New Online Gambling Law in Germany - Page 15 - Poker News

The way they want to do it right now is a reasonable regulation in their opinion. Pretty much in line with other stuff like lottery and sports betting.

People rightfully mention that way is ridiculous for cash games. So maybe somebody should suggest to implement a system where that flat % fee gets you one or two hours of cash game and if you want to play longer, you have to pay again? Not sure if that made people happier though..

The "fair" way to do it would be to tax operators based on how much rake they collect. For players individually, I'm all for taxing winning players only. That should be fairly easy if we have regulated operators who are required to identify every player and track their win/loss record. At the end of the year, operators submit that data to tax authorities where records from various platforms can be tabulated and taxed with a flat 25% or something like that. Maybe as soon as somebody reaches $1000 in winnings on a single platform, the operator starts blocking 25% of that balance to ensure that the player is able to pay his taxes at the end of the year.

I think taxing operators based on their rake makes alot of sense and there is nothing else needed. Dont see why winning players would have to pay taxes on top of that, but it would not be the end of the world either. The 4 table cap and missing game selection needs to go though. It could all be very easy and acceptable for all parties involved

Sad

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04-03-2021 , 09:43 AM

#352

jackie nguyen

old hand

Join Date: May 2008 Posts: 1,340

Well, ****, where can we still play after July 1st then?

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04-03-2021 , 10:27 AM

#353

evcrusher

centurion

Join Date: Aug 2017 Posts: 129

Quote:

Originally Posted by jackie nguyen

Well, ****, where can we still play after July 1st then?

legally nowhere. There might be some games running but they will not be beatable. Would not risk playing on unregulated sites either.

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04-03-2021 , 12:10 PM

#354

YourMother66

newbie

Join Date: Jun 2019 Posts: 42

Can you imagine all german online poker players just stop playing online poker? recs and regs?

Is unregulated really that risky? I mean more risky than now or back in the day?

I tested some crypto sites, there were good but of course no traffic. My guess would be most people go to some of the crappy mobile apps

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04-03-2021 , 01:11 PM

#355

evcrusher

centurion

Join Date: Aug 2017 Posts: 129

Quote:

Originally Posted by YourMother66

The regulation changes everything. It will be very clear which site is legal or not. No more grey area. With all the mass surveilance laws that came up recently it sounds like a big risk. I would imagine playing on these sites will raise suspicions of money laundering.

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04-03-2021 , 01:35 PM

#356

madlex

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 17,440

Does nobody think some sites will apply for a license and offer games to players who don’t care about rake? If that happens, at least some regs will play there too. At least until the reg-rec ratio can’t support winning players anymore.

Paying an extra 5% on every buy-in certainly sucks, but if players are bad enough that might still be worth it. If you compare that to paying easily 100-200€ in rake in an evening of 5/5 at Spielbank Berlin..

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04-03-2021 , 02:07 PM

#357

evcrusher

centurion

Join Date: Aug 2017 Posts: 129

Quote:

Originally Posted by madlex

Could work if its a seperate german player pool. If eastern european countries have access to it theres no chance imo.

/edit : Nevermind I dont think it can work at all. 5,3% fee on every buy in and x% rake to even allow the poker rooms to make any profit. Its hard to even imagine beating that but remember that the 4 table cap will still be there. There will be no room for rakeback or bonuses/leaderboards either. It would just be interesting for Recs.

Last edited by evcrusher; 04-03-2021 at 02:17 PM. Reason: Added thoughts

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04-03-2021 , 02:53 PM

#358

wegg

centurion

Join Date: Sep 2020 Posts: 159

Quote:

Originally Posted by madlex

Given the fact that the same taxation with smaller tax rate (2%) has failed in France, chances are the same thing will happen in Germany. When that will happen might be another question, but I'm pretty confident it's destined to fail.

It's also worth noting that you don't have to speculate, but you can actually calculate (or rather approximate in a mathematical model) how to maximize tax income. It becomesp retty evident rather quickly that the proposed model doesn't optimize the formula. See here for more info on the matter.

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04-03-2021 , 04:47 PM

#359

8gameisfun

grinder

Join Date: May 2016 Posts: 635

Quote:

Originally Posted by evcrusher

Oh come on, people have been playing on unregulated sites for over a decade and the US has a much more excessive surveillance system than Germany ever will, plus the IRS is to the Finanzamt what a lion is to a common house cat.

Just buy some crypto, switch to some unregulated sites, practice common privacy precautions and you're good to go. Now, will recs do this? Few of them. But you get recs from other, banned countries as compensation.

