^^^^ thanks for the info!

I'm gonna check out that forum right now.

hello all, i just wanted to put up a good word for this guy sean and his relocation service. I arrived into costa rica aug 17th and knew absolutely no one. I wound up getting in touch with these people and a whole network of grinders down here. They took me in with open arms and were able to get my bank account cell phone and all the other required papers to send into pokerstars and i was unlocked within a week. If anyone is coming down here and doesn't feel like jumping through hoops to get unlocked, id strongly recommend sean service. its the nutz

I gotta say that Prague is really one of the best poker prospects for players travelling around. There´s a boat load of casinos in the city, most noteable the Concord card casino http://www.concordcard.cz"] which have probably the best regular tournaments. Also casino Atrium at the Hilton http://www.goldenpraguepoker.cz/"] has a good $10/$20 limit holdem game. There are a lot of clubs offering smaller buyin tournaments with smaller fields so you have a great choice every night of the week.
With regards to moving here its best to go through a eal estate agent, they will always find you a good deal and a nice apartment with parking shouldn´t cost more than $1000 per month. Its even possible to find accomodation for $20 a night and the rooms are not bad from what i´ve seen, but they are usually outside the centre.

Is (online)poker legal in Iceland?

I think you may have misunderstood my post. I wasn't saying that US citizens can legally get around the Schengen visa requirements by just leaving the Schengen Area for a few days (as some attempt to do) then returning for another 90 day stay. I was instead suggesting a way to fully comply with the Schengen requirements by living in a Schengen country for 90 days, then living outside the Schengen for 90 consecutive days, for example in a nearby non-Schengen country such as Romania or the UK, before returning to spend another 90 days in a Schengen Area country.

As far as I know, following the above procedure (90 days inside Schengen/90 days out) fully complies with Schengen immigration law. The US State Dept. travel site describes the regulations as follows:

In the 4.5 years I've been living in Europe, I've spoken to three immigration attorneys in two countries and none of them had heard of anybody having a problem spending 90 days in the Schengen, then returning after spending 90 days outside the Schengen. I've also spoken to numerous expats who've done this repeatedly without any problems.

As far as the penalty for those who do overstay their 90-day permitted stay (or try to return after leaving the Schengen Area for <90 days), what you're citing is the maximum penalty. I've heard from both immigration attorneys and individuals who've been stopped while exiting or re-entering that the penalty varies a lot according to the circumstances, with the exclusion period given to Americans sometimes being much less than five years. And as I said in my previous post, enforcement varies greatly from one Schengen country to another. For example, I have many American friends who've been living in Spain without a residency visa for years without any problems, and many of them return to the US every year for Christmas or summer vacation. In the American expat community in Madrid, it's unheard of to have a problem entering or departing Spain, probably because Americans are viewed favorably by the Spanish government as people who don't cause problems and often come to Spain to work as English teachers, which are in short supply.

As a disclaimer, I'm not suggesting that expats should carelessly disregard immigration laws. It's a good idea to learn what the actual risks are then make your decision accordingly.


Looks like live poker isn't legal and there are some anti-gambling laws that are unfavorable to online poker, although they don't seem to be doing anything drastic like blocking domains, etc. Here's a quote from Gaming Zion's Iceland writeup:

That last part about there being laws that make it illegal to gamble professionally sure sounds pretty bad, although you have to wonder how much they're actually doing to enforce it. In any case, I'd certainly do a bit of research before planning to move there.

Alan

You might look at Philippines and Cambodia. Cambodia is at least as inexpensive as Thailand, gambling is legal there (that's where Thais go to gamble), and visa is much easier (business visa ~$25/mo.). You should be able to find a job teaching English, but would not expect to make very much at all there. Philippines sounds pretty good too, but not have been there.

What countries can you live for 6 months with just a passport? Obv theres none for a year right?

Thanks. I'm going to do some research on both of them.

If you're talking about entering on just a tourist visa, then I don't think there's any country that will let you stay for a full year. You'd have to get some kind of long-term visa for that. With some countries that can be as simple as taking a language course so you can qualify for a student visa, but with others it's much more difficult.

The Bahamas has the longest tourist stay I know of for Americans. They allow eight months, but the cost of living there is very high. Here are the countries I'm aware of that allow a six-month tourist stay for Americans:

Canada

UK

Mexico

Jamaica

There are also some countries, such as Argentina and Costa Rica, which allow a 90-day tourist stay, but pretty much allow it to be renewed indefinitely. Visitors simply leave the country and re-enter, thus receiving a new 90-day tourist stamp in their passport. I've posted articles about immigrating to those countries and others here.

Alan

I wanted to go ahead and post the techical minutiae of my relocation experience in case anyone found the information useful. Although it's long and won't be worth reading for most people, I know that I was really stressed about this "little stuff" before relocating and would have liked to have some idea what the experience would be like. Perhaps reading about my mistakes will prevent some others from making similar mistakes.

