Give With One Hand... Take With The Other

I know I've written about this before but it really does annoy me and now it's got to the extent where I'm seriously debating whether to deposit any sort of meaty sum into my PKR account at all. I refer, of course, to the hidden exchange rate charge that comes when withdrawing dollars from the online poker sites. For example, here is the sum (in $$s) that I would need to have if I wanted to withdraw £1K from PKR today: 

So far, so good. However, here is the sum that I would have to deposit (in ££s) if I wanted to put the exact same amount of dollars into my PKR account:

In short, I have to deposit £1060.64 to put in X amount of dollars BUT I only receive £1000 when I take the same X amount of dollars back out. Now I may not have a degree in Advanced Maths but even I can work out that all this means that a whopping 6% is being taken away from the player every time this transaction is made. (To spell it out: in this case it's a loss of £60!)

Now PKR always maintain that it's not their fault that these charges exist and that it's the banks who set the rates - but it is as plain as day that some sort of rip-off is at work here - and I'm not convinced that PKR have entirely clean hands in all of this either. Who knows what sort of deal the online poker sites have struck with the banks so that the banks get this sort of traffic in the first place? Some organisation (or organisations) is/(are) making a freakin' fortune here and it's the lovers of the game of poker that are paying up.

Some people wonder why, after Black Friday, $$s are STILL being used as the common currency on the Euro sites. (Maybe it's so that this rip-off can carry on?) I'm sorry but I just can't help feeling a tad resentful for being scammed for £60 just because I want to play a bit of online poker. Isn't paying rake enough!!??

The only redeeming feature that PKR have in this, for me, is the fact that I do get a 30% rakeback deal from them. However, although I do look forward to the odd crumbs that get thrown back my way from time to time I can't help feeling that they get sneakily taken away again with this totally extortionate charge.