Incroporating In Offshore Countries to do Poker Business In Asia

[Sebastian]

Hey Guys,

If you want to settle in Asia and work legally as a poker affiliate, it seems that a potential strategy is the following:

• Incorporate in Panama, which encourages gambling businesses, is cheap, and has tax advantages.
  
• After you incorporate the company, you can set up a foreign representative office in China/Taiwan, or wherever you'd like to live.
  
• You conduct the business legally from there with a valid work permit/visa that they will provide

I know a lot of people do this to live in places like Thailand, after incorporating in Hong Kong for example. Many will say that this is overkill and keep doing visa runs on a tourist visa. However, I'm not interested in a strategy like that.

This is more about getting long term residency at a country you really like and want to settle in.

Anyone living in Asia that went through this process ? Maybe this is possible for a regular internet business like in the travel niche, and not for gambling ?

I'm sure some crazy ballers will answer this post...

Sebastian

[pokerprop]

I know two people doing this. Both their businesses are USA as affiliate based internet marketers (neither does gambling). I was surprised this is possible because Thai visa doesn't mention this on their business visa section too much. Basically all they needed was a letter certified from US embassy stating their income and a letter requesting they be allowed to work from Thailand which was basically from themselves (their own company in US). Both said this was extremely easy and the income didn't even need to be true, they simply walked in told US embassy what they made from their business and got the letter certified.

No border runs are required for them, but they do have to check in every 90 days at local immigration office.

Thailand is not the country though to pick if your reason is to get residence status somewhere. It is harder to get in Thailand then about anywhere else in world. Need to have a 3-year unbroken visa (same on extended each year) and then takes couple years from there and also not to mention under the current prime minister (2006) there haven't been any reports I've read of someone getting permanent residence. So who knows could be waiting 3.5 years could be waiting forever. You're also interviewed and other hoops to jump through.

Staying here is not too hard but without income you'll need to make a border run every 90 days even when on a Non-Immigrant visa extension of one year. Many people have to do this because don't meet income requirements. They're not much though and business person should meet them without problem, and once again it is not heavily checked.

As far as doing gambling from here though. man i don't know about that one. A lot of people do, but I don't think it would be very smart to tell anyone about it.

My other suggestion would be just do a blog about living in whatever country and have your business pay you a salary for doing this work, equal to required income, and go through process of getting visa this way.

Or come here on a tourist visa, marry 3-5 woman, or for a baller like Sebastian, maybe 6-8 wives. Then the one you trust the most after experience register the marriage and spent 2 nights with her when making the rotation or if you really fall in love get rid of all but one or two of the other wives. Then you'll just need some income to live on, but won't need to explain its source, just show it exists.

Many many options. shouldn't need anything too complex for most countries.

[Sebastian]

Thanks Prop, I agree that I'm pretty baller....

I was toying with going to Taiwan actually, although I'm sure some people would prefer Thailand.

About the multiple wifes things, that's pretty clever. So I would have like 6 wifes and 3 raccoons, although the wifes and the raccoons would be in seperate beds of course.

The raccoons would sleep in mine...

Thank-you

Sebastian

[thefarang]

Just a note on Thailand: As Prop says, staying here is a hassle no matter how you do it. As much as the Thai government openly talks about luring monied up foreigners to live and invest in the country the immigration and labor laws are very restrictive. On top of what Prop already mentioned there are additional requirements regarding how work permits are handed out that you would want to really have someone look into. I haven't used them but Sunbelt Asia is a respected legal group helping foreigners.

Another option (the one I'm doing) is to sign up for Thai language classes. You'll get a 1 year visa and I believe you can keep extending it for anywhere from 3 - 7 years. You don't need to do any sort of border runs but you do have to get "extensions" and report every 90 days to the immigration office. The extensions cost 1900 baht a go and the class will run you about 28,000 baht for 1 year.

It's actually a pretty good way to go about it. I go to class twice a week for two hours each night.

Also, being a student makes you eligible for a driver's license, opening up a bank account, etc. Those are much harder to do if you're on extended tourist visas though I opened a bank account with nothing more than a 30 visa exemption stamp in my passport when I first arrived.

But again, like Prop says . . . it's very difficult to become a resident here.