PPA issued the statement below:

PPA Statement on DOJ Amendment to Online Poker Civil Suit
Washington, DC (September 20, 2011) – John Pappas, executive director of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA), the leading poker grassroots advocacy group with more than one million members nationwide, issued the following statement upon today's amended Department of Justice civil suit claiming that Full Tilt Poker was engaged in a "Ponzi scheme" and defrauded its players.

"This is a sad and disappointing day for American poker players. If true, these allegations detail a massive betrayal of player trust which will cause financial hardship for thousands, if not millions, of individual poker players, none of whom are accused of doing anything wrong. We call on the Department of Justice to certify that the proceeds of any settlement or seizure that may result from this action will first be dedicated to reimbursing players. We further call on Full Tilt Poker, its management, directors and owners to take all available steps to ensure the prompt payment of players as their first priority.

"Since Black Friday on April 15th, the PPA has vocally called for Full Tilt Poker to refund player balances. We also issued a guide to our players which provided them legal guidance on what they could do to recover their funds. These new government allegations underscore the sincere need for Congress to act immediately to pass legislation that appropriately regulates Internet poker in the U.S. so that players can be protected from the types of abuses alleged by the Department of Justice today. Today’s news does not change the mission of the PPA – to make player reimbursements and effective federal or state licensing of Internet poker a priority."

To view the PPA legal guide referenced above, please visit http://theppa.org/resources/legal/guide/.

John A. Pappas

First off: I like the statement. It's well written and adresses the right points.

"Today’s news does not change the mission of the PPA – to make player reimbursements and effective federal or state licensing of Internet poker a priority."

This is decent content but badly said. If you want to say something say it positively. This is communication 1on1. If you say I am not dumb, people think youhin are dumb. If you say I am smart they think (more likeky) u are smart. "Don't think of the pink elephant" .. makes u invision the pink elephant.

With this sentence you basically are saying that you need a new mission, which is the opposite of what you want to bring across!

Also I think there is some content missing. IMHO it is important to request goverments accountability and call them responsible for this.

- The UIGEA law is unclear, poker is not illegal
- US governement did not create the right laws
- This is worse than prohibition, cant even process these guys
- US governemnt needs to act nowe

etc.

I have heard the PPA say 1000 times that poker is not illegal but never why not. It is imho important to call the US to be responsible for this as well. They have an obligation to protect us after all and not create bad laws, that can't be enforced etc.

I would have liked to see one or two sentences about how the US government is responsible for the theft as well and what they have to do to avoid it in the future.


Still a very good statement at the right time.
Thank you for the hard work and making it easy to get us heard!

Poker is legal as it is a game of skill.

I agree with your point about communicating in the positive or affirmative structure. Too often, that is ignored. Take President Nixon, who famously uttered, "I am not a crook".

Overall, I would have to say that the PPA has failed miserably by allowing members of Fraud Tilt Inc., to be board members of the PPA. The rest doesn't matter as I think that the association with these criminals will kill whatever credibility that the PPA has left. It is too bad and I am sorry to see it happen this way.

Mr. Pappas will the PPA be returning any money it received from FTP whether directly or through the IGC. How can the PPA call on the DOJ to return funds if the PPA hasn't done so.

The PPA allowed these criminals to sit on their board and received money from sites knowing full well these sites operated in violation of US law. By allowing this the PPA was endorsing play on FTP. How could a player organization allow this to happen? Maybe before calling out others to the PPA should take a good look at its role in this mess and how the PPA might failed US poker poker players.

It's simple. There is no federal law stating that it's illegal. Something isn't illegal just because someone at the DOJ says it is.

I used to respect your posts, but you've really gone over the edge. Not even the DOJ "knew full well" that these sites operated in violation of US law until they got the evidence from Tzvetkoff on how the sites were setting up payment processing through "bank fraud", and even then had to rely on state law for their indictments. Not to mention that none of the money the PPA received came directly from FTP - it came from the IGC.

We get it - you don't like the PPA. But using hindsight to twist today's public facts to bash the PPA is beyond the pale.

Barney Frank is disgorging all PPA donations. Not a good sign for our influence on the Hill going forward.

EDIT: Also bad press in the Globe article as the PPA was referred to as "an organization largely funded by FTP board members"

If there were a deep and active grassroots organization that the PPA could call on, it could go on offense instead of continually getting beaten down. The failure to create a grassroots organization was a strategic blunder that will cause the PPA to lose more influence going forward.

Organizations don't create grassroots support. Grassroots supporters create organizations.

All the tools are here for all of us to join together as grassroots. To the extend that we players took advantage of these opportunities is pretty much solely on us IMO.

Cultivating grassroots efforts is pretty clearly not a strength of the PPA but I agree, people have to build the grass roots and ultimately it is on poker players for not building that organization. I wish the PPA is/was more successful and put more resources into cultivating these efforts, but hard to say the blame lies with the group that was at least trying.

The PPA spent tons on the DC lobbying effort (Al D'Amato and the other lobbyists), when that money should have gone into the grassroots efforts and infrastructure. Then, there would be a sustainable funding source for the PPA.

There is no crying over spilt milk. Now is the time to switch gears and put in the infrastructure, both in terms of people who can build the org and the tech and/or networks to communicate effectively.

PPA is an absolute joke.
They want to fight for the poker player's rights?
Was it their rights to get taken?
They had to fix poker before they could legalize it.
FTP and all the other sites answered to no one.
There was no commission
There was no Bond Put up to attain license.
And certainly there was no legislation on amounts of money to be set aside.
And of course AP and UB showed there was no independent company who watched the software.

PPA is as guilty as everyone who turned their heads for the convenience of playing poker in your home. Anyone with any business sense would have questioned the whole set up of all these sites.

Every bit of that is ridiculous.