I went ahead and took the plunge at the end of July and relocated to Hungary (Eastern Europe). Renting a flat was very easy-I handled it all through the internet and signed the contract with no background checks whatsoever. I am living in a small studio in the city center of Budapest for 300 Euros a month. When I arrived, they just stamped my passport and didn't ask me any questions at all (even though the state department website said that they would ask for proof of an onward ticket which I had).

Post Black Friday I started grinding on Merge and built up around 7K which I couldn't withdraw due to the fact that they were only cutting one check for 2.5K every 8 weeks. My first priority was getting my hands on that money. I opened a bank account near my flat on my first day here, but I really had no idea what I was doing. The bank agent suggested I open an account in dollars, so I did so, but I now think I should have opened an account in the local currency as well. I simply assumed that Moneybookers would send me dollars if I requested them to do so. It turned out, however, that the correspondent bank that they use in Hungary will only send the money in Forints. So on a 4000 withdrawal, Moneybookers convereted the 4000 to forints and then my bank converted it back into dollars before putting it into my account. The result was that I lost $267 of the $4000. And then I take a third hit whenever I take the money out to buy things locally here. So now I have opened an account in Forints as well which should only result in a single ding of 3% or so.

As far as getting my accounts retagged, Merge was the easiest site to do this on. I play on RPM and got on with their live chat the day after I got here and they just looked at my documents and retagged me that day. Then I had immediate access to their ewallets. I decided to use Moneybookers and did three withdrawals with them-one was processed in 72 hours and the other two were processed in less than 24 hours. PokerStars was more complex as they reviewed each of my documents with a fine toothed comb and objected in several places. For instance, in Hungary people who rent flats generally don't open individual accounts with utility companies as they do in the States. The building owner pays all the utilities and then charges tenants for their individual electric use. So for my utility statement I merely sent them my signed agreement to pay for my own electricity along with the initial meter reading, and Poker Stars decided to eventually accept this. Also, things are so laid back in Hungary that when I signed my lease agreement the agent told me the owner was out of town and would sign it in a week or so when he got back. PokerStars spotted this and objected which slightly delayed my getting online with them. All in all, it took about 10 days for Stars to accept my documents.

I also deposited $500 with Party when I got here. I was not sure
if I should explain to them my whole thing about being an American and relocating prior to depositing or if I should just start playing. I decided to just start playing and right away I hit a nice little streak and decided to cash out. When I cashed out they immediately flagged my account and locked it. It took about 10 days of phone calls, emails, etc. to get this resolved and then I got my money (in Euros, so double conversion hit again!).

For me the most difficult part of being in documments hell was with Moneybookers. Opening the account with them was trivial-I just clicked away and filled out some fields. Using them to transfer money to my Hungarian bank account was much more difficult, however. They required a verification process with three options. One was to deliver a letter with a code which I tried but I never received the letter for whatever reason. A second was to do a small transfer to my bank and ask the bank for the transaction code. I did that and the bank gave me the code but when I typed it in on the Moneybookers website they said it was invalid! Finally, I used the third option which is to allow a small charge to the card on my Hungarian bank account and that worked. That, however, only gave me a small working limit of around $2500 which was quickly obliterated by my initial deposits to Stars, Party, a tiny test transfer to my bank, and a futile effort to send money to family in the States (which eventually was flagged as from an account related to internet gambling and put back in my MB account). To get my limit increased to a workable amount I had to jump through a bunch of hoops on their website which got me nowhere. After spinning my wheels like this for 10 days or so I decided to call them and then the process was expedited with something they sent me called a banker's confirmation. My bank filled it out and then MB increased my limit. Finally, I requested my $4000 cashout from them and it took them about 5 days to process it and another 5 days for it to clear my bank account. So I arrived on July 29th and got my first meaningful bank transfer on September 7th.

Based on my whole experience with all of this, I would make a couple of suggestions. The first is that if you can afford it try to leave enough money in the states with family to pay whatever bills will come due while you are gone. In my case, most of my money was locked up on RPM, and the rest went to a round trip plane ticket with a flexible return date ($1650 as opposed to $1200 for one with a fixed return date but I figured the extra $450was justified), three month's rent (first month plus two months deposit), plus a nest egg of 6 weeks living expenses in case it took a while to get my money off of Moneybookers. But if you are a little more liquid than I was I would suggest leaving around 2K in the states or so to pay any bills you have come due such as student loans, etc. My second suggestion would be to open your bank account in the local currency or perhaps in multiple currencies. Thirdly, when you are dealing with the whole verification process, try to resolve things whenever possible with phone calls as opposed to the automated steps they suggest on the websites-for me it was much faster.

There are some real-world implications that may have been overlooked on this thread.

