In Sweden, the law when it comes to taxation of profit from poker is that you owe the government taxes (30%) on your wins, by default. The exception to this is if you win the money on a site “within the EU” in which case there is no tax. It’s a pretty big exception, given that the only thing a player needs to do to not pay taxes is to either

a) Play on a site in the EU, or
b) not tell Skatteverket (our IRS) that he’s won money.

The former is clearly a lot safer than the latter, since they do review individuals randomly and not paying taxes is, of course, a boo-boo. Also, there are plenty of sites within the EU, so choosing one of them shouldn’t be a problem. Right?

Well, this is where it starts to get tricky. See, a casino has a physical residence. If I walk into a casino I will (mostly, depending on very recent drinking habits) know which country I’m currently in. This is not necessarily the case with an internet poker site. How do I determine whether or not a site is in the EU? And that’s when I run into the next problem: How do you define “in the EU?”

Again, that’s easy to do with a casino. Wherever the table that I’m playing at is located will serve as a good basis of observation. If the owner of the casino happens to live in Saint Tropéz, good for him! But I’m playing in Stockholm, or wherever. When we’re dealing with online poker, do I try to find out where

1) the servers are located,
2) the company is registered, or
3) where they have their license?

These three are not necessarily the same. In fact, I’ve found that they’re more often different than the same.

Just to make it slightly more difficult than it already is, poker sites sometimes - to me it seems often, but I don’t really have anything to compare to - move around. Did you know, for instance, that Poker Stars is nowadays located in Isle of Man? It used to be Costa Rica. I think.

So I read that Full Tilt is now “in the clear” when it comes to Swedish taxes since they’ve supposedly moved to Aruba (which, as anyone who’s ever watched Fox News in the last 15 months is bound to know, is a part of the Netherlands). I also read somewhere else that they had moved to Ireland. I couldn’t find any official record saying that they had though, and they don’t mention anything about residence or where they’re registered on their site, so I emailed them:

Hi,

For taxation purposes, I’m wondering where Full Tilt Poker is located as a company. I read that it’s (as of August) in Ireland. Is this correct? The difference, basically, comes down to whether or not its within the EU.

Thanks,

Fredrik

But, alas…

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Full Tilt Poker Customer Support.

For security purposes we are unable to divulge where our company is
located. Please email us at support@fulltiltpoker.com, and we’ll be
more the willing to help you needs.

Uh. Okay? Although I wasn’t asking for an exact location (I thought my question was clear enough) I now started wondering why they would be secretive about their address? I don’t need to know it, but now I’m curious as to why. Weird.

So I emailed them again, explaining that I just wanted to know the country, not the address. Quite awhile later, I got this:

Hello Fredrik,

Thank you for contacting Full Tilt Poker Customer Support.

Fill Tilt Poker is based out of the Kahnawake Gaming Commission.

Aha. Going to the Kahnawake (I’m guessing it’s pronounced “Cunna-walk-ee”, by the way - is that correct?) website, I find out that it’s in Canada. Uh, okay. I get the whole thing about how Indian territories are usually, well, lenient with gambling laws and how that makes them good places to set-up shop if you’re into casinos, but I’m not sure I get that Full Tilt is actually located there. Or is it? Again, the definition of what “where the company is located” means seems to be highly up for debate.

It’s giving me a head-ache. Perhaps I should just play at the only site I know for a fact is based in Sweden (www.svenskaspel.se). That would be the safe way to go.

The downside to SvenskaSpel is that

1) They are a small site, and I like to have lots of tables to choose from, and
2) I have to play with Swedish currency which I’m not used to.

The second reason may seem shallow, but it’s still something that bothers me. See, a US dollar is about 7.5 Swedish Crowns. That means that I should play at tables with a 7.5 times higher stake (in numbers) than the ones that I play now, e.g. SEK 40/80 or so (that seems to be the closest). And sitting down at a 40/80 table kinda freaks me out. First of all because the numbers are bigger, but also because suddenly the chips that before were only some small value “3″ and “6″ or “5″ and “10″ suddenly become real money. See, I can easily relate to how much 80 crowns is. I can buy stuff for that. Like a pizza and a drink with it. Or go to a movie. Or, if I have a bad day and lose 42BB in 100 hands, I’ve suddenly lost the equivalent of more than half the rent for that month.

It’s silly, but it’s true: The numbers affect me. I’d probably get used to it pretty quick, but still.

Bah.

/Fredrik