A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

Created by cartuja at Kerrydale Street.

A belated Happy New Year to one and all.

Buying On The Sound Of Gunfire

This might seem a particularly odd time to be making a long term commitment to equities, but this week I signed up for a new pension plan.

I've been focusing on paying down the mortgage but since I'm tied to a long term low fixed rate, reducing my debt isn't an imperative in the current market situation.

Added to that, I've finally tired of handing over a huge proportion of my income to the tax man.

The nature of my work as a freelancer means that my gross earnings are subject not only to employee, but also employer, National Insurance contributions. Meaning personal pension contributions attract an effective tax relief rate of 48%.

That's quite a few BBs!

In addition, I've been rather lax about pension planning. My last contribution was a bottom-fishing lump sum some time around early-2003. At least I got my timing right!

This way I need to wait a long time to get my hands on the money, but at least more of it stays mine.

Icesave Iced

A few months ago I was perusing the Sunday papers, when I commented to K.

'The Icelandic banking system is looking really dodgy. I think I'll take that money out of Icesave.'

So I did. Online it took me about 2 minutes.

This week, Icesave went tits up. Within hours some woman was on BBC News bewailing the loss of the TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND pounds she had left on deposit with them.

Apparently it wasn't her fault she'd left what, according to her, was her entire cash pile in a failing institution. Oh no, it was the government's fault.

Seems she wasn't smart enough to read the papers, but she was savvy enough to know how to get on TV pronto to pin the blame elsewhere.

Not quite the attitude that made Britain great; and from memory I think she was an Oxford student too. Standards are slipping!

No doubt she will have been grateful today as the government voluntarily bailed out domestic Icesave investors.

News then started to leak that numerous local authorities had left MILLIONS on deposit with Icesave. Kent County Council alone had £50 million on deposit. Now they want bailed out too.

ffs The Chief Executives and Finance Directors of these councils are paid six figures plus benefits and lavish pensions.

Do they read the papers? Can they spell risk assessment? Should they still be in a job tomorrow?

If there are any vacancies maybe I should apply. I've got no relevant experience or skills in running a major local authority. Seems I'd be a shoo-in for the job.

Oil Crisis Hits Home

I've been feeling a little smug as the credit crisis wreaked havoc on the financial markets.

Unlike our esteemed PM, I not only talk the prudence talk, I walk the prudence walk too. So our finances have been pretty much oblivious to the unfolding crisis.

Mortgage woes. Increasing rates. Declining choices.

No problem. We are on a long term fixed rate mortgage that's already overpaid.

Negative equity worries.

We paid a big deposit on the house.

Job security fears.

I'm freelance, so perpetually at risk. No change there. The mortgage over payments would give us a couple of years repayment holiday if required.

Reduced opportunities for credit.

We don't have any need for loans, and I've got enough credit on my cards to buy a very decent car. Mainly courtesy of Egg who gave me a £15,000 credit limit without offering me the chance to request a limit during the application process. A sign perhaps of the root of a lot of the current problems.

So, from a purely selfish perspective, all good. If anything the credit crisis might be a chance for me to exploit a buyers market.

The oil crisis isn't quite such a non-event for me. We are a two car household so rising prices are bound to have some effect.

Yet the big car is a very efficient diesel, and the little car is primarily used to get me to the train station for the commute to work.

Which means a relatively limited impact on me so far.

That may be about to change!

I'm pretty keen on environmental issues, so I should be glad that some people seem to have reached a tipping point and are ditching the car in favour of public transport.

The only problem being on my route to work there's already no spare capacity. The last thing I want after another crap day at work is a rugby scrum just to get on a crowded train for the journey home.

You might think the obvious solution is to run more trains, but there are track capacity constraints.

The best solution is to make the existing trains longer. A lot of the trains on my route are three carriage, when the platforms are built for six carriage units.

I suggested to the rail company they might want to lease more trains. They told me they can't afford it. Which makes me wonder what it takes for them to make a profit, when they've already got the punters crammed in like this...


If the oil crisis means more of the above, I might finally start to have some sympathy for the average motorist, so long as they promise to stay in their cars!

It's Yer Money I'm After Baby

Munching my breakfast this morning I caught a bit of the BBC News coverage of the ongoing credit crunch that has hammered Northern Rock most cruelly in the UK.

