I don't know why we are arguing. People who made deposits that never cleared still owe that money imho.....why should they think otherwise. If they tried to scam the site too bad...pay up.

The easiest aspect of this is the people who have FT balances greater than their uncleared deposits (like me)....you simply deduct the uncleared amount.

The people with negative balances are only different in that now you have the added challenge of trying to recover those funds. Whether the cost to do this is worth it to FTP/GBT/DOJ is a question only they can answer...but those people owe money just as surely as I owe money.

I personally hope they go after them. Why should I be the only one to pay simply because I was good at the pokeries and grew my balance or didn't chip dump and withdraw?

Not to intrude on your conversation with DTM, but I've seen this drug dealer analogy come up over and over and it misses the point.

Had you bought drugs from the drug dealer he would have no legal case against you if your check didn't clear, just as if you bought gambling chips from FTP and lost them all they would have no standing to collect.

But if you didn't lose your deposit gambling, and withdrew actual cash, the fact that FTP is a gambling site is irrelevant, that's like saying it's ok to cancel payment on a check you cashed because the person that cashed it might deal drugs.

So yes, if a check cashing company, seized for selling drugs, later was found to have defrauded it's check cashing customers, a liquidator could collect the non drug related debts for remission to the victims.

Agree 100%.

Nice to see some people have morals. I hope that most will and it will be collected. And if not I hope the DOJ just send out a simple letter to the people owing money.

"we are of the understanding that you had an (several) e-checks that did not clear to FTP. In light of that fact we will have to pass on your personal information to the IRS to do a personal wealth audit on you to make sure that you have correctly declared all income from FTP. Upon payment of the missing e-check(s), We would have no reason to forward said information to the IRS.
We hope to have this matter resolved within the next 30 day"

sincerly the DOJ

You're talking about the agency that seized and operated the Bicycle Club for over seven years and also conducted "the muffin audit".

At least some of the differences in our postions seem not to be ones of principle, but rather application of similar principles to different understanding of the facts, for instance, knowledge of the new (non-criminal) charges against Bitar, Ferguson, Furst and Lederer.

Sorry, no links. GIYF. I don't have time to do your homework for you, and I do not maintain a library of links. I do, however, have a copy of the amended civil complaint on my computer, so I can offer you a few quotes.

The following defendants were added to the suit in the amended complaint: The following defendants-in-rem were added to the suit in the amended commlaint: The following section was added to the contents of the complaint:I'm not going to quote all 13 pages here. The "FTP insider defendants" referred to are the four new defendants listed above.


The following subsection was added to section VI. PROBABLE CAUSE FOR FORFEITUREThese are new foreitures related to accounts belonging to the four new defendants, related to new charges of wire fraud and conspiracy directly related to the allegations laid out in the new section V. As you can see from the content listing above, section V deals with untrue promises of player fund safety, improper dividend payments and crediting phantom deposits.

The amended complaint adds a Fourth Claim for Relief, including the following: A new Schedule C was added to the complaint, listing bank accounts owned by the four directors, now subject to forfeiture.

So, for the offences of defrauding players of their deposits, via false promises of fund safety while paying improper divdends and allowing phantom deposits to be credited, the four directors face forfeiture of their bank accounts, plus fines totalling almost $120M.

I should hope that satisfies most of your concerns. In the event that it doesn't, I may respond to the rest of your post this evening.

phantom deposits were known by some - who did HU cash dumps and withdrawals from those phantom deposits

if DOJ is calling this a ponzi scheme, they are going to try a collect all payments received from 'winners', to pay back 'investors' original deposits


it has become a cluster fook and they do not have enough accountants or employees to do much of anything, expecially the longer it takes (which in US government seems to be quite awhile - not sure if thorough, incompetent, or insuring long employment for themselves)

i dont know why this conversation was ever about whether they should go after these deposits. This conversation should be about whether they CAN.

So long story short I deposited $1k to play a little 10/20 LHE on April 12th. Not a regular by any means but a modest winner at these stakes. Well I busted the account and FTP was never able to collect the money post black friday. I received an e-mail from the cashier to deposit this money via Western Union to some guy I don't know at some control number in some foreign country.

