The Prima Poker Tour 2004
by The Mob on Friday, 30 January 2004 at 2:43 pm

The Prima Poker Tour 2004 – A Million Dollars in Entry Fees to 14 poker festivals in 7 countries, making this the largest Global tour in Poker History.

Curacao, January 30, 2004 – PrimaPoker.com has set a new record with the largest terrestrial sponsorship in the history of poker by backing the world famous Hendon Mob on their second global escapade. The Mob will challenge the world’s best poker players as they compete in 14 of the most prestigious poker festivals across 7 countries over the next 12 months.

PrimaPoker.com is continuing the biggest ever sponsorship in the poker world after The Mob outperformed all expectations in the inaugural Prima Poker Tour, with 49 money finishes, 11 tournament trophies, and around $500,000US in total prize money. “The partnership with The Hendon Mob has been extremely good not just for PrimaPoker.com, but for the sport as a whole. The synergy between online and offline poker has given the sport more exposure than ever before, bringing new audiences into play both online and in the terrestrial card rooms”, said Tamar Yaniv of PrimaPoker.com.

The Prima Poker World Tour 2004 sponsorship marks a new beginning for the sport, quickly becoming favourite late night TV viewing in both the UK and the US. Millions of viewers in America and Europe are adding The Hendon Mob and other big name poker stars to their “celebrity wish to meet lists”.

The Prima Poker Tour 2004 will take The Hendon Mob to Las Vegas, Paris, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Barcelona, Vienna, Dublin and London. The Tour will include the World Series of Poker, where it is odds-on that at least one of the four members of The Hendon Mob wins a WSOP bracelet. The prize money for the World Series of Poker’s main event tops $10,000,000.

“We are delighted that PrimaPoker.com are continuing to put their faith in us and we intend to continue as we started last year; breaking records and making friends all over the planet. PrimaPoker.com are set to be the biggest poker network in the world and we aim to be the biggest winners on the tournament circuit”, said Barny Boatman of The Hendon Mob.

Joining The Hendon Mob on the Prima Poker Tour will be some of the best online players on the PrimaPoker.com Network. Satellites will be run on the PrimaPoker.com network for many of the Prima Poker Tour tournaments, with the winning players joining The Mob at the exclusive festivals around the world.

For Information:
Jodie Thind
Lyceum Media
+44 (0) 207 828 6988
[email protected]

Background:
The Prima Poker Tour 2004 is taking The Hendon Mob on an unprecedented global tour to play in over 88 tournaments, in 14 festivals and 7 countries. The Tour represents the first major sponsorship in online poker, elevating its status by introducing it to the media and the general public as a mainstream sport.

PrimaPoker.com is the premiere online poker network, creating a synergy between online and offline poker, sending the most players to the biggest tournaments in the world. PrimaPoker.com sends the best players from the network to compete in tournaments all around the globe, qualifying them through a series of online satellites held through the family of card rooms found at www.primapoker.com.

Images available at http://www.primapoker.com/media_library.php.

The Aussie Millions, Melbourne
A$5,000 Pot Limit Omaha
Report by Gareth ‘The Nugget’ Jones on Wednesday, 14 January 2004 at 2:11 am

The Poms are all jockeying for position down here in Oz ready for the Big One starting Thursday. I’ve got a feeling the English are to take another prize from Australia so get on Betfair take your pick and enjoy the profits.

My Tip – I’ve been on the circuit in recent months and there’s a Big Comp I’m sure in Rambo. Mr Vaswani has had no real luck or form this trip and he’s gonna be hungry, if he doesn’t win a Big Comp this year I will be amazed.

Best British Outside – ‘The Magician’ Howard Plant 350/1 someone’s got a great price and he’s playing really well. Howard and I have had so much bad luck this last 12 months one day somebody’s gonna get it ! My 10% with Howard is my best chance I can’t make 1/3 shots hold on ! I’ve been knocking about with Howard and Mad Marty Wilson (he’s playing really well too) and they keep me laughing if nothing else !

Anyway you all know how mad Howard ‘The Magician’ Plant gets, his temper is world famous. Howard, Marty & I hire this car and Howard’s driving and his foots a little bit heavy on the pedal – blue lights, we get a pull from the Australian police. ‘You were doing 55 in a 40 Sir’ said the policeman ‘No I wasn’t’ snapped Howard. ‘Yes you were Sir, we have it on camera’. ‘That’s rubbish, I wasn’t doing anything like 55mph’ snarled Howard getting all aggressive like he does. At this point Marty popped his head out of the window and said in his dry Wolverhampton accent ‘Listen officer you don’t know how angry Howard can get, I wouldn’t talk to him like that especially when he’s had a drink!!’