As I digested my Rice Krispies, I also digested the news that Alliance and Leicester shares had been absolutely killed on the LSE. Dropping 31% for no legitimate reason. A victim of the herd mentality of the markets.

The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, has also publicly guaranteed the security of all Northern Rock deposits. The queues of frantic depositors withdrawing their life savings from Northern Rock branches had dwindled, and order was being restored to their call centre and online banking service.

As an aside, if I was Chief Exec of Northern Rock, this would have been my cue to hike all my deposit account interest rates by 2%, but maybe he is not as opportunistic as me.

On the train to work I mused, 'today could be a good day to buy Alliance and Leicester shares'. By the time I'd reached my desk, they were up 20%. By close of play the jump was 32%. ffs.

Another missed opportunity. Some spare cash to invest could have come in handy today!

This led me to speculate on other potential gainers from the current situation. Certainly armoured car operators must have made a few quid over the weekend, as Northern Rock shipped hundreds of millions in cash to their branches.

It strikes me that the most likely winners from the unfolding crisis are not likely to be listed on the stock exchange. Well, I certainly couldn't find a Muggers, Burglars, and Fraudsters plc anywhere on the LSE boards.

If there's one thing I've learned from the last few days, it's not just how financially illiterate thousands of surprisingly wealthy people are - where the hell did some of them get such sums!? - it's also how utterly clueless about security they are.

Queuing at the bank to take out gargantuan lumps of cash on the grounds it's not safe to leave it where it is, whilst giving interviews to Sky News, BBC News 24, etc. proclaiming with outrage 'I've got £250,000 with NR and I'm going to take out as much of it as they can give me today'.

Yeah great move. Why not broadcast your address too, and details of which bus you are planning to take your quarter million cash home on?

Are people really so stupid? The evidence suggest so.

Muggers often lurk near cashline/ATMs hoping to relieve some unfortunate of the £100 or £200 they've just withdrawn.

This week it's more a case of wait outside the building society for the first doddering pensioner trailing two bin bags full of £20 notes. Talk about hitting the jackpot. Quarter of a million pounds must buy a shitload of crack.

Another Quick Buy-to-Let Thought

My old BTL mortgage (like many) was linked to the LIBOR rate, and updated on a monthly basis.

I'm glad I switch to a fixed rate quite a while back!

Fear and Loathing In Buy-to-Let

There have been forecasts of a price crash in the UK property market for several years now, with many commentators highlighting the booming, and still immature, buy-to-let market as a potential weak point.

Yet every year, prices have confounded the sceptics, and continued to motor northwards. Making millionaires of some amateur landlords, and confounding the best efforts of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee.

Until now.

The odd thing is, while in the past there have been plenty screaming front page headlines predicting a crash that never came; now it appears to be looming over the horizon, there has been little said.

Like trees falling in the forest, if prices fall, and no front page headlines proclaim it, has it really fallen?

I got into the buy-to-let market by default, when I was stiffed by Mark Hubbock on the sale of my flat. As it happens, this turned out to be a well disguised lucky break, as the flat is worth a good few quid more than when the sale fell through.

Given my freelance occupation, having a sideline business makes a lot of sense so I had planned to expand my property empire thereafter.

Eventually I put my efforts on hold. Partly to keep life simple, and partly because it just didn't seem worthwhile.

Every property I looked at was swarming with potential buyers, with deep pockets, or more likely generous lenders, and little self restraint. I couldn't justify the prices they were paying, and bowed out gracefully.

With interest rates rising recently, and ripples in the US sub-prime sector spawning tsunamis across the world financial markets, I've reignited my interest in the sector.

Price falls in the US and Spain seemed to provide a foretaste of what could happen to the UK market.

Not a time when short term speculators are likely to prosper - such as the ones who buy off-plan and attempt to sell on at a profit before the property is even complete - but a definite buying opportunity for those with a longer term perspective.

My attention was taken by a property in one of the swish new developments that are dotted all across Glasgow.

Three bedrooms, decent specification, and available vacant for early entry. So little had it been occupied, the labels applied in the factory were still attached to the doors of the oven in the designer kitchen.

It was at auction with a guide of around £140k, having sold new for £190k+ two years ago. It failed to sell, even when later offered at a fixed price of £125k.

I was gobsmacked. Even more so when the auctioneer claimed it had been sold on previously for almost £240k - though I was unable to find evidence of this transaction.

It looked too good to be true. There had to be a catch. Detective Div got to work, and discovered a tale of woe.

