[operaman]

Trying to chose which of these countries to move to.

Legality, Ewallet, and Site acceptance/verafication are of particular interest. Thanks in advance!

p.s. I really am moving there, not trying to set up a remote
location.

[Jamie_UK]

what research have you done so far?

[Stumpage]

Well, it's not illegal here (Canada), despite what you might hear. Every so often the topic of banning it comes up, but it never gets far (For example, a recent Private Member's bill to ban advertising of online gaming, but even that relatively meager attack on gambling went nowhere).

Canada is no longer a Neteller option, but there's still Moneybookers, Instadebit (though small limits) and some others. Some books have banned Canadians from their clientele base (VIP Family for instance) but it's a small list.

The biggest percieved con is the belief that Canada will eventually follow the lead of the United States and institute a gambling ban, but there appears to be no movement in this direction. Plus, any move to outlaw online gambling would lead to a very sticky situation with Canada's native people, as a number of online books operate, with disputed legality, within the borders of the Kahnawake Mohawk Reservation. Trust me, in the aftermath of what in Canada is known as the "Oka Crisis", no government wants to stir up this hornets nest by trying to enforce a ban.

Anyway, sorry for the long message. Canada is safe as far as betting, and will be for quite some time.

[operaman]

Thanks for the info stumpage!

[chano]

In Thailand you can bang chicks all you like.

[operaman]

Originally Posted by Jamie_UK

what research have you done so far?

Well, I was up to date on Canada 9months-1year ago and wanted to get a up to the min update on the gambling situation there.

As for Thailand:

I know it is legalish with some work arounds and know that party poker doesn't go there. So really just starting my research on TL as far as gambling goes.

It seems like a very very cheap place to live and a very friendly
culture. Living for an extended period of time as a expatriate is quite a hassle as it requires frequent trips to other contries to reset the visa. The food is fantastic. The water is good for the third world and they have sewers some places. 220v electricity. Women have a lower status than men and one would be hard pressed to find a progressive woman there. (unlike Canada) If you need the police for something and they help you, you are expected to tip them ( or so I hear).

[20Four7]

winters in canada are a bitch, I wouldn't come here.... But I ain't moving anywhere else......

[The HG]

Originally Posted by Stumpage

Well, it's not illegal here (Canada), despite what you might hear. Every so often the topic of banning it comes up, but it never gets far (For example, a recent Private Member's bill to ban advertising of online gaming, but even that relatively meager attack on gambling went nowhere).

This sounds very familiar....

[louis]

I personally would live in Canada, but I think Thailand would make a nice vacation. My concern is what the authorities in Thailand would think of my unusual online gaming hobby. The culture and customs and language there are very much unlike the United States.

Some of these countries have weird reasons for arrresting people. Thailand could be like Mexico. The police, prosecutors, and judges will leave 99.9% of tourist alone but if you live there they may bother you just to get a bribe. Can you trust the banks over there? I don't know.

In Canada, the culture is close enough to the U.S. that I would feel comfortable. There is integrity in the institutions. The UK has also come across to me as an attractive place for online gaming, but I don't know how one would get a VISA to move there. I believe Canada allows U.S. citizens to come for up to 6 month visits, as long as they don't work. Canadian officials take their laws seriously, and will enforce rules like this. I don't think a U.S. citizen can legally move to Canada permanently without a VISA, and applying to get a VISA so one can wager is probably not going to fly. Getting a VISA to retire may work.

[increasedodds]

If I was to move, I'd go with Panama - great weather, easy to get a license, can use neteller. Legit banks.

[thagame24]

as I understand it cant you just live in canada but you have to leave and re-enter for at least 1 day every 6 months? You can't work, but if you're gambling for a living you don't have that issue anyway.

[buztah]

CANADA: Senate saves the day for online gambling

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Senate saves the day for online gambling

By Tim Naumetz | Publication Date: Monday, 10 December 2007

OTTAWA — The so-called chamber of sleepy second thought, the Senate, stepped in at the last minute to amend an innocent-looking clause in a government “housekeeping” bill that might have inadvertently made online gambling illegal in Canada.

Liberal Senator George Baker raised a red flag when the bill hit the Senate floor, saying minor amendments to modernize bookmaking laws by removing Criminal Code references to “telephone and telegraph” posed serious consequences for internet servers and home gamblers.

“There is a big market for internet gambling in Canada,” Baker said. “Online poker is huge. This bill will end that, and that has not been brought up by anyone.”

