Has anyone ever gotten a visa to stay in any of the Schengen countries for longer than 3 months? And anyone using poker as their occupation? If so, what was the application process like, etc?
Poker is my only source of income, and I also have a sizeable amount of money in a bank account to show that I can support myself.
So an update. I've been looking through info online for the last couple of weeks and haven't found any easy way to do this. You can't even get a tourist visa for longer than 3 months, which is really surprising to me (obviously as a poker player if I had a tourist visa I would still be able to "work").
I'll keep the thread updated if I find any better info and if anyone else has some info please share (PM is cool too).
I looked into getting a Schengen visa for tourist reasons recently and it is a very complicated process with no straight forward answer because at the moment different countries use different interpretations of the law. It is best to be cautious and use the most strict understanding of the law.
If you want to seriously do this, pay so cash and speak with a lawyer who understands this. He/she will be able to give you the most accurate information on getting a work visa in Schengen related to poker.
A loophole that I think that you can exploit, but I'm not a lawyer, is to sign up for a language class in one of the countries and they will help you in securing a student visa. This will be fine to simply play online and in local casinos plus if you go to the classes you can learn the local language as well.
Just found any university in the Schengen area (there are ton of these) apply online for International Foundation Diploma (it'll cost you around 180EUR- 7000EUR depends from the university) and that's it.
Just choose one uni, send your docs,pay. When they approve you (and they will 100%) apply for a visa and few days later you'll get it.
Doesn't work, Schengen zone is 90 days out of every 180. Student visa is the way to go imo, or if you're white you can probably get away with over-staying in some countries.