It seems there were problems with security in this development from the outset. Poor design and build of doors, lack of CCTV, etc. which led to break-ins to both apartments and cars.

It is a common - and shameful - theme with developers that they advertise apartments as plush and luxurious, then skimp on the basics to boost their margins a little higher. At the expense, of course, of their customers who by now have handed over the full purchase price.

There had also been conflict between the apartment owners and the factors - the term in Scotland for an organisation who levy a charge on each apartment in return for managing the common areas of the development. Eventually the factors resigned.

Part of the problem was many people failed to pay their factors fees. There was much speculation from live-in residents that these were primarily hard up BTL investors who'd gotten out of their depth, and either couldn't, or wouldn't stump up the cash.

In desperation it seemed many of the buy-to-let brigade were letting out their apartments to inappropriate tenants, and flouting the laws on letting to multiple occupants.

All of which of course made the apartments harder to let to people willing to pay an appropriate level of rent, and almost impossible to sell, leading to plummeting values.

A classic vicious circle, made worse by shortsightedness and ineptitude within the new breed of landlords and rising interest rates.

From £190k+ new, to circa £120k in the space of two years. Now that IS a crash.

There's no doubt in my mind this cannot be an isolated case. Across the UK other BTL landlords must be in a similar predicament, with nervous lenders getting more and more trigger happy as the flight from risk in the money markets seems unlikely to abate for quite a while. It could be a bumper time for auctioneers and bailiffs.

All of which seems to me to present a selective buying opportunity, and I'm now watching the market with great interest.

Even that apartment of doom, with it's £70k of negative equity, is likely to be a winner in the medium to long term.

It's in a bad area, that's slowly coming good. The sort of area a wise investor buys cheap, and holds long term.

If bought now the purchaser will no doubt be profiting from the misfortune of another, but I've never heard a property developer complain prices are too high, so I'll feel no sympathy for someone who got a little too greedy and went bust trying to make a quick buck.

The Farce Of The UIGEA

Swaggart has been caught with his trousers round his knees
After damning me and you to hell for eternity
Sex and power and money is the prayer of these priests
They bribe their way past heaven's gates and steal a set of keys

               - James, God Only Knows

For reasons soon to become clear, I've been rejigging my poker finances.

Until now, my bankroll has resided solely in Neteller, and been swapped between sites as necessary. With a US dollar Neteller account, and playing on sites where the games are US dollar based, I've built my bankroll up as a separate entity from the remainder of my finances.

Thus I've avoided any sort of foreign exchange conversion losses, which can be an additional layer of rake for UK or European players who routinely swap between dollars and their home currency.

Good for bankroll management, good for discipline, but not much use if I want to utilise the money for any other purposes.

So, with an impending need to temporarily withdraw a chunk of the cash, I was looking for options.

After some Googling, a Citibank US Dollar Current Account seemed just the ticket.

I could send some of my Neteller cash to this account, and have fee free access to it by US Dollar cheque and debit card. Excellent!

Being naturally cautious in financial matters, I thought it best to drop Neteller an email to make sure this would be OK. Their response in full...

"Thank you for you E-mail. We continue to encounter difficulties if processing funds in US dollars, we would strongly advise not to use a Citibank US dollar bank account to deposit or withdraw as there is a high possibility we may encounter difficulties in processing the funds appropriately."

So lets clarify this situation...

- I'm a UK citizen
- with money held by a company based in Europe and quoted on the UK stock exchange
- mostly playing poker on the UK skins of networks who don't accept US players
- wishing to transfer my winnings to the UK branch of a US institution (new business)
- so that I can spend some of the money on a trip to the US (more business for the US)

Yet it seems the UIGEA prevents me doing so.

Or does it? Well, it seems not.

One of the sites I play on allows fee free withdrawals direct to a nominated bank account, and they reckon it's doable.

If it's that easy for me, how difficult is it going to be for any of these mythical drug dealers and terrorists who are allegedly laundering their cash via the online poker world?

All of which makes me wonder what the point of this whole debacle is, other than to enable a few self serving, duplicitous, snakes-in-the-grass, to slither a little closer to the summit of Capitol Hill.

Leisure

Forgive me readers, for I have sinned. It's been ten days since my last post.

Ten days! Where did the time go? (Little Me Too! reference there for the fellow parents)

Well ironically enough I've been busier than usual at work, due to some impending leisure time. I rejected an option to renew my current contract, which meant it expired at the end of May.

