Starting online poker room

[extremeone]

Call me crazy, but I am thinking about it. It's going to come down to funding. As a poker player myself, I have identified some key elements missing in the current software that would enhance the online product. Also, Full Tilt's approach is a great one - get the pros to play on your site, and the general public will follow. Well, the pros are simply going to go where the money is.

I am having trouble locating any detailed info. on the existing poker rooms and the companies that own them. Full Tilt is owned by Ray Bitar and TiltWare. Poker pros Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson also have ownership stake in the company estimated to be valued at $40 billion.

I am trying to find out where they operate, their governing bodies, taxes. Where the owners live?

I am also unsure whether an online poker room can operate in the United State even if it is paying taxes. I don't know of any within the US, but is it because it is illegal or because the taxes are far less in other countries.


Does anyone have some insight to share?

[bearcat]

well, it seems you've done all your research and have all your ducks in a row. -Good luck with your endeavor.

[orangepeel]

no idea, but good luck with the competition

[Breitling]

I'm not trying to de-motivate you, but I think this has zero chance of success. All of the big pros already have contracts with other poker sites. You'd have to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in advertising to get people to join. No one is going to go to your site if there aren't hundred of other players already there. People don't want to go to a poker site where you have to wait for people to log on just to start a game. I could go on and on...

[extremeone]

Breitling.....$25 million to start would be a good number.

Pros can be bought out of their contacts, advertisement is available, software can be improved, etc. Its all about the financing and business plan.

[Breitling]

There ya go. Raise $25 million and go for it.

[M.McFly]

Originally Posted by extremeone

Call me crazy, but I am thinking about it. It's going to come down to funding. As a poker player myself, I have identified some key elements missing in the current software that would enhance the online product. Also, Full Tilt's approach is a great one - get the pros to play on your site, and the general public will follow. Well, the pros are simply going to go where the money is.

I am having trouble locating any detailed info. on the existing poker rooms and the companies that own them. Full Tilt is owned by Ray Bitar and TiltWare. Poker pros Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson also have ownership stake in the company estimated to be valued at $40 billion.

I am trying to find out where they operate, their governing bodies, taxes. Where the owners live?

I am also unsure whether an online poker room can operate in the United State even if it is paying taxes. I don't know of any within the US, but is it because it is illegal or because the taxes are far less in other countries.


Does anyone have some insight to share?

First off, I think you would have more luck registering the software modifications you are referring to and seeing if you could sell them as a proprietary technology.

I'm not sure about your numbers, but I doubt any online casino is worth anywhere close to $40B. $40M possibly, but not $40B.

As for the legalities, once the US made online gambling illegal, the value of online casinos dropped like a rock, for obvious reasons. This is also the reason that almost all of these operations are located offshore. Take Calvin Ayre for example, the founder of Bodog. He has a warrant issued for his arrest by US authorities. If he steps on US soil, he will be arrested for tax evasion. He is Canadian, but his official residence is Antigua, although he has a home in Costa Rica as well. He doesn't seem to worried about the warrant in any case. Recently, he sold his stake in Bodog to the Mohawks in Quebec, but the IRS still froze millions of US assets since they feel that he is still the primary director of the company. It's impossible for the IRS to tell, since the corp is registered offshore, so they are really reaching here.

Either way though, since the corporation derives all of it's income in the country that it's servers are domiciled in, there really is no US derived income to report. The IRS has put their own spin on things by suggesting that the income is derived from US citizens, therefore is subject to income US taxes.

Anyway, just do a search for Calvin Ayre and other internet gambling folks and see the issues they've had. As a US citizen, you might be dealing with a lot of crap from the IRS and DoJ. Regardless, you will need to set everything up in a jurisdiction that will maintain your anonymity.

[bullseye]

I've always wondered something about online poker.... What prevents me and 4 other friends from connecting to a poker site and joining the same table (all from our separate homes), while we are on the phone with each other telling each other what our hands are, effectively making it a 5 vs 1 type game, assuming there are 6 players at the table?

[M.McFly]

Originally Posted by bullseye

I've always wondered something about online poker.... What prevents me and 4 other friends from connecting to a poker site and joining the same table (all from our separate homes), while we are on the phone with each other telling each other what our hands are, effectively making it a 5 vs 1 type game, assuming there are 6 players at the table?

NOTHING! That's how many scammers make big bucks. Some of the software is supposed to flag suspicious users eventually, but by that time it may be too late. For instance, if you were logging on with the same people at the same table all the time, you may be identified. But how hard would it be to register a few different accounts and log on from different locations?

[kris13]

I myself like BlackJack, good luck with your poker site hope it works out for you.

[extremeone]

I've been doing a little research on the site I play at, Full Tilt Poker. Here is the business structure:

Full Tilt Poker software is developed by a Los Angeles Company , TiltWare LLC. It in turn is licensed to Kolyma Corporation, A.V.V. which is regulated and licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission in Canada. The Commission regulates and controls gaming and gaming related activities conducted within and from the Mohawk Territory of Kahnawake that straddles the Canada-US border near Cornwall. Full Tilt Poker is but one of more than 200 online poker and gambling websites licensed by the native-run commission.

So the software is developed and owned by Tiltware llc (based in Los Angeles) and they license that software to a gambling company called Kolyma Corporation. Kolyma Corp gets the site "licensed and regulated" by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission in Canada.

Basically, to get "licensed and regulated" , you complete this form:
http://www.kahnawake.com/gamingcommi...ion%20Form.pdf


I have no idea how the cash flow works between Kolya Corp and TiltWare. Does Kolya simply pay a licensing fee to TiltWare and collect all on the rake through the site?

[CamelToeJoe]

generate capital with a freaking brilliant business plan, marketing plans, annual plans, etc! This sort of company is a doozy with lots of restrictions. You'll need a good team and at the very least $300k. I would shoot for 3 million though good luck.

[FrankDux]

Originally Posted by extremeone

Call me crazy, but I am thinking about it. It's going to come down to funding. As a poker player myself, I have identified some key elements missing in the current software that would enhance the online product. Also, Full Tilt's approach is a great one - get the pros to play on your site, and the general public will follow. Well, the pros are simply going to go where the money is.

I am having trouble locating any detailed info. on the existing poker rooms and the companies that own them. Full Tilt is owned by Ray Bitar and TiltWare. Poker pros Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson also have ownership stake in the company estimated to be valued at $40 billion.

I am trying to find out where they operate, their governing bodies, taxes. Where the owners live?

I am also unsure whether an online poker room can operate in the United State even if it is paying taxes. I don't know of any within the US, but is it because it is illegal or because the taxes are far less in other countries.


Does anyone have some insight to share?

I'm pretty sure online poker was banned in the US sometime back. If you want to find out about specific sites, go to whois.com and punch in their ip or domain name.

[trapz]

yea any sort of gambling site regardless of where it is hosted if your a US citizen you will be fucked if you have any sort of ownership or part in the actual operations im pretty sure from some stuff ive read about people involved in it.

your best bet would probably be to market the software like said