Later he said to this Australian taxi driver ‘My brother used to be a taxi driver but he had to give up, he got sick of people talking behind his back !’

Good luck The Poms ! Cheers The Nugget

$5,000 Pot Limit Omaha Final 13th January 2003 51 Entrants

Final Table 10 Players Remain Blinds 400/800
ReStart 4pm

Seat 1 Joe Humunicki 25,300
Seat 2 Per Werner Svennson 48,700
Seat 3 Martin Vallo 20,900
Seat 4 Gary Benson 19,700
Seat 5 Sam Korman 15,400
Seat 6 Ross Boatman 17,800
Seat 7 Jason Gray 44,700
Seat 8 Steve Zolotow 37,600
Seat 9 Lucy Rokach 21,100
Seat 10 Graeme Putt 4,900

The Aussie Millions, Melbourne
A$5,000 Pot Limit Omaha
Report by Phil Hellmuth on Wednesday, 14 January 2004 at 1:37 pm

My wife and I are really enjoying touring Australia. Yesterday we visited Phillip Island (my island!) and watched 1000 penguins cross the beach at dusk. Did you know that penguins are only from Antartica (South), and not the North Pole? Since polar bears are only from the North Pole a polar bear has never met a penguin before!!

I am here to vacation, but I also came to win the Aus$10,000 main event!! With all the business B.S. in my life these days playing a big multi-day no limit Hold’em Championship is like being on vacation!

I’m pretty excited about my writing career. First, my book ‘Play Poker Like The Pros’ (available at PhilHellmuth.com) has sold 80,000 copies since it came out in May. Second, I just sold two more books to Harper/ Collins, both to be on the stands by April 2005.

At this point I’m very excited about the Championship event. There are already over 100 players entered. I must say I love Crown Casino Complex and I appreciate the way they have treated me here.

Good luck all…

Phil playing in the big limit ($300/$600) game whilst writing the diary.

Full Result $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha Wednesday, 14 January, 2004
1st Steve Zolotow $84,050
2nd Jason Gray $53,550
3rd Sam Korman $28,050
4th Lucy Rokach $20,400
5th Per-Werner Svennson $17,850
6th Gary Benson $15,300
7th Joe Huminicki $12,750
8th Martin Vallo $10,200
9th Graeme Putt $7,650
10th Ross Boatman $5,200

The Aussie Millions, Melbourne
A$450 Limit Hold’em
Report by Mad Marty Wilson on Sunday, 4 January 2004 at 7:21 pm

Not being a natural storyteller it took some persuasion for me to write this diary.

Having arrived in Oz at 6.20am, 31 hours after setting out we set our stall to stay up and get our body clocks adjusted straight away. By 3pm we gave in and went to bed. When we woke we thought that it was 9.30am the next day. Ha! This jet lag is easy!
I felt fresh and ready for the comp at 12.30. Having woken Katherine, telling her to stop being so grumpy as 18 hours sleep is more than enough we washed and went for breakfast. We came out of the lift and it was pitch black outside. Funny! Surely the sun rises earlier than 10am. We hadn’t slept for 18 hours, only 6! We were 12 hours out!

This does have a silver lining. Now washed, rested and no comp ‘til the next day I was presented with a pocket full of money; roulette, blackjack, cash games and beer. I managed to get to bed again at 3am A$3000 up.

Next day and out of 188 runners only 10 were from the UK. What a fantastic achievement then that the final three were Barny, Peter Costa and me.

Maybe I’m biased but what a fantastic place Australia is.

I decided not to play today because we overslept. I rang down at 2pm to see if I could enter but it was too late. It was A$500 limit hold-em and yesterdays 2nd and 3rd , Peter and Barny, were two of the first players out. The other members of the Mob are all out now and three tables are left. Full result will follow later.