Cue a period of frantic activity, wrapping up loose ends and doing a handover of my activities to some guys based in a different part of the UK.

I wasn't totally desperate to get out of the job, and I liked my workmates, but when someone else offers a rate rise equivalent to the annual mortgage payment, it's pretty much a no-brainer. The life of the contractor.

I've got a few weeks before the new contract starts, which incorporates a pre-planned holiday to the Scottish Highlands with wife and child.

Neither K nor I is keen on taking E on any long trips, particularly not flights, so a few hours in the family car suits us fine.

This prospect of this sort of trip was one of the reasons we went for a big diesel car. We've booked some time at two 'family friendly' hotels, and I'm praying the weather cooperates.

In the meantime, I've got a few free days. Day one of which I spent stripping down a silicone coated bath, tiling, and filling and sealing a damp affected floor.

The tenant in the flat I let out in Glasgow is on holiday for a week, so I'm taking the chance to do some repairs to the property.

Consequently I actually got home later today than I would if I'd been at my 'proper' job.

Not that I minded. It's good to escape from the office PC for a while, and I do enjoy the occasional opportunity to do some physical work. A change is as good as a rest, as the saying goes.

The plan is to finish the job tomorrow in time for her return from holiday.

On the property theme, I caught a little bit on TV tonight about the Spanish property crash. This seems to have particularly hit the holiday village type developments, frequented by Brits and other northern Europeans.

No doubt there are some aspects of the Spanish property system that are open to criticism. The experience of one couple under the Spanish 'land grab' rules was genuinely terrible.

What gets me is the sympathetic treatment handed out by the media to people who are effectively failed business people. One couple had bought two off-plan properties on the same development, planning to sell one on at a profit pre-completion, to fund the purchase of the other.

When the market tanked, they were in the mire. Such is life!

Yet they get TV time and a virtual hug over their predicament. Why!?

They borrowed to invest; invested unwisely; and lost. Maybe they were unlucky, maybe they didn't do enough research, or maybe they just got $$ signs in their eyes and plunged in without a second thought.

The British attitude to property is a peculiar thing. So many seem to see it as a cure for all ills.

Often there seems an expectation that bricks and mortar are a magical financial instrument, offering reward for no risk. The reality is, where there is potential reward, there must be a risk of some type.

If people can't understand this, they shouldn't be trusted with credit. The lack of self awareness is truly staggering. One can't help but wonder how some of these people managed to raise the deposits on their purchases.

Probable answer - remortgaging their home in the UK!

Warren Buffett Would Be Proud

Not a bad result on Partygaming so far, but I'm going to hold on for the long term....

Party Time

Ten days since my last post. I'm being a lazy monkey!

Sadly there's not much to report on the poker playing front. The Tribeca migration has killed the action on Doyles Room, so I've been pottering around on Stars in my limited spare time.

Yet I still managed to turn a profit from poker, albeit from more conventional sources.

A few years ago I was looking at the stock market and noticed that shares in Stagecoach had been absolutely hammered after they cocked up a big US acquisition.

It seemed to me the market had grossly over reacted as their core business was sound, and they had a good recovery plan in place.

I didn't have the courage of my convictions, and the shares which were trading at something stupid like 20p are now closer to 200p. Ho hum.

A similar thought came into my head when I was looking at Partygaming shares a few weeks back. This time I had a small tickle at 28p.

In a few weeks they have rollercoastered their way to 45p so it's looking promising so far. Of course it's not a profit until I sell, but I fancy leaving them tucked away for a while in the hope of better things to come.

How To Make Money From Party Poker

Trade their shares!

Quite a ride Party Poker shares are on right now.

A ride fuelled by rumours from the US of an opt-out for poker from the UIGEA; rumours from Gibraltar that the financial results announced on 1st March will be better than expected; and the inexorable fact - courtesy of Poker Site Scout - that Party is gradually overhauling Stars in the race to be biggest online site.

When I started playing on Party the peak time was very late for UK players. 3a.m or so on a Friday night/Saturday morning was a good time to be doing business.

Now the geographic profile is dramatically different, and the tables are not yet as bustling, but are moving in the right direction.

Instead of Americans, the tables are full of Scandinavians, French, Germans, Italians, and many from the former Soviet States - Latvians, Belorussians, Ukranians, Kazakhstanis (yes, the land of Borat!) etc.

