€11000 Windfall Error Leaves Greek Player in the Red

Receiving an unexpected €11000 bonus by mistake from your favourite poker site might seem like a cool story to tell your friends – after you’ve returned the money of course – but for one Greek player at least it has caused a real headache thanks to the country’s bizarre tax laws, a €1800 tax deduction leaving him firmly in the red.

TwoplusTwo poster ‘barnik’ took to the forum this week to relate the strange tale after PokerStars had sent him the €11000 accidentally after his SNG was cancelled, but as he states in his post:

‘I live in Greece and the policy of taxing here is, if your daily income in internet pokers is more than 100euros per day you get taxed at 7 am.’

Now, because Greek tax laws don’t let you offset earnings with losses, the usual workaround for players who strike it rich is to enter numerous tournaments way in the future, unregistering as and when necessary to keep their tax hit from being much higher than the reality of their earnings.

Still with me? Ok, so ‘barnik’ did exactly that with his mistaken bonus money, waking up the next day to unregister and find a way to return the money – only to find that PokerStars, as you might expect, had frozen his account –seemingly in the belief he was trying to squirrel away money that wasn’t his.

To make matters worse, the automatic €1800 tax payment on the 11k was then taken, after which PokerStars recouped the full amount – leaving poor ‘barnik’, well, much poorer than he had been before the surprise – though temporary – windfall.

As you might expect, trying to explain this mess is taking some time – the Greek player unfortunately doing exactly what a poker site might expect an unscrupulous chap might do to take advantage of the initial error.

Described as a ‘comedy of errors’ by another poster on the forum, ‘barnik’ and the PokerStars support team will likely work out the correct result eventually, but arcane tax rules such as the Greek system uses are the real culprit here.

The ‘money advice’ columns of newspapers and websites the world over are full of advice as to what you should do when you receive an unexpected ‘gift’, be it from a poker site or the taxman: simply put, don’t spend it!

The highest profile poker case, however, saw Erick ‘E-dog’ Lindgren being sent a $2million loan twice, the sender - Full Tilt’s Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson - notoriously bad with money and mathematics.

Rather than return it, degenerate gambler Lindgren spent it all, multiple bankruptcies and addiction rehab following in a sad and sordid tale.