The amount of taxes that a state generates from online poker is incredibly high and most states use this revenue to create more jobs, develop infrastructure and to increase the standard of living. This continues to be one of the key points that most states consider when it comes to the legalization of online poker.
Legalizing online poker may not a very difficult decision but regulating and controlling the online poker industry is a much bigger challenge. In order to monitor cash deposits, cash flow and player winnings, a robust online poker system must be in place so that all cash related transactions are carefully monitored, taxed and recorded at all times. Yet, this proves to be one of the biggest challenges in the online poker industry as online gambling companies and online poker players continue to find loop holes in the system to exploit.
Sweden recently announced that it had specifically targeted its online poker industry during the past few months with a crack down in online fraud happening in April now Skatteverket, the Tax agency in Sweden had confirmed that over 50 online poker players in Sweden have not been fully transparent in filing and declaring their taxes.
Most of these players are high rollers and have made extravagant sums of money playing online poker. The taxes outstanding from these 50 players appear to be in the region of 250 million Kronor or the equivalent of €27.5 million. The crackdown performed by Skatteverket was detailed and examined online poker websites, bulletin boards, poker forums and online poker databases.
Skatteverket has the user names of approximately 50 poker players who have deliberately tried to take advantage of the loopholes in Sweden’s tax laws and will now look to map these user names to real people. Dag Hardy son, a project manager for Skatteverket said
As far as I know, this is the first time that we have used the opportunity to seek information about unidentified people. We have used a methodology that can be now also tried in different cases
Once the names of these individuals are identified, they will be asked by Sweden’s authorities to pay all outstanding taxes along with fines for the millions of Swedish Kronor that they have made playing online poker. Skatteverket has invested both time and money in studying the online poker industry and is now much better equipped to track and monitor online poker revenue in Sweden.