I replied stating that I was waiting until all remedies are exhausted in my home country (US) and would make good on the debt if my account was reopened and available to play on FTP and withdraw/deposit. I also was afraid that I would have to pay the money to the DOJ regardless because I was in fact a debtor to FTP. Any advice should I just wait until the DOJ mails me a bill, I feel on a moral level that I owe this money to the rest of the players that got screwed? But from a legal perspective, can the DOJ really collect funds that were illegally deposited offshore for the purposes of criminal enterprise, and furthermore can they retroactively collect those debts? Thx.

Yes, and whether the players will actully be the beneficiaries (spelling) of collection of the PDs. Some informed folks think that it will be that way. Hope they are right

Not sure if this was brought up about people defrauding FTP, but there was a period in late 2010, early 2011, where people had unauthorized withdrawals from their bank accounts which were coming from FTP 3rd party processors. When we contacted FTP, their terrible customer support reps said it wasn't their fault, and couldn't do anything to help.

I believe I was an unintentional beneficiary of these "loans", and it was 4+ months that I had my account open with a balance for FTP to withdrawal my funds. Once the unauthorized withdrawals were taking place, I closed my bank account for what I think is a legitimate reason.

I had one deposit into FTP of <$500 that never cleared and then cashed out. But I had cashed out shortly after depositing to prevent a tilt session from taking place, not because I knew this was going on.

I doubt I'll ever have anyone come after me, but you never know.

this is exactly why I don't think we can be certain they are going to give us our rolls back, as opposed to just deposits. Stars gave rolls back but Stars was not found to be a Ponzi Scheme! I'm not so sure the DOJ will decide that people who won money from a Ponzi scheme are to be repayed their winnings/profits. I hope they do of course.

I'm amazed at how many people on this thread think that what's "right" and "moral" has any correlation to the law.

Let's say you deposited $30 with an echeck a year ago. You left this $30 in your account, it was never taken. You played with this $30 for 6 months before busting out. Let's say you paid $200 in rake during that 6 months of play. Essentially your "phantom deposit" ended up resulting in a $170 net gain for FT. Not only did you start with nothing - you ended with nothing, and your investment of time resulted in a tidy profit for FT. After several months of paying fees to keep your account open with $30 in it and several emails to FT asking them to take the money (to no avail) you close your account. A year after that, they come to you and now say they want the $30. Further, let's say you have accrued a variety of points and medals through your play, that FT said had value, but which now they are telling you are worthless.

If I'm this guy, I tell FT, the DOJ, or anyone else to go **** themselves, and let a jury of my peers decide.

The legality, practicality, and complexity of this situation is alarming. No one is mentioning any precedent that would lead me to predict what the conclusion will be, other than that time will be the rake.

The bottom line: FT f'ed up huge with the decision to allow phantom deposits ("stupid" from the OP basically accurate).

But this ugly situation has arisen because of terrible legislation, the UIGEA, and the fact that these companies were only given non-transparent tools to work with.

To flamingly blame FT is understandable, but to me the situation has arisen because of amazingly horrible leadership in the government sector.

Thanks, that clears a bunch but that raise the question I was arguing with you about long ago. Given the quoted compliants why does this not open up the shareholders to the same clawback that net winners were vaulnerable to in the Madoff case? If they can proves that (which they must think having brought up the charges) then why only limit the penalties to the defendents and ammounts from #161? I was actually aware of this part, which I guess was the main thing reported, but reading it still only shows defendents are liable for "the money laundering ofenses described above" rather than the other charges quoted above which I was unaware of.

Again, I realize that most shareholders are innocnet investors, but so were the majority of the first people profiting from the Madoff scheme. Yet while madoff was the only one found criminaly liable, they were all forced to give back part of their profits resulting from his crimes to compensate the latest depositors/investors/victims. But then again, if I recall the trustee was not directly gov apointed and the clawbacks were done in light of the criminal convictions in civil court, which I guess would still be open to all FTP victims.

So I guess I would just ask these victims to try to get what is due from the people that profited most rather than those that had little coincidental and largely unintientional gain. Remeber, the shorfall in player funds was about 3x phantom deposits, but less than dividents paid since problems first started occuring. But I'm obviously in the minority on this as it appears way more people want to go after phantom deposits than the shareholders.