Spanish Treasury Using Tournament Tracking Sites to Pursue Big Winners Spanish Treasury Using Tournament Tracking Sites to Pursue Big Winners
Jeremy Thompson, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License
Key Takeaways
  • At least three professional poker players pursued by Spanish tax authority over live tournament winnings.
  • The Hendon Mob database used to identify big winners.

The Spanish tax authorities are using the online Hendon Mob database of live tournament results to check against players’ reported earnings, Spanish news site Poker-Red reports.

Poker winnings are subject to income tax in Spain and players are required to report poker income to the tax authorities. At least three top Spanish live tournament players have been investigated on the basis of their published results, according to yesterday’s article.

The Hendon Mob maintains one of the most comprehensive databases of live tournament results available free online. It hosts detailed player rankings, including all time money lists, annual results dating back to 1970, and player rankings broken down by tournament and country.

Topping the Spanish all time money list is Carlos Mortensen, now a Nevada resident, with nearly $11m in tournament winnings. Major titles include the WSOP Main Event in 2001 for $1.5m and a WPT Championship event in 2005 for almost $4m.