Full Result Sunday 4th January 2004 A$500 Limit Hold-em
133 Entrants

1st Michael Homann $17,509
2nd Gary Cleaver $11,141
3rd Goran Slavkoski $5,836
4th Eugene Juczenko $4,244
5th John Wylie $3,714
6th Arul Thillai $3,183
7th John Maver $2,653
8th Tim Heath $2,122
9th Fred Saliba $1,592
10th Craig Johnson $1.061
11th John Dalessandri $500
12th Susan Lee $500
13th Jack Lee $500
14th Gary Benson $500
15th John Maitland $500
16th Jeff Lisandro $500
17th Alex Mansas $500
18th David Szetho $500
19th Glen Athanassiou $500
20th Lin Potter $500

Master Classics Of Poker 2003, Amsterdam
Report by Keith ‘The Camel’ Hawkins on Wednesday, 5 November 2003 at 9:04 pm

Amsterdam. The only city in the world where you need a holiday when you get home to recover from your holiday.

So many stories so little time.

I could tell you the one about the Chimney Sweep betting an American heiress $10,000 that he doesn’t dye his hair and her offering to pay for his flight to Texas to go to a clinic to prove it.

Or Carlo Citrone betting 1000 Euros that he can eat 24 poached eggs on toast inside 30 minutes.

Or Graham Pound telling the satellitte organiser with a totally straight face his name was Jan Boubli to avoid waiting 2 hours to get a seat, while the real Jan Boubli huffed and puffed in indignation that he was sure he was due a seat.

Or Mick the Clock swapping 5% with me in the 200 no limit holdem 10 minutes after selling his seat.

But seeing as my current bugbear is the scalping of seats in big tournaments, depriving players getting in at the right price I will tell you about how the scalpers got scalped earlier this week…

In the minutes before the 200 limit holdem on Monday tickets were changing hands at upwards of 550 euros. Disgraceful.

But the unscrupulous members of the poker community saw a perfect opportunity for a killing on the next days 500 Euro Omaha. Especially when a rumour went round the bar there was only 3 seats left!

There followed an unsightly scramble to the Cashiers Cage as 3 individuals who will remain nameless scrabbled to get their mucky paws on the seats…

They looked like the cats who had got the cream and were already mentally spending the 400 Euros they hoped to make on their investments..

But, oh no! The rumour was no more than that! There was still 50 seats left! The three Amigos were left with tickets in events they had already got entries for. And if the scramble to buy the seats was unsightly, the attempts of these boys to try and sell their investments was little more than pitiful. I hate to see a grown man beg!

I am pleased to report at least two of the Amigos were forced to sell the seats at a loss!

The poker this week has been not to good as yet for either me or The Mob. But the real stuff starts today with the 3000 Euro main event.

The boys better get their collective fingers out because at the start of the week I backed at least one of them to make a final at 2/5 and I am starting to sweat.

But that won’t stop me working my pieces off to try and knock them out today!

Take care,

The Camel

Keith (far right) and the Reading Mob

Final results of the Euro 200 NLH Unlimited Rebuys:

Entrants: 220 Rebuys: 312
Prize money: EUR 106,400
Added prize money: EUR 2,400
Total prize money: EUR 108,800

1. Johan Storakers, Sweden, EUR 42,134
2. Job van Dommelen, Netherlands, EUR 21,067
3. Anthony Chapman, England, EUR 10,534
4. Noah Boeken, Netherlands, EUR 6,847
5. Patrice Boudet, France, EUR 5,267
6. Bob Morley, England, EUR 3,687
7. Elias Brussiamos, Greece, EUR 2,633
8. Lawrence Robjent, England, EUR 2,107
9. Rino Mathis, Switzerland, EUR 1,580

by The Mob
on Saturday, 27 September 2003 at 7:42 pm

50 T-Shirts to be won

TheHendonMob and Prima Poker are giving you the chance to win one of 50 of these great T-Shirts.

Be the envy of all your friends and if the mob see you wearing one of the shirts during the tour you are liable to be bought a drink.

The shirts are 100% cotton, Fruit of the Loom.

Printed in colour with the Prima Poker Tour logo on the front and all the dates and venues on the back.

To win a T-Shirt all you have to do is answer the following two questions:

1) Where did the Mob have dinner the evening before Barny won the first event on The Prima Poker Tour?

2) Who was the first ever mobster of the month on TheHendonMob website?

Send your answers to [email protected] together with your address and size required.

Sizes available small, medium, large, extra large and double extra large.

Entries without full details will be void.

TheHendonMob’s decision in all matters is final.

