UK profesionals please help! Information required!
 

Hi Everyone. Please help a newbie to this forum.

I'm just hunting for some information which is proving quite difficult to find from professionals (or anyone well informed really) in the UK.

I graduated in the summer (Mathematics BSc) but i'm currently delaying going out finding a job to take advantage of the current poker boom. I'm realistic and know that there is only a couple of years in it maximum for 2nd teir players such as myself, but why not take advantage of it?

I'm no future world champion, but I am a Mathematics graduate with an incredible amount of NL experience. I'm projecting my income will be around £40000/$70000 p.a from my online play, which is more than enough to delay a life of suits and 9am starts for a while.

However I have a few important questions...

1. What is the REAL situation with Income Tax if poker is your sole source of income in the UK? My word, i've never found such a diverse range of opinions on what is surely a very simple question with a very simple answer? I've seen ''Tax Inspectors'' claiming the IR ignore poker as an activity all together, yet I have also seen people stating they are registered self employed and are actively paying taxes on their poker earnings... Very bizarre that so many intelligent individuals cannot produce a solution to this.

2. How do you go about assuring any form of credit as a professional poker player? Specifically is it possible to get a mortgage? I assume this is not possible, as you have no reliable source of income? However £3000 a month for the last 6 months and £10000 in the bank seems reliable to me...

3. Does anyone know how many ''professional poker players'' it is estimated there are in the UK at current?

Any help on this would be very appreciated!

Cheers

Blez

Re: UK profesionals please help! Information required!
 

1. You dont have to pay taxes on gambling winnings. Both my parents are accountants and they aver this.

2. You are going to find this very difficult. I wouldnt think about a mortgage until a couple of years time.

3. Don't know.

Re: UK profesionals please help! Information required!
 

Hi, welcome to the forums.

[ QUOTE ]
1. What is the REAL situation with Income Tax if poker is your sole source of income in the UK? My word, i've never found such a diverse range of opinions on what is surely a very simple question with a very simple answer? I've seen ''Tax Inspectors'' claiming the IR ignore poker as an activity all together, yet I have also seen people stating they are registered self employed and are actively paying taxes on their poker earnings... Very bizarre that so many intelligent individuals cannot produce a solution to this.

[/ QUOTE ]

I have always been of the understanding that earnings are not taxable. The "hendon mob" don't seem to pay any Mob Article

Here is what I think is the relevant inland revenue page Inland Rev

I have actually asked an accountant to contact the revenue on my behalf to clarify as I don't want to be ripped a new one in 6 months. I am awaiting a response.

[ QUOTE ]
2. How do you go about assuring any form of credit as a professional poker player? Specifically is it possible to get a mortgage? I assume this is not possible, as you have no reliable source of income? However £3000 a month for the last 6 months and £10000 in the bank seems reliable to me...

[/ QUOTE ]

It is possible to get a self cert mortgage. Basically however if you haven't got 6 months of records behind you it will be difficult and the rate you would get will be pretty bad. If you approach a good mortgage IFA it turns out that there are firms that don't actually check the 6 months records so if you are prepared to lie......

Good luck and feel free to PM me if you have any more questions etc.

Re: UK profesionals please help! Information required!
 

Have you thought about moving to a different country? I live in Australia and was in England recently. The question nobody could answer was "Why are we being charged 250% more for vastly inferior food, accommodation and service? (Don't get me started on the weather...) Lucky you've got some interesting historical sites there [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]
Oh yes and there's no tax on online poker players here.

Re: UK profesionals please help! Information required!
 

Cheers everyone for the great responses!

Thanks for the info everybody!

Just wanted to clarify with I few people as I don't like appearing like an idiot, I do not need credit to finance myself! I was purely asking out of curiosity, it was only whether I needed to pay income tax currently that I needed, the other two were just my musings.

Also, as I may keep posting here as it's unusual to get friendly responses on an online forum these days, I am not planning on spending my entire life sat in my house earning a slightly above average income playing online poker!

I've just recently graduated and can live rent free (and cost free!) for a couple of years yet, so delaying my career to have £70000 in the bank at the age of 23 seemed a much more rational decision than wasting money travelling around the world, or jumping straight in to an accountancy job on £23k a year and having to pay out £7000 p.a in rent which was what I was looking at.

Thanks again for the info, you should all see me around a bit now.

Re: UK profesionals please help! Information required!
 

You might want to check over at thehendonmob or blondepoker which are both UK sites with plenty of information about the British scene.

Re: UK profesionals please help! Information required!
 

UK is less racist than Oz waa my answer for not staying out there and their music scene is [censored]..

Re: UK profesionals please help! Information required!
 

Why don;t you travel around the world and play poker online?

Seems like the best of both worlds to me [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: UK profesionals please help! Information required!
 

you could always get someone else to guarantee a mortgage - or go in with a co-owner

Re: UK profesionals please help! Information required!
 

I dont want to sound like your mother but.

Youre still young and you live in the UK. I suggest you do a PhD (in 3 years you can be a Dr. even PhD students get over 1000 pounds a month, not bad for a side job [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]), you have plenty of time to play almost full time if you wish (my best friends is a Physics graduate student in Columbia University he will finish his PhD soon, he made over 100K$ in the last 5 years from playing online poker while beeing a grad student [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]) and the best thing is you are not "wasting" your time. I mean if you make $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ from poker youre the man. If you dont you still finish with a PhD and can start somthing else. A PhD in mathematics/computer science can get a long way if you fail as a poker pro. Also if you take your studies seriuosly you can both enjoy and gain a lot from it. Personally and Professionally.
Remeber youre still young you can afford to study now later on it will be more difficult.

In any case I wish you the best of luck

mushi