The Americas still represented by Canadians, Mexicans, Brazilians, and more.

Ironic is it not that residents of those ex-Soviet states now have the freedom to play online poker? Recent news stories suggest even the Chinese will soon have a taste of those same freedoms.

All of which perhaps explains a recent 60% surge in the Party Poker share price; albeit from a very low base.

It also means a more reasonable 'working day' for UK players as the geographic profile moves east. So perhaps we can win big, and still get a decent night's sleep now.

On the downside for the amateur - though perhaps an upside for the share price - it seems logical that the 'big rakers', the multi tablers who would have followed the US dollar to Stars and Full Tilt, will now migrate back to Party as liquidity in those sites decreases and Party numbers increase.

All of which suggests those March numbers from Party should make interesting reading!

Gotta Love YouTube

I found this on YouTube via a link from a stock market website. I like this guy's style. A very nice precis of the UIGEA fiasco..

Life Plan

This is a post I have been planning to make for quite a while. The delay in doing so, perhaps symptomatic of the reasons for making it.

In modern jargon K and I are doing a bit of what might be termed 'downsizing'. A financial advisor might describe some aspects of it as 'retirement planning'.

Neither of those terms sits comfortably with me. I don't see it as some sort of retreat from modern life, nor is it about plotting a comfortable descent to the grave.

Rather I see it a life plan. One which structures our priorities in a manner that will give us quality time with E - and any kids to come - whilst ensuring we are not shackled to the grindstone until our twilight years.

Last week K left her job, having handed her notice in soon after the New Year. We are a single income household for the foreseeable future.

This was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, though the timing is more rapid than we had previously planned.

She will be devoting more time to bringing up E, and simultaneously removing the burden from my parents. My dad's episode at Christmas a reminder that we sometimes place unfair expectations on them - which they would never dream of refusing to meet.

K and I have never been the most ostentatious of spenders. I can recall numerous occasions when my gadget and car oriented techie workmates have teased me for my unwillingness to splurge on the latest must-have item.

I was called 'tight' long before I took up Limit Hold 'Em.

Yet we can hardly be counted as frugal either. We've got a nice house; two cars - albeit very much from the sensible range; and we do like to travel and have fun.

Thus our plans are more a formalisation, or evolution, of our existing lifestyle, rather than some sudden Damascene conversion to a new lifestyle.

Work-to-live, not live-to-work, has always been my approach.

Coupled to a pragmatic grasp of how finances work, I have generally been relatively cautious with debt - avoiding running up big credit card bills, whilst accepting the inevitability of the mortgage payments.

This attitude no doubt influences my conservative approach to bankroll management.

We now find ourselves in the position that the mortgage is the sole remaining debt on our balance sheet, and as I said previously, killing it off is financial goal number one.

Progress has already been made in that area, and I expect more to follow later this year. All of which has laid the foundations for K's early withdrawal from the workplace.

Whenever friends or family seek financial advice from me, I tell them that reducing debts in order of expense should take priority over investment.

While shares may go up or down, the bank will always expect their payment at the start of the month.

Investment returns are uncertain; interest charges are certain. I continue to maintain that philosophy.

So far, no real change then. Where the life plan comes in is in setting more definitive long-term goals.

One area that has attracted much attention in the financial press recently is the pensions crisis.

As people live longer, birth rates decline, final salary pension schemes disappear, and a culture of instant gratification and cheap credit overpowers more traditional values such as moderation and saving, the nation is heading towards an economy where people will carry their debts far beyond traditional pensionable ages.

Working into your seventies will be the norm, rather than the exception. Already the government has set in motion the raising of retirement ages in the UK, and this trend will certainly spread across the rest of the old economies of Europe and the US.

That is NOT my plan.

I've always been somewhat of a contrarian when it comes to financial planning. When others were fleeing the stock market as it languished in the lower 3000s, I plunged in with a big lump sum contribution to my pension. I saw it as a chance to make my money work harder over the next thirty years.

Now as many of my fellow citizens resign themselves to an extra ten or fifteen years of work, to pay for their current excesses, I am again aspiring in the opposite direction.

While K looks after family business, I have set myself a target of transitioning out of my current lucrative but time-consuming and unfulfilling job within roughly ten years.

The aim being to replace it with some as yet undefined work that will be less stressful and time-consuming, whilst paying whatever bills remain.

