Hej guys,

how is the legal situation in portugal? do you pay any incometax on your winnings and do you cash it out to a portugees bank account?

online gambling is not ilegal.

also no taxes and you can cash out directly to a portuguese bank with no problemas (sums under 10K euros).

How can I get by with just english there? What are the best parts to go, if you dont know any portugese?

@D33P/all: Found a German article which is saying that onlinepoker in Portugal is not legal atm. Where did you get your information from about the legal status? I am thankful for your answer, but obv I want to be sure about the right info.

you will get by with just english at the most cosmopolitan areas such as big cities, cities with universities and popular tourist places, so from the top of my head i would say: Lisbon, Porto, Algarve, Coimbra and a few more places.

gambling in portugal is legal as far it is done on casinos or at games exploited by Santa Casa.

online gambling is not regulated and it is not legal or ilegal, it is kind of a legal voight.

i do get this info by being portuguese, living in portugal and gambling online.

somehow it seems i missed this thread, so i did some cliffs there for all to check (post 300).

Hi D33P and thanks for helping people like me out.

Me and a friend are considering relocating to southern Portugal during the winter to escape the Swedish winter. We were going to Spain, but the tough regulation killed our plans totally since we gamble a lot. So far after everything you wrote, Portugal seem like an awesome country. I have a few questions for you though:

Q1: How well can you get around using english only (from a scale 1-10)?
Q2: What city or part of Portugal would you recommend if we want the best weather combined with reasonable living expenses and close to a casino with good poker action?
Q3: How tasty is the food there? Do most people like it?
Q4: How much is a standard meal out?
Q4: Can you get by with $1k a month comfortably if you don't party too much (rent, food, 20-40sqm apartment), etc)?
Q5: What is the rake usually in casinos?
Q6: Hows the nightlife at the location(s) you chose to recommend?

I dont want to hijack this thread, but a quick answer to Disorienter: If an ok casino with some action during winter is really important for you, I think Estoril is your only option, because there is no poker at all in the south of Portugal during winter. It is something like 30 minuts away from Lisbon and there is one table of 5/10 going every day (5% up to 35€ every pot I think), and 2/5 at least 3 days a week. There is also a 5/5 PLO 2 days a week, is a new game that is running for ~6 weeks. There is also poker in espinho ( 5/5, not playing deep, I think the game still runs every day?) and Figueira da Foz (with cash games running dailly during Summer/only on weekends after that, 5/5)

You should be ok only knowing english in this area (lots of turists), food is way better than amost every other place in Europe (not joking), you can take a meal out for 12-18€ but if you really search you can find some ok places where you can take a meal for something like 7-10€ (I have some places like this close to where I live in Lisbon, and Lisbon is probably the most expansive city in Portugal). I have no ideia on renting prices for a house in Estoril but if you share it with a friend of yours I think you can do it. I have no ideia about Estoril, but Lisbon is 30 minutes away from Estoril and you have a lot of places to drink out / clubs over where. Also a lot of concerts all year if you like music.

Thanks mate!
Wow food seems very steep, just like in my country . Live poker isn't that big of a deal, but its nice to play some tourney/cash sometime to get away from the computer and still put in lollervolume . Hows the beaches in the Estoril area?

No problem helping people out.
My kind of giving back some to this forum and to this people that helped me out so much.

The beaches are ok and there are tons of choices nearby.

Where are most of you guys living? I concider going to Portugal, but would like to stay in an area where other pokerplayers live.

What would you suggest? Maybe close to the ocean...

I very much consider this beautiful country right now, so I have a few more questions for you experienced fellas':

Q7: Which place would you choose to live at permanently between Estoril and Figueira da Foz? What are your reasons?
Q8: Hows the internet availability on these locations and is it possible to get a 3G-sim for your iPhone to use as a backup internet when grinding?
Q9: I tried numbeo.com for price comparison but there was not enough data, is it similar or is the general cost of living lower in one of the places?

