Canada Relocation F.A.Q.

Hey everyone.  I've been getting a few requests to explain what it takes to relocate to Canada and potentially being able to regain access to your poker accounts... so I thought I would make a blog post about it.

I'm just going to jot out as many things as I can think of that is helpful to know about.  I will separate it into two categories... first being the actual stuff you have to do to relocate to Canada, get all of the details set up for your place, etc.  The second list will be what you need to provide the poker sites to prove you have relocated in order to make an attempt to regain access to your account.

Relocating is not easy.  It's a pain in the ass and I'd estimate that it took me like 3-4 weeks of planning to do it.  Also, remember that Canada gets super cold during the winter obviously... I don't care about this though because it isn't any worse than North Dakota!!!

Canada Relocation

• First of all, you need a U.S. passport or you aren't getting across the border.  I would also recommend a secondary form of ID like a driver's license.
• Secondly, don't act suspicious or like you're doing anything wrong. Know the answers to the basic questions the border patrol agent will ask... such as why are you coming up to Canada, where are you staying, how long will you be staying, do you have any guns or tobacco in your car, will you be leaving anything that you have in your car in Canada, have you ever committed a crime, when's the last time you've been in Canada, how much cash do you have on you, etc.  
• Obviously they can ask you whatever they want and the list I gave isn't a complete list of normal questions.   If you hesitate on these questions or appear suspicious you can expect multiple follow up questions to the aforementioned questions.  Also, most online poker players fit the profile of a drug smuggler... single, white male traveling alone into Canada.  So you can expect to be questioned like a criminal by some aggressive male agents. 
• Thirdly, I wouldn't bring shit up to Canada that you don't absolutely need.  Don't bother bringing your computer, computer monitors, computer desk, or chair for example. If you do bring stuff like that they will think you're going to move up to Canada and never come back, thus likely red-flagging you and give you a visitors pass to monitor your activity in Canada.
• Don't have more than $10k cash on you.
• Next, know that you can only be in Canada for as long as the border agents tell you.  If they don't give you a date you have to be back by, then you can stay for up to a maximum of 180 days.  The 180 days is not a cumulative number per year... meaning once you come back to the States and go back up to Canada it refreshes.  However, if they find that you're staying long periods of time in Canada and only coming back to the U.S. for short amounts of time they will catch that and either deny you entry or put a restricted time frame on your trip.  
• Don't expect it to be easy to find an apartment if you choose to do that.  For some reason in Canada the government is heavily involved with housing and in Winnipeg for example, the occupancy rate is 95%.  So basically it's a major pain in the ass to get a place set up.
• Also, at the border, if you tell the Canadian border agents you have an apartment in Canada and have set up bank accounts they will give you a hard time about it.  They start to think that you plan on moving up to Canada for good/indefinitely and it's their job to stop people from doing so without the proper documentation/VISA permits, etc.
• One of my poker friends came up to share my place with me but the border agent he talked with tore him apart with questions on his way up, made him go inside the building for further questioning while the briefly searched his car.  They were very suspicious of him so they gave him a "visitor's pass" which he had to hand back to the Canadian border patrol on his way back to the U.S. if he ever wanted to come back into Canada. 
• He eventually came over to my place, I cooked him a steak, and we were going to run some errands... however when I woke up the next morning he had vanished!!!  Later that afternoon he called me and said he had to go home because the border patrol had spooked him so much that he was just so nervous being in Canada that he would never come back again.  They tore his car apart at the border searching it on the way back, after he handed in his visitor's pass.
• So basically the point of that story is:  if you suck at live poker or crack under pressure then it's probably not going to be fun for you at the border.

Poker Site - regaining access

• The general idea here, at least for PokerStars is.. "give us sufficient proof that you've moved and we'll unlock your account."
• That means you have to hand them stuff like a signed copy of a lease, multiple utility bills, and Canadian bank statements with your Canadian address on it. 
• Stars wants to call you on a Canadian land line for some reason, so just set up a old school phone to avoid headaches.
• There are extremely long lead times on setting up both internet and phone service.  This is probably due to the fact that Canada is basically like the U.S. was 10-15 years ago technology-wise.
• Email them those documents and then log into Stars from Canada and you should be good to go.
• No matter what you send FTP they will give you the run-around.  I sent them everything that I sent Stars... in fact I sent them more documents than I sent Stars.  They emailed me back with some bullshit saying that the documents I sent them would not work and they couldn't accept things such as a legit, signed copy of a lease with my Canadian address on it.  They also did not accept my internet bill from MTS as a form of relocation proof.

Short analysis of the state of cash games post Black Friday

• I have been playing on Stars so I can't really comment on the games at FTP.
• They games are not any better.
• There are more European regs than ever before.  I think that lots of the European regs that were playing on FTP have cashed out from there due to suspicions that the site is in financial trouble (click here for more on that)... so instead of risking their money on a site that has not paid back U.S. players weeks after they were granted permission to do so they are choosing to play on the one site in the world that has proven time and time again that it is the premier site in the world, PokerStars.
• There are much less tables to choose from.
• I normally play $2/4 NL through $5/10 NL but I've been forced to play lots of $1/2 NL lately because there just aren't enough midstakes games running at certain hours to play the amount of tables I normally play.
• So basically the biggest change in the state of the games is two things: less games running overall and completely changed peak hours for the "best times to play."
• During an average day, the best time to play is from 8 AM to like 4 PM with peak amount of cash game players occurring at around 1-2 PM (Central standard time).
• Also, I found this to be very weird... the weekends are no longer the best times to play!  For some reason, Monday afternoon draws over 40k cash game players on Stars and Tuesday afternoon draws like 38k... it has been like this the past two weeks.  So basically the old Friday night is the new Monday afternoon and the old Saturday night is the new Tuesday afternoon.

Summary
Canada sucks.  There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.  It is a horrible place to live.  Extremely cold and rigid for like 7-8 months out of the year.  All the roads are by far worse than shitty.  The second Canadian past-time (behind hockey of course) is towing illegally parked cars.  Normal citizens just call in tow trucks to tow people... even if they don't have anything to do with the property or location that the car is illegally parked.

Relocation is complicated and a huge hassle.  Add in the extra costs you'll have from renting an apartment for like $1k per month, flights back home (a lot more expensive than normal flights within the U.S. because the taxes on the ticket are extremely high), fewer games running, etc. it's hardly worth it.  Also, it's just not an option for many Americans.  Many American poker players have families or other ties to the States so they can't just get up and relocate to Canada.

Relocation is NOT the answer.  The ONLY answer is to CALL, EMAIL, OR WRITE YOUR GOVERNMENT REPRESENTATIVES TODAY and plead with them to work to legalize online poker in the U.S. as soon as possible.

If you play poker and are not a member of the PPA shame on you.

Everyone please go here now and send out letters to your political representatives and hopefully we will have legal, regulated, poker in the United States in 3-4 years.

This should answer most of the basic questions everyone has... I guess if there's anything you still have questions on just ask it in a comment, eh.