**** Germany and their ******ed politicians, they could've gotten compliance from players if they were willing to work on something semi decent. As it stands now, they get nothing.

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04-03-2021 , 09:18 PM

#360

super_dave31

old hand

Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 1,223

Just out of interest... does this apply to tournaments too?

If not, the only other option I see is German players will just become tournament / Spins players far more

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04-04-2021 , 09:45 AM

#361

evcrusher

centurion

Join Date: Aug 2017 Posts: 129

Quote:

Originally Posted by super_dave31

Just out of interest... does this apply to tournaments too?

If not, the only other option I see is German players will just become tournament / Spins players far more

It applies to all the games. And remember that germans wont be able to play more than 4 tables or mix sites.

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04-04-2021 , 06:25 PM

#362

super_dave31

old hand

Join Date: Nov 2008 Posts: 1,223

Quote:

Originally Posted by evcrusher

It applies to all the games. And remember that germans wont be able to play more than 4 tables or mix sites.

But surely having a 5% tax on every tournament or Spin, is more managable than losing 5% of your buy in at every cash game table?

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04-06-2021 , 08:08 AM

#363

cocacola2

centurion

Join Date: Dec 2019 Posts: 108

is GGPoker an unregulated or regulated site?

It's weird, they don't seem to be. They accept payment and withdraw in crypto. And their verification process doesn't require a bank account connected (like pokerstars).

But when the other legislation was introduced, they capped deposits at $1000 and took away the online casino. Why??

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04-06-2021 , 10:40 AM

#364

maxendio

newbie

Join Date: Oct 2017 Posts: 31

I guess it regulated because I cant play more than 4 tables, can't tableselect and zhey always Show my win/loss of the last 30 days and i have this "Panic button"

But I guess if the regulations come through they just wont give a ****.

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04-07-2021 , 07:08 AM

#365

dsailor

enthusiast

Join Date: Mar 2020 Posts: 83

I'd call them 'semi regulated'. They're regulated when it suits them, and unregulated when it comes to taking on new customers. I believe their licensed in Curacao rather than the UK so they may adhere to different laws than stars/party

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04-07-2021 , 07:27 AM

#366

davmcg

veteran

Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 2,535

www.ggpoker.co.uk is licensed by the UKGC and is owned by a Dublin company. I don't know how the corporate structures of gaming companies affects licensing obligations of various entities.

In the finance sector it's quite common for subsidiaries to be locally licensed and to comply with different regulations in many jurisdictions, so I can't see why the gambling sector would be different.

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04-07-2021 , 10:37 AM

#367

dsailor

enthusiast

Join Date: Mar 2020 Posts: 83

Mhmm, I thought I saw they were licensed in Curacao somewhere

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04-08-2021 , 02:44 AM

#368

NerdSuperfly

veteran

Join Date: Nov 2010 Posts: 2,172

Quote:

Originally Posted by dsailor

Mhmm, I thought I saw they were licensed in Curacao somewhere

i think they recently switched licences ... not sure if they also got a licence on malta though (which would be the licence they would use for DE).

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04-08-2021 , 06:51 AM

#369

davmcg

veteran

Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 2,535

Quote:

Originally Posted by dsailor

Mhmm, I thought I saw they were licensed in Curacao somewhere

The point I was trying to make was that gambling companies could have multiple licences and also multiple subsidiaries, so they could have a Curacao licence for one part of the business and a UK one for another.

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04-08-2021 , 07:51 AM

#370

BackingDonk

journeyman

Join Date: Aug 2011 Posts: 318

They are licensed in Curacao and also in the UK (for UK customers only). They do hold a B2B license in Malta but not clear if any of their skins are using it or not.

Given that they accept players from a number of places that other companies do not (for example India and Israel), it certainly is interesting to see what they will do for Germany.

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04-13-2021 , 05:13 AM

#371

jay94

old hand

Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 1,477

Quote:

Originally Posted by 8gameisfun

So on point, unfortunately most of the citizens of America are nothing, but mere sheep.

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04-16-2021 , 09:07 AM

#372

Mtipster

newbie

Join Date: Sep 2016 Posts: 35

Quote:

Originally Posted by NerdSuperfly

https://www.bundesrat.de/SharedDocs/.../209-21(B).pdf

Although my German is crooked, it seems that gaming operator is responsible for paying the turnover tax.

So, Pokerstars haters from "stars is rigged" thread should finally get their revenge! It's quite simple:

1. Move to Germany
2. Buy in to cash game
3. Leave the table immediately
4. Pokerstars pays 5.03% to Germany
5. Repeat