To put things in context, I recently turned 36, and the broad-brush plan looks something like:

- mortgage cleared by 40
- current job ended by 45
- part-time by 50
- effectively retired by 55

All of which does sound awfully like a terribly dull retirement plan at first glance.

Where I see it differing is that what we are aiming for is to reduce our fixed and non-negotiable outgoings rapidly, to give us more freedom to expend as we see fit in the future.

It also gives us the freedom to make more time for ourselves. As a contract worker I am very much a slave to the demands of the current customer.

We are not plotting a comfortable path towards the grave; we are planning on enjoying life to the full.

I want to be in a position where deciding to spend a long weekend in Barcelona or Rome is something we can do on a whim, not something that necessitates three months advance planning.

Where attending school sports days, and the like, is a given - not a big ask.

All of which means surrendering a few frills and luxuries now, in the expectation of more rewarding pleasures a few years down the line.

In the more immediate term, I'm also making some other changes for the better.

Over the last year I've been aware that my health and fitness isn't all it should be.

For the first time since I was a teenager I've moved up a waist size. Much as I was never any good at sports, I was generally active until the last few years. Whether it be hacking shins on a 5-a-side court, shifting some weights in the gym, or even just walking to work.

I'd hate to be too infirm to enjoy my kids growing up. There are things I didn't do when I was young that I'd like to learn with them. Skiing for one!

I'd love to take them to interesting places. K and I honeymooned in Africa, and went on safari. That was an incredible experience that I'd love to share with them.

South America and the Far East are still on our list of places to visit. They aren't trips I'd inflict on a toddler but it would be great to take them when they are old enough to appreciate the experience.

While I don't ever see myself existing on salad and lentils, I will be making a more conscious effort to eat healthily, and I'll be aiming to get more value from my gym membership - presently my most wasteful investment.

K is already well ahead of me on this path, so hopefully her success will spur me on.

From a psychological perspective, discussing the above with K, and even writing up this post, has made me feel more content than I have for quite a while.

I'm happy that I've regained a sense of purpose in life, and can see some rewards coming from the pressure I've put myself under over the past ten years.

At one point I presumed my career would be a gradual progression through the ranks of some firm to the point where I was a manager or executive.

That isn't going to happen now. I'm happy pursuing my narrower motivations as a contractor without becoming embroiled in the office politics of promotion and empire building.

This realisation is relatively recent, and if I'd been told that ten years ago I wouldn't have believed it. People change. We adapt to circumstances, and get on with things.

My first serious job application was to the RAF. I wanted to fly fast jets.

I passed the aptitude tests, and failed the medical due to dodgy eyesight. So I've undergone a fairly dramatic switch of career ambition already.

All of which means I've managed to knock off over a thousand words with barely a mention of poker. Which is as it should be.

I don't see poker as playing a great part in these plans. Rest assured that is not the career change I have in mind!

Which isn't to say there won't come a point where any surplus winnings are reinvested towards the life plan.

For now I still see my aim as building bankroll to let me play higher, but I suspect there will come a time that the sums get so large, and the quality of opposition improves, to the point where I feel uncomfortable playing any higher and will be happy to cream off any excess profits for reinvestment elsewhere.

Wouldn't it be nice to buy some boring high yield ISA shares, or raise the deposit on an investment property, from some steadily accumulated poker winnings?

Though there would have to be one hell of a property crash before my winnings equated to 15% of a house!

For now I think that's enough of my manifesto for a happy life.

K and I won't be changing our names to Tom and Barbara; our eggs will still come from the supermarket; but hopefully there will be fun and rewarding times ahead.

Vegas Casino Group Launches UK Online Gaming

Here's an interesting little snippet from The Times.

Las Vegas Sands - owner of The Venetian - has announced plans to launch an online casino and poker site, initially for UK consumers.

Strange timing one might think, but I'd imagine they must have a pretty vast mailing list of non-US residents to whom they can market the site once it is bedded in.

Bill Weidner, Las Vegas Sands’ chief executive, said: 'As the internet gaming landscape continues to evolve, this effort will put us in a strong position to evaluate and react to other potential opportunities.'

As an IT guy, this doesn't half smack of a 'soft launch', in advance of bigger plans.

One wonders whether the ears of legislators have already been bent in Washington with regard to regulation and liberalisation of the US market.

Don't shut down those affiliate accounts just yet.