PPA never claimed to be the online poker police. We are a group that lobbies for poker rights (as you note). I have no idea why you feel licensing of online poker requires first addressing unlicensed sites. That's like saying anyone fighting Prohibition (of alcohol) had to address the quality of speakeasies' bathtub gin first.

The reality is that PPA has made it clear that licensing and regulation are needed specifically to prevent issues like what we saw with FTP and the AB/UB cheating scandal.

I definitely don't get why you say we're a joke. PPA is not a "they". It's our shared fight. You get out of it what you put into it, so let's all stop treating the group like it's some entitlement that we deserve.

+1

Plus more, how does PokerStars fit into this kind of situation? Had FTP been run like PokerStars (which many of us assumed was the case - clearly an unfortunate assumption seen with the benefit of hindsight) this kind of attack on the PPA would be easily seen as ridiculous.

Skallagrim

Rich, it was nice meeting you at the WSOP this past summer, and I can appreciate your ongoing efforts with the Poker Players Alliance. I hope that your mission continues with a renewed purpose - one that strives to both fight for playing rights in the U.S., but additionally, that can craft and recommend, a qualitative series of 'benchmark' regulations, that make sense to both players, and legislators in government.

You might argue that that second task is not the role of the PPA. But the dynamics have changed drastically. The PPA's credibility is taking a hit, from having held a high level of confidence in individuals whom the DoJ alleges ran an on-line Ponzi Scheme, while they were acting PPA board members. Whether it's proven to be true or not is irrelevant at this time, and we can hope for the best outcome for the betterment of the game. And the goodwill gained from offering congress a regulatory framework, could go a long way toward gaining additional support on Capitol Hill.

As you know, I'm a rebounding PPA supporter. I didn't appreciate that nearly 40% of the PPA board consisted of Full Tilt ownership, leading up to, and extending beyond Black Friday. We talked about this at The Rio, and I do believe that no special considerations were made for Full Tilt, and that nothing inappropriate occurred at the PPA concerning FTP. But Full Tilt was notorious for its poor customer service over the years, and I thought it both ironic and hypocritical that the PPA's cause be fueled by service providers that, frankly, just didn't get it.

I've felt for a long time that self policing by corporations within the poker industry wasn't working. It's not just the exorbitant amount of money being exchanged at the click of a mouse, but how real lives are affected by irresponsible actions of 'industry leaders'. It was just a few months ago that one of Poker's leading publications named Howard Lederer, the "Most Influential Person in Poker". As it turns out, that was a bluff, otherwise known as a deception.

The Poker Players Alliance may take the position that it never tried to be the poker Police. I understand and appreciate that. But that was in the past. And while I'm not suggesting that the PPA should now take on more of a policing role, it could assume more duty to players, and take on a more inclusive, advocate role for players and their rights at this time.

I read the PPA mission statement again tonight: to establish favorable laws that provide poker players with a secure, safe and regulated place to play. Through education and awareness the PPA will keep this game of skill, one of America’s oldest recreational activities, free from egregious government intervention and misguided laws.

The word 'favorable' jumped out at me, because I have yet to read about 'player favored', and PPA recommended regulations for legislative review, ones that can safeguard players, and allow for continued exercising of individual freedoms. Also, you might consider replacing the word will, with, strive toward keeping, or something like that. I just think it's best not to make a promise that hasn't yet been kept, or one that might be difficult to keep.

I started playing cash games in high school over thirty years ago. I pride myself on having a thorough grasp of many different poker games, and have a respectable tournament pedigree to prove it. But no amount of poker skill can change the way the cards fall, after all the chips go in the middle. This is chance, it lurks in every shuffle, and humbles the most experienced, at the worst possible moments. Some poker hands will be absent of skill, but none will ever be removed from chance.

I love poker and will always introduce new people to the game. But I will never offer newcomers the promise of success and consistent financial gains, as a reward for attaining a higher level of skill in Poker. Going broke from a bad beat is the same for a newbie as it is for a seasoned player - broke is broke.

One last thing that deserves mention here is that this game belongs to it's consumers, to the players, not service providers, advertisers or media. I hope that in the future, the Poker Players Alliance can see that it's mission is not as narrowed, just because it may read that way on paper. The PPA membership are stakeholders in the game of poker, that pay money to different brands for a variety of products and services.

Take the World Series of Poker, a brand that stands above all others. As the WSOP brand continues growing, the game of poker itself is becoming more susceptible to change. Let me just say, no, I don't believe that the World Series of Poker is an evil empire. But Poker stakeholders should not rely on the WSOP, or any one brand, to look out for the betterment of the game, as much as they can count on that brand to maximize it's revenue gains, even if it means changing the way the game was meant to be played.

The use of sunglasses in WSOP competition has been sharply criticized by Poker HOFer's including Daniel Negreanu and Doyle Brunson. But their concerns were quickly dismissed. And WSOP entrants haven't yet been afforded an opportunity to vote in favor of, or against the use of sunglasses, that are a tool and game changer.

The WSOP has every right to make final decisions about where it earns it's revenues, but the decision about making fundamental changes to the game belongs to the poker public, to it's stakeholders. And if not the PPA, what body and advocate of player rights will argue the merits of preserving Poker traditions in competition, when a brands revenue opportunity may impose making fundamental changes to the game?

The point is, it's not about sunglasses or ski masks. It's about fighting for rights of players and the game itself. Inherent in it's mission is that the PPA already fights for the game. That fight, that player advocacy, extends beyond the fight to legalize on-line poker. It's all inclusive, it's a package deal. I hope that the Poker Players Alliance can own it all. If it does, that'll go a long way toward honoring the players, and the game, and gaining Congressional support for legalizing on-line Poker in the near future.

Keep up the good work Rich.

J. Percival