Mortgage advice for a winning poker player

Liamhooks

Okay so first of all I'll say hear me out before you make judgements.

Me and my partner are looking to apply for a mortgage soon. My partner works full time and earns 25k. I played online poker professionally for 8 years and  it was my sole income. I have recently however aqquired a part time role as a civil servant earning 12.5k per year, whilst still playing poker to supplement my income.

Despite the fact that 90% of the transactions are coming 'in' to my bank rather than out (as I tend to leave a few 1000 im my poker account and withdraw when I have a few more 1000 and I rarely deposit) I am obviously aware this will cause issues when providing a bank statement.

Other than stop playing poker for 3 months as this would cause me to lose out on a lot of money, what options do I have?

ACG

Stop taking money out for 3 months and use the money you have in the account.
Find a lender who does not ask for statements as standard (but they will still reserve the right to ask for them). 
Find a lender who will accept the gambling.

Liamhooks

I could withdraw from the poker sites to my neteller account.

Then fund my account from player to player transfers from friends I trust in the poker community. I.e send money to their bank, and they send money on X poker site to me. Therefore there would be no gambling transactions visible on my statement.

Is this method of concealing my gambling fraudulent? I am unsure 

Liamhooks

Thanks ACG. Im assuming my above comment therefore would not be seen as fraudulent.

I could provide graphs from sharkscope.com which show that for over a decade I have won, over a sample of 10000s of games. But I I'm under no illusion this would be accepted.

It's quite frustrating as I have a credit score of over 500 and have never taken out a loan in my life and zero debt. But hey ho, I get it. I'm the minority.

ACG

Definition of fraud according to google. It sounds like you might fall in to that. 

In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right.

Liamhooks

Okay I see.
Whereas with your recommendation, based on the fact that I did not deposit for those 3 months or however long I essentially did not gamble any of my income from my current account and therefore it would not be fraudulent. Or have you reconsidered?
Your method does seem somewhat less deceptive.

[Deleted User]

I did a case where the deposit of over £400k came from matched betting over the years and the 3 months bank statements to prove the deposit probably ran to over 50 pages of betting.   
Was it for every lender? No.  Did i struggle to place it?  Not at all.  I beleive there is a lender out there for 99% of cases.    The absolute worst thing you can do it so try present a false situation.   So much easier to find a lender happy with the facts.   One for a broker or you will go crazy trying to find the lenders who will do it

Also have done a case in the past for a clients whos main source of income was poker.  As long as tax is paid then the lender is fine with it. 

ACG

The outcome of the gambling makes no odds. 

I am not saying you are committing fraud, but you have to see that paying money to friends via another account which they then give you back looks far more dodgy than leaving some money in an account and just using that to gamble with. 

My personal preference would be to be honest with the lender. It wont be for every lender, but if you have done it right you have less to stress about. 

davidmcn

Liamhooks said:

fund my account from player to player transfers from friends I trust in the poker community. I.e send money to their bank, and they send money on X poker site to me.  

Apart from anything else, significant transactions on your bank statements with other individuals (which you'd prefer not to have a chat about) may raise money laundering concerns when your solicitor looks at them. Either be upfront about the gambling or have a long enough break from it. 

MWT

Liamhooks said:

Other than stop playing poker for 3 months as this would cause me to lose out on a lot of money, what options do I have?

I'd suggest going with a broker that has experience in this area, like for example one that has already posted in this thread.

Under the forum rules they cannot approach you, but you are free to message them directly if you wish...

hippocrates1

Banks probably have a right to be wary if you don’t feel you can pause gambling for three months. Plus three months actually isn’t three months because you then have to go through the motions of buying.