Sorry for sounding like such a nit, but relocating is always very bankroll-killing so I need to make a budget

Sorry if it's been asked before buth wo are girls in Portugal? hottnesswise obv

Q7: Estoril, I might be wrong about it but I have the ideia that Figueira do not have that much going on unless you are talking about Summer (2 - 3 months every year), Estoril is close to Lisbon where you can get anything you want and nice night-life / lots of things to do all year, and also casino is better.

Q8: Internet is very good in Portugal. U can get a nice deal for tv+internet for something like 25€ / month. You can get an usb pen for something like 25€ and use it as backup, u pay 10€ every 3 months for 10 hour utilization (u can get also something like 15€/month for 2 GB). I have one of this pens and I pay 30€ / month for unlimited use and use it as my grinding internet.

Q9: Estoril should be more expansive than Figueira, both house (a bit) and food / night (should be close to the same but Estoril a little more expansive), but I can be wrong. If I was you I would probably go to Estoril anyway.
Go to this sites and search for both Estoril and Figueira da Foz to get an ideia on prices on renting an house - http://www.imovirtual.com/ or http://www.coisas.com/imoveis/type,2

Also, I saw you asking about the spanish guys living in Portugal in the other thread... Faro is the biggest city in Algarve, is in the south of Portugal (better weather / best beaches) and probably more close to Spain that other cities. Also, it is the place in Portugal where more tourists go and it should be easy to rent an house for a short time. And, also, most people speak (or at least understand) english in Algarve, even more than in Estoril. Finally, it is probably the area in Portugal with the best / craziest nightlife (at least during summer), and is not so expansive as Estoril. The big only downside is that there is close to 0 live poker action (something like 2 100€ mtts with 200 guys playing it every year and thats all).

I hope this helps you, sory for the bad english.

Thank you very much LordDogs!

LordDogs pretty much answered it.

sorry for not keeping this up to date as much as i would love to.

for those of you asking about the food here, start drooling.

nice thread!

Any interest for Porto? My #1 priority is to go there in January. Anyone up for it?

If you're going there anyway it's a great town. But if you're planing moving exclusively to play poker next year I would wait for the presentation of the 2013 national budget.

There's speculation that portuguese government will follow french and spanish regulation, and it will become a closed market next year.

just going to play online poker

So it's better to have a plan B, just in case. The 2013 budget will be presented mid to late october, so we can see then if there's any expected income from online gambling. If there is, it will probably take a few months into the new year to know how things will shake out.

But with this happy tax increase government I'm not optimistic to say the least. People who earn more than 150K in personal income are going to be taxed at 65.5%. There's also a 28% tax in stock trades... This country is going from bad to worst.

I'm thinking of talking a trip with my father and girlfriend to Iberia. My goal is to see great scenery, historically significant sites, and great soccer teams. If I have, say, 5-8 days to spend in Portugal and want to see at least two great soccer matches, does that pretty much mean Porto and Lisbon? Will I miss out if I don't see the rest of the country?

Inside 5-8 days I wouldn't go anywhere else, that would be a waste of time. In terms of football there's only another good team: Braga. Which by the way people say the architecture of their stadium is spectacular, since it's carved in a former rock solid site. I haven't gone there yet so can't say much more.

Hi guys!

I am thinking about moving to Portugal for some time, I've heard only good things about it, its a wonderful country.
I know that online poker is legal there, but I only play small stakes again, so I will need to find a job for a while...
Someone here wrote that his US friends moved there and found jobs easily...


So as an EU member(Hungary), speaking only English no special degree, how easy is to find a job there, like in a restaurant or in a hotel?

If I just go there, check a few cities and start to ask around, is it possible that I'll find a job like that quite quickly?

I'd love to hear about the US people that moved to Portugal and found jobs easily (assuming they don't speak Portuguese.) I'm not saying it's impossible, but I really don't know how someone would come here and get a job without speaking Portuguese, unless it's as an English teacher or a manual labor job. How are you going to work in a Portuguese restaurant speaking only English?