The rest of us mere mortals can't play on Pokerstars in the US. How are Vegas-based pros like Negreanu and Doug Polk playing on Pokerstars? And then streaming it. Are they leaving the country every time they play???

yes

Most of them rent a place in Canada for scoop / Jcarver rents a airbnb for each stream season in toronto, doug polk vancouver, negreanu maybe the 2 times i've seen him stream hes in a hotel room at a random tourney stop outside USA

How likely are you to get caught and account closed if you are using a VPN and an offshore bank account to play on PStars?

So every time Jcarver streams he has to travel?? Where is he based out of? Toronto must be at least a plane ride from wherever he's at in the states.

I guess he doesn't stream all that much these days. When he used to stream every day he lived in Toronto, right?

Highly unlikely you could even do it, unless you had a uber expert in VPN stuff helping you even the youd likely get caught shortly, PS has ways... they have ways man.. I wouldnt even waste your time & money trying with anything you could get off the net, just won;t work.

Yeah don´t even try it. Obviously Pokerstars hates having clients and will of course try to have less clients by actively looking for ways to ban them.

You have a valid point, but you're also missing a huge one - DOJ could slap them with huge fines; DoJ let PS off the hook with the agreement that they wouldn't allow U.S. players back on.

PS likes money - and if that means avoiding huge fines, then they'll do it.

I seem to remember when trying to play on Wsop.Com, they send a text to your phone or something and then determine the location of your phone to verify your in Nevada to allow play. Stars may do the same.

Yes, they are

They all leave the country to play. I don't know where the rest of them go, but if you follow Doug Polk on his social media he always puts up a ton of posts in transit to wherever hes going.

So I can just AirBnB a place across the border and play? What about all the utility bill stuff to create a real money account?

Jeff Gross is in a hotel in canada for example just across the border, the internet connection is good enough to stream even

Yeah i'm so confused. Everywhere online says you need a utility bill, (making it tougher cuz I wouldn't be able to sublet/shared room/airbnb) then everyones just like yeah the pros just get hotels!!

What am I missing here? They have to have a residency outside of the US somewhere to be able to play, no? Or is PokerStars just allowing the pros to play but not us mortals (doesnt sound like PS)

Cuz honestly renting a hotel/airbnb for a few months isn't hard at all and would be so fun, but getting a Canada Bank Account, Driver's License, and mailing address under my name is much more difficult.

You have to have an outside the country residency but you don't have to actually be in that residency, just show that you have one. I may be wrong on this but specifically I think you only need to have the residency when you set up the account but not after that as long as you're in a legal jurisdiction. So all these guys you see stream long ago made it so they could play on PS and now they're set. Also keep in mind jcarver, Dnegs, Staples and many other streamers (but not Polk) are PS sponsored so surely PS helps them out with arraigning the logistics of them being allowed to play. For example, Staples had an issue where he was given false info about his ability to play in a certain Eastern European country, so PS covered his expenses to relocate to a legal jurisdiction.