I made 3 bank wire transfers in July ($9k each) cuz I needed money for school and a month later, my acct was frozen and was contacted by the branch manager and was asked the source of the money and what it is for. I honestly told him that the money comes from poker star and I am using that money for school. After series of question, the manager told me that US bank doesn't allow online gambling and if the activity is detected, the US bank acct will be closed. But the manager was nice enough to unblock the acct for few min so I could take all my money out in cash. Now I'm still waiting for their reply as if they are going to close my acct or not.

Do not bankwire large amount of money from poker stars or it'd get you in trouble! Use physical check instead!

OR you could stop being an idiot and NOT tell your bank where the money is coming from. Just say you are a famous gay internet midget porn star. OR perhaps you can say u did conuslting work for an internet company? Personally, i like the porn star one.

Wow, english major I presume? This has been discussed before, some banks are fine with it, others aren't.

What bank?

Might have a lot more to do with the three just under $10K transactions than anything else.

3 consecective 9K wires would absolutely look very suspicious to any bank

lol yeah

Or you could just say the money was from teaching "ebonics" to rich kids.

US Bank

the 3 wires of 9k looks like you are trying to avoid your taxes because at 10k they have to report it if im not mistaken.

Don't ever tell them that its from a gambling site.

Ive done several wires from stars and my bank has never questioned them, but they were for 5k a piece and spread out a few weeks apart.

bingo

I hope you plan on paying taxes on that money, your bank will almost definitely be reporting it now.

yea def paying taxes on that money. should i pay that tax as my income or gambling winning?

lehman brothers

billybear - In doing the transactions AND in your response justifying the transactions you probably couldn't have handled your situation any worse than what you did.

3 transactions of $9k within one month is really freaking stupid.
Then responding to their suspicion/question about it by telling them that it's from PokerStars is pretty gosh-darned dumb as well.

What were you thinking?
You do know that all banks are going to look at 3 transactions of just under $10k as being really really suspicious, right? As in...there's almost no way that any bank could receive those 3 transactions and NOT notice it. You would have been better off making one transaction of $27k even. Yeah, they'll report it...but at least it won't look like you're trying to circumvent the $10k required-reporting law.

And you do know that if you tell pretty much ANY bank that the money came from online-poker that they will close your account and give you back your funds, right? All banks are supposed to not allow online-gambling transactions. Except that they don't have to go out of their way to try to find them. But if you TELL them that's where it came from then that is going to be the response of pretty much any bank in the country.

Seriously...this stuff isn't that complicated. If you don't give them a reason to flag you as Mr. Obvious-Online-Gambler than the chances of them doing anything about it are much much less.

The bank you used could be the laziest of all-time and trying to police this stuff but you pretty much FORCED them to take the actions that they did.

if your ever put in that situation, what do u suggest you tell the bank where the money came from then, besides internet porn, midgets, etc

I really don't know.
I'm not sure at all if, "I prefer not to say" is appropriate there or will just arouse more suspicion. That's what I really WANT to say though. I don't think it should be any of their damn business and I really am offended that they think they have the right to ask (or that the government thinks the banks should have the right to ask...whatever).

If you feel inclined to lie then you can say that it's payments for a series of websites you are developing or consulting work for an internet investment company or investment in your independent film project.

Or you're being paid by a group to travel to a series of nutritional conferences (or video-game or whatever) and provide your feedback to them because it's your area of expertise (that's the occasional consulting work my Dad was involved in after he retired).

Tell them you are developing an amazing alternative to google and you got some backers for your super-awesome idea.
Or you have an internet website or radio program and have been soliciting pledges to help you get a sex-change operation or to pay for your attempts to save the whales or to become the first person to walk on Mars or a sports-bar you want to build in Timbuktu or whatever.
People and businesses trade money all the time.
The crazier your idea seems to you the more it will probably sound normal to them.

But the point is that the UIGEA pretty much FORCES these banks to not allow online gambling transactions IF they are made aware that your transactions for gambling. They don't have to go policing each and every transaction because that would be an unfair burden. But if something is so obvious that they would have to be blind and ******ed not to see it then they start to become responsible and are supposed to behave accordingly.
And one of the few ways for them to find out is for you to actually tell them where they come from (as well as to FORCE THEM to keep an eye on your account by 'structuring' in such a way as billybear did with the 3 transfers of $9k within 1 month).

online sales, online investing, consulting, etc...

as has been said before, the main thing they are currently concerned with is structuring, which they WILL look for.

There's no difference. Your gambling winnings are income. See an accountant.

look for a new bank, **** them!!!!
also what do u mean nice enough, they can't take ur money, should tell him u wanted withdraw all of them on dollar bills.

I've always made a point to not make transactions between $7500 and $9999 if at all possible. If i need $8,000 in cash from the bank I take out $10,000 so they fill out the form. Same with deposits, and with bank wires. When they ask profession, say 'professional gambler'.

In 5 years of that, never had a problem. Couple different banks too.

the three $9,000s is pretty damn stupid imo.

I once went to deposit a check from a site and the teller asked where it was from. I told her that Im part owner of a porn site and then started to go into detail about the different kinds of porn we offer, Midgets, zoo, etc.

She cashed my check pretty fast after that!!!

Hand them this card.
End of story.

So good at structuring, but so bad at sentence structure!

I think this is a good strategy.
Once you start getting close to $10k the banks will notice, "Hey...that's really close to $10k."
And once you do two transactions close together (a couple of weeks or even more perhaps) that are close to $10k it becomes noticeable.

I honestly think that taking out $16k at once so they fill out the form is a way better idea than taking out back to back $8k's.