances of a HSNL American player using a Canadian bank for moderate to large size poker transactions. Until then, I'd expect a significant risk of account closure once you use it for that nature. A random banker that helps you open the account may not know either way and once your account gets flagged, it will be looked at by someone entirely different.

I do really hope people are able to use their Canadian banks for poker, but there is certainly a big risk you will not be able to if dealing with serious amounts of money.

Of course guys who just transfer a few k with moneybookers or whatever will never get noticed, so no need to worry if that fits you..

I just wanted the account to get the address change so I can play on stars. Can figure out how to cashout later.

Fair enough!

cool. thx.

If anyone goes the way of getting an HSBC Premier Account in Canada, there is a no-fee Mastercard account that allows you to make deposits into Stars. It is not a cash advance, you get no points, and there is a $2.50 transaction fee. With some history on Stars, I've gotten the deposit limit up to $10K per day ($25K weekly). This is actually less costly than wiring money in and if you qualify for Premier, chances are, you will be given a high CC limit also.

Cashing out, you can request checks to your CDN address. Anything over $1K will be sent to you via courier and comes the next day or so. Deposited over $30K in checks from company called CHEXX Inc a few times and never had an issue. In fact, my bank manager knows where the checks have come from.

In terms of Canadian tax law, I believe there is no tax on recreational gambling (in other words, if it is not your profession). However, if you do not have another source of income, and it becomes your profession, you must pay tax on it. Therefore, having some other kind of job (eg trading stocks, even for a loss) may be required.

On another note, I have a fully furnished 2BR loft Penthouse located about 25 minutes north of downtown Toronto. If someone is looking for a rental, please send me PM and I'll send you a link.

This was discussed a lot in the Canadian Tax Thread. What you're describing is just a safeguard of sorts (and your example of trading for a loss definitely wouldn't work).

The line of thought was that the CRA would only ever attempt to come after a target that was a) of high value and b) and they had a legitimate shot of setting a legal precedent with.

If you're a HS player clearing mid/high 6 fig+ a year and claim you are a trader for your profession (and show losses). They could very easily argue in court that poker is not recreational for you as it is in fact your sole source of income. Essentially if you are clearing that amount consistently you should be paying taxes because you are a huge target and likely could never argue successfully that poker is not your profession if the CRA decided to pursue you.

The entire reason a legitimate job works as a safeguard of sorts is that it would be much more difficult to prove poker is not recreational for you if you actually have another source of income that you pay taxes on, that can support your lifestyle. So if you're making like 40-50k/yr at your job and make 50k-100k playing poker on the side you're not actually a great target for the CRA to come after.

Playing there right now, live in Detroit, established a residence in Canada... everything was easy on the poker and bank end (haven't tried cashouts yet) the border is the nasty part... crazy how much hassle you get for being honest.

As far as taxes, I don't really see what the concern is unless you don't intend on paying them at all. You can't be double taxed so the worst that's going to happen is you get the money you presumably paid to the IRS and give it to the CRA unless I"m misunderstanding something.

Lesson #1: Learn to spell the name of the country in English. It is CANADIAN, not Canadien. This is not in French, in English. Also, this is not the hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens. Got it? Good.

Lesson #2: Try ING direct. It is international and allows for debit access cross border.

Americans are double taxed though. As a US citizen you're legally obligated to pay US taxes while out of the country even if you obtain residence and citizenship of that nation. So if you became a citizen of another country, you would in fact be paying tax to both that nation and to the US.