The Prima Poker Tour

Preview by The Mob
on Friday, 19 September 2003 at 5:59 pm

We are very excited about the Prima Poker Tour, which is by far the biggest sponsorship deal of its kind in Poker history.

It is fitting that The Tour culminates in Melbourne where we always have a great time. Prima will be running satellites for the Aussie Millions so hopefully some of you will be coming with us.

Every day during the Prima Poker Tour we will be updating the Prima Tour Diary with news, stories and pictures. We may even throw in the occasional poker story! We’ll be reading our emails and checking the forum everyday and we hope you’ll tell us what you think and let us know what you’d like to read in the diary.

All the tour venues are listed here with the schedule of all the tournaments on the tour. We will be providing a full results service and some up to date final table coverage.

Some events, such as the Lido at the Master Classics, the Irish Winter Tournament and The Aussie Millions will have enhanced live final table coverage on Poker Voice (click the live coverage button). We aim to substantially improve the quality of this coverage over the coming months.

We will be building new galleries from the pictures we take on The Tour and we would like you to send in suggested captions for the pictures that appear on the Gallery. There will be prizes for the best ones.

This diary is something a lot of you have been asking for and we hope you enjoy it.

All the best, The Mob

"In this world nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes."

You’ve probably heard this quotation before. It was written in a letter from Benjamin Franklin to Jean Baptiste le Roy on 13/11/1789, but is he right?

There has been much discussion recently about whether poker players should pay tax on their winnings, whether professional players or just recreational ones. Tax laws vary from country to country and you will see that we in the United Kingdom have it better than some of our friends from overseas. For starters how many lottery winners has the Inland Revenue gone after for a share of their jackpots? None here, but if somebody wins the lottery in America the taxman hits them very hard. In fact did you know that wins over a certain amount on fruit machines are also taxable in the States and jackpots are often paid in instalments? All of a sudden that $1,000,000 jackpot isn’t as good as it first seemed.

Shouldn’t someone who earns an income as a professional poker player pay tax though? The Inland Revenue are in a difficult situation and are usually more concerned about money laundering. The most difficult part for a poker player is to prove where the money came from.

There is also the point that if playing poker is taxable then it should also be tax deductible. Can you imagine the headaches that would cause the revenue? They would probably also get people trying to offset against roulette losses or money lost at the craps table !

There are several cases in law that would suggest that betting and gaming (and poker, as a game of skill) are tax free occupations. In the Inland Revenues Inspectors Manual (only publicly available in recent years) it states;

IM132 Sch.D C1/C11

Case I

"Betting and gambling, as such, do not constitute trading but an organised activity to make profits out of the gambling public will normally amount to trading."

In Partridge v Mallandaine 2TC179 a professional bookmaker systematically attended race courses for the purpose of carrying on that activity; he could not legally recover amounts due to him. He was held to be carrying on a vocation and hence assessable.

Case II

In Graham v Green 9TC, a case which concerned a man whose sole means of livelihood came from betting on horses at starting prices, Rowlatt J says at page 313

"Now we come to betting, pure and simple…It has been settled that a bookmaker carries on a taxable vocation. What is the bookmaker’s system? He known that there are a great many people who are willing to back horses and that they will back horses with anybody who holds himself out to give reasonable odds as a bookmaker. By calculating the odds in the case of various horses over a long period of time and quoting them so that on the whole the aggregate odds are in his favour, he makes a profit. That seems to me to be organising an effort in the same way that a person organises an effort if he sets out to buy himself things with a view to securing a profit by the difference in what I may call their capital value in individual cases.

Now we come to the other side, the man who bets with the bookmaker, and that is this case. These are mere bets. Each time he puts on his money, at whatever may be the starting price. I do not think he could be said to organise his effort in the same way as a bookmaker organises his. I do not think the subject matter from his point of view is susceptible of it. In effect all he is doing is just what a man does who is a skilful player at cards, who plays every day. He plays to-day and he plays tomorrow and he plays the next day and he is skilful on each of the three days, more skilful on the whole than the people with whom he plays, and he wins. But I do not think that you can find, in his case, any conception arising in which his individual operations can be said to be merged in the way that particular operations are merged in the conception of a trade. I think all you can say of that man … is that he is addicted to betting. …There is no tax on a habit. I do not think “habitual” or even “systematic” fully describes what is essential in the phrase “trade, adventure, profession or vocation.”."