Let's say you choose Canada. Before making any kind of permanent decision, take a trip to one of the big three cities, and open a bank account. If you can do that, you're pretty much set. Make a return visit, find someone looking for a roommate who has an internet account you can use, and from a practical point-of-view, you're unlikely to run into any trouble with Canada Border Services Agency. Basically you'd have to get arrested for committing some sort of crime before you came to anyone's attention at CBSA, and even then, the deportation process is lengthy enough that you'd be able to leave voluntarily with all your stuff and all your cash. Just don't drive a car and don't steal anything and it should all be good.

The bigger question, though, is what is your plan? How much of your life do you want to spend making a living playing online poker, even if you're living in one of the top ten cities in the world? Is the goal to build a bankroll to fund, you know, something resembling a life? Or is that it -- play poker, and maybe get to be one of the guys making prop bets with Durrrr?

Have people had success getting money off Absolute after moving abroad?

I've tried twice to withdraw from UB, but with no success. Both attempts were with Moneybookers, and both were within a few weeks of Black Friday. My first attempt was reversed with no explanation, then the second withdrawal was cancelled because Moneybookers stopped processing transactions for UB/AP (not sure if MB has resumed service for UB/AP, but I doubt it).

I've heard some players have had some success withdrawing with another ewallet (I think it was Click2Pay), but even that became sporadic after awhile iirc. There's a UB cashout thread somewhere that was getting fairly regular updates.

Alan

here is there thread:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...hread-1033199/

It's interesting to see someone else's experiences with the same country that I will be moving to. This has helped just a bit more after I have gone through some of what you have, particularly the bank account/currency exchange issue. I have my account in dollars over there also, and I remember the lady asking if I wanted one in Forint also because it was free and I didn't do it. I should've because I made the same mistake you did taking money off Full tilt in dollars when FT's bank uses Forint there, so I took the double conversion hit also (lost about the same as you).

I went to Budapest in June and dealt with Full Tilt for about 2 weeks before they finally changed my address to the location where I was (and will be going back to for the foreseeable future). I was able to make withdrawals and receive my $ before they shut down. Which bank are you using (I set up one @ Citibank, but am considering switching to CIB or MKB because of Citi's ridiculous fees)?

I've never had a stars account and plan setting one up when I get back there soon. From what your experience was with Party, do you recommend doing the verification process first and explaining my situation? Or just sign up and start playing?

Thanks for the info..

short-sighted, well put

[cross posted]

New Malta Residency Scheme Announced for wealthy non-EU citizens. It has more strict requirements than the previous scheme.

Just got the info from my accountant. You can PM me for his contact details if you want a recommendation for a knowledgeable guy with very fair rates.

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A high net worth individuals’ scheme was launched by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech this morning to replace the permanent residence scheme, which was suspended abruptly at the beginning of the year. Mr Fenech said the new scheme will not attract people to come here simply to buy property but people who would also contribute to the local economy.
Under the new rules, the property bought by foreigners had to be worth a minimum of €400,000, up from the previous minimum of €116,000. Moreover, people buying property under the new scheme had to spend a minimum of 90 days per year living in Malta. Mr Mario Borg, from the Inland Revenue Department, explained that there were going to be two sets of rules, one for EU nationals and one for third country nationals.
EU nationals
· These had to spend a minimum of €400,000 on the purchase of property or €20,000 a year in rent;
· They had to have health insurance recognised across Europe;
· Pay an application fee of €6,000 to cover fees the government will be incurring through a sub-contracted international firm to do the 'fit and proper' test to check whether the applicant is 'desirable';
· The application forms can only be submitted by Maltese warrant holders registered with the Inland Revenue Department as authorised people;
· EU Nationals had to reside in Malta for a minimum of 90 days per year;
· Pay 15 per cent tax on foreign income and normal tax on any local income;
· The minimum tax payable was €20,000 a year and €2,500 tax per dependant.
Non-EU residents
· These also had to keep renewing their visa every three months or enter into a contract with the government with a financial bond of €500,000 and €150,000 per dependent, to effectively purchase permanent residency after five years, when the money will become the government's;
· Their minimum tax payment will be € 25,000 a year;
Existing Permanent Residents, Mr Borg said, will not lose their status unless they sold their property.

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interesting thread i just wasted a couple of hours on....

still waiting on a detailed report/response from SandmanNess

You can stay here in the Philippines for a year, just have to pay like $150 a month to get your passport stamped.

ft heaven? i thought it was the outhouse.

any work deductions?

with ft proly never they are in the outhouse takin care of their big business

not to bad a concept, even though detroit is a armpit.

Australia would be a great place to live, if you love the lifestyle over here and the nightlife too.

Not sure, but think you could possibly live in UK, Canada, Mexico, Philippines, or Cambodia for 6 months (possibly a year in the last 3). Utility may be the most difficult.

Is it difficult for US citizen to open up bank account in UK?