He told Law Times the legislation, amending more than a dozen Criminal Code sections, had gone through four House of Commons committee hearings with no mention of the bill’s potential effect on internet gamers.

Despite assurances from Justice Minister Rob Nicholson and his department lawyers that the change was minor and would not alter the legal status of offshore-based online gaming in Canada, top officials from PartyGaming PLC, an online gambling site based in Gibraltar, later implored the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee to amend the legislation.

The blue-ribbon PartyGaming delegation consisted of Mitchell Garber, the company’s chief executive officer and a member of the Quebec bar, Montreal lawyer Brahm Gelfand, chair of PartyGame’s international advisory committee and an attorney with Lapointe Rosenstein LLP, and former RCMP commissioner Norman Inkster, now an adviser to PartyGame.

Garber testified that it was unclear whether the new law would ban online gambling sites based abroad from serving Canadians, as the offshore gaming sites were in the U.S. following the September 2001 terrorist attacks, when U.S. officials feared internet gambling was a way of laundering money for terrorism.

In Canada, offshore sites have remained legal, though domestic gaming sites are not allowed because of provincial licensing jurisdiction over casinos.

“The goal is to seek clarity, to ensure that if Parliament is to make an amendment, and is to make this amendment, that the intent of the amendment is not subject to interpretation, is not ambiguous, and that it is clear exactly to whom and what the amendment is meant to apply,” said Garber.

“I have heard some testimony about bookies,” he added. “Is this about sports betting, bingo, or poker? All of these things are important for companies such as ours to know. We do not have business operations in Canada. We do have Canadian customers.”

Inkster acknowledged the senators might have been surprised at his association with online gambling.
“Let me say that before I agreed to work as an adviser for PartyGaming, I had to convince myself they were the gold standard,” he assured the committee.

“There is nothing inherently wrong with gambling or gaming, but it does attract bad people,” he went on. “That is why regulation is so important; not just regulation but crystal-clear regulation. I am here to reinforce the encouragement of my colleagues that amendments could be made to make the intent of the law clear.”

Nicholson and a department senior counsel, Anouk Desaulniers, assured senators the amendment only modernizes existing Criminal Code provisions against bookmaking, where third parties profit from wagers.
“The situation will not change,” said Desaulniers, adding internet servers would not be vulnerable unless they wilfully and knowingly took part in bookmaking.

But even Conservative Senator Raynell Andreychuk, a former judge and Crown prosecutor in Saskatchewan who sits on the Senate legal and constitutional affairs committee, seemed unsure when she attempted to explain the change last week.

Andreychuk repeated the government position that the amendments affect only bookmaking, but she wasn’t clear about what forms of online gambling are currently legal in Canada, or whether bookmakers subject to the law would be outside or inside Canada.

“I don’t think situs matters,” she said. “It matters who does it, bookies as opposed to an individual. I think we need to clarify that law.”
She wasn’t certain exactly how bookmaking works: “I don’t know. This is not my field. I’ve never used a bookie.”

Andreychuk joked she might try out online gambling, as she and other budding prosecutors in Saskatchewan would test Breathalyzers to familiarize themselves for putting evidence in court for impaired-driving cases.
“You’d have a drink, but they’d pick you up and drive you home,” she quickly explained. “We went through a learning process.”

Gelfand said the bill’s substitution of Criminal Code references to telephones and telegraphs with references to any form of telecommunication could have a long reach internationally.
“If it has a long-arm effect, does that mean that an executive of an offshore corporation, which is a legally constituted property licence, who is coming into Canada will be arrested and charged with a criminal offence?”

A relieved Garber said later the Conservative chair of the legal and constitutional affairs committee, Senator Don Oliver, assured him the Senate would recommend that the Commons amend the bill to clarify the continuing legality of offshore-based online gambling in Canada.

“The senators said very emphatically this would not have an extraterritorial effect,” he told Law Times.

[nikosgr]

Move to Thailand.
You will be able to make huge arbitrage combining the local betshops that offer very soft lines and are extremely slow to change odds with betfair and other bookmakers that are granded in the free world.
Only concern is that the local currency, baht, might lose some of it's value, but if you managed to survive the usd collapse of the last years, i m sure you can live with baht.
Go there for 2-3 years, make a fortune like this, and then return back to america with the money in the pocket.

[robzilla]

Is there any Thai books online?
If so, would they all be rated F-----?

[degenerate#1]

If you are capping games, I'd think that Canada would be a better option as you will at least be in the same time zone and can at least have games on tv.

[raiders72002]

For the most part the women in Canada are large, ugly and ghostly white. Go to Thailand.