The principle in this case was followed in Down v Compston 21TC60 where a professional golfer attached to a golf club habitually engaged in private games of golf for bets of varying amounts and won substantial amounts. He was found not to be liable under Case II on the basis that the bets did not arise from the playing services and that there was no organisation to support the view that he was carrying on the business of betting on the games of golf.

Now the interesting part here is that the judge, Rowlatt J, recognises poker as a game of skill. He talks about ‘organising an effort’. Walking into the Victoria Casino and playing in the £500 pot limit Omaha or stumping up the £7,000 to play in the Poker Million are not ‘ organising an effort’ .You are not trading in these instances. The VC and the Poker Million organisers are doing that for you. It has been asked whether ‘private’ poker games change this situation in any way as the Ladbrokes Million has been classed as a ‘private game’ to get around the gaming regulations. The I R Inspector’s Manual continues;

Sch.D CI/CII: Betting and gambling – when gambling winnings assessable

It does not follow from the cases in IM132 that surpluses made from betting opportunities provided by a trade are always severable from that trade and not assessable. In Burdge v Pyne 45TC320 the proprietor of a registered club, which provided facilities including a card room for gambling, won considerable sums of money from three-card brag which he played regularly with members in the card room. Pennycuick J stated

`… the Appellant was carrying on the business of a club: upon the club’s premises he habitually played the game of three card brag with other members of the club: and at that game he was invariably successful. … Given those facts, it seems to me that the Commissioners came to the right conclusion in finding that the winnings of the Appellant from three-card brag did represent a receipt by him in carrying on the business of the club. He owned the club; he carried on this game upon the club premises as such; and, moreover, it was members of the club in whose company he played the game and from whom, it appears, he invariably won money. I see no reason to think that that particular activity on the part of a club proprietor is not an activity in the course of carrying on the business of the club, and consequently winnings from that activity fall into the receipts of the club for the purpose of ascertaining the profits of its business.

[The Appellant] … contended that these winnings should be treated as the fruit of a private activity … outside the business of the club, and accordingly should not be taken into account in computing the profits of the club.’

He went on to distinguish Graham v Green (see IM132) because

`… here there is a trade whereas there the person charged was not carrying on any trade at all.’

Of Down v Compston (see IM132) he said

`in that case the vocation afforded in some sense the opportunity for making the bets, in that Mr. Compston would not have had companions on his rounds against whom to bet if he had not been a professional golfer, but the bets did not arise out of his vocation. Again it seems to me that that case is wholly distinguishable [because] in the present case the club was not merely the occasion which enabled the Appellant to play private games of cards. The playing of cards was part of the activities of the club, and his winnings from those cards, it seems to me, arose in the full sense out of the carrying on of the club.’

A little confusing I know, but basically what it means is that if you run a card club (private poker game) from which you profit and you win money by playing in those games the money that you win is deemed to be part of the business and taxable. Does this mean that Barry Hearn will be hit with a big tax bill if he happened to fluke winning The Poker Million? That’s a very difficult question to answer but he would probably have less of a defence than Mr Poker Player who had nothing to do with the organising of the event.

Fran Lebowitz once said;

"…a dog who thinks he’s man’s best friend is a dog who’s never met a tax lawyer…"

It’s a different state of affairs for those poor Americans. If one of them should win The Poker Million, even though it’s being played in London in 2002, they will be liable for tax. We are even luckier because should we win The World Series of Poker in Las Vegas we have a tax treaty with the states and all we have to do is sign a form in order to collect our prize money in full. Certain other countries are not so lucky. Players resident in Australia or even Eire do not enjoy such treaties. This is why certain poker players ‘claim’ to be English when they play in Vegas. I guess dual nationality is worth a few quid ! The other countries to enjoy a similar treaty as us are, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Malta, Netherlands, Russia, Spain and Tunisia. (Taken from the WSOP brochure 1997)

This, however, doesn’t get around the fact that the IR might be interested in anyone who has large amounts of unrecorded cash or cash balances in bank accounts. If you are a winning poker player it is suggested that you keep records and details of any wins that you have in tournaments.

Precedents in English law go a long way and for the time being it would appear that all professional poker players out there are pretty safe but you never know how things could change in the future.

George Bush once said, when he was going to power;

"Read my lips, No new taxes…"

Let’s hope the powers that be over here think the same way!

All the opinions expressed here are those of the author and are not considered to be tax advice. Should you require tax advice it is suggested that you contact a specialist and take appropriate legal advice.