Somewhat positive news.

"Extort"? Well, we'll give you poetic license, or rather, political rhetoric license.

"Billions"? No, you're off by one decimal order of magnitude.

"A legit business"? That issue was never decided by a court, because of the settlement agreement. We've had one lawyer on here explain that while the agreement specifically disclaims any admission or finding of guilt, the settlement amounts to an admission of guilt without the application of consequences other than the settlement payment.

"All pokerstars did"? You mean they didn't deliberately disguise and miscode transactions in order to deceive banks into making payments the banks would not have made if the transactions had been undisguised and coded correctly?

"Giving us our money back"? The government has not given and will not give anybody their money back. PokerStars players got what they were owed from PokerStars. FTP's non-US players got a gift from PokerStars equal to what they were owed by FTP, so what they got was not their money, just an equivalent sum. FTP's US players will get compensation for the loss of their money. The compensation comes from money paid by PokerStars, so once again, it is not the player's money they are getting back. FTP players' money is long gone. Same thing for Cereus players' money. If they ever get anything back it will not be their own money, but money voluntarily provided by the government as compensation for players' losses due to an offence.

"The gov't did the stand up thing"? FTP player's money was long gone before BF. FTP had mere pennies on the dollar to cover balances. The gov't was under no legal obligation to make remission payments. Does than mean paying remission is "the stand up thing"? IDK. Maybe it is only the politic thing.

Perhaps you will argue that FTP and Cereus were only short money because of the DOJ's past enforcement actions in seizing various bank accounts. Were this true, we would expect that PokerStars would also have come up short - they suffered seizures just as much as FTP and Cereus. At both Cereus and FTP, the sites or individuals working for the sites stole player money.

When the DOJ seized bank accounts used for miscoded transactions by PokerStars, FTP and Cereus, they were enforcing the law as they understood it. As it turns out, at least two of those three companies were involved in crimes against their customers. Perhaps you would prefer it if you lived in a country where the Justice department didn't enforce the law in industry sectors which have a high rate of participation in criminal activity.

but we already live in that country?

TL;DR, smart intelligent people like to keep it short and simple. What are you going on about? Give it a rest..lol.

yeah, until they came back and said "remember the wire act? that doesn't even ****ing apply to poker!"

which kind of nullifies everything about the "illegality" of pokerstars operating within the US in the first place.

the DOJ/US gov't is the mafia, nothing more nothing less.

Perhaps.

Which industry did you have in mind, other than poker, where 2/3 of the top companies are criminally defrauding all their customers?

financial sector comes to mind

Lazy and stupid people don't like to read anything longer than a tweet. It's easy to keep a post short if it has little content.

Good writers avoid redundantly using multiple synonyms.

What I'm on about is that people who don't understand the legal situation regarding AP/UB, FTP and PS reach a whole pile of false conclusions.

Financial sector are only defrauding a subset of their customers. Didn't I recently read about some huge settlement being paid by one of the key bad actors in the 2008 financial crisis? Seems like financial sector is disqualified two ways.

Um, just because poker wasn't illegal under the Wire Act doesn't mean running poker sites the way Cereus, FTP and PokerStars did was legit.

The sites were not charged under the Wire Act. They were charged With:

• UIGEA violation
• Conspiracy to violate the UIGEA
• Operating an illegal gambling business
• Conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud
• Money Laundering

Wire fraud is not the same thing as a violation of the Wire Act. None of the charges relied on a Wire Act violation as a predicate offence.

If you can't tell the difference, son, I'd advise you to stiff the IRS before you stiff your loan shark.

The fines that the DOJ sought from the big 3 sites were so much higher % wise than what they got from the banks, and we won't even bring mention the glaring lack of criminal indictments. Even you would puke if you weren't so married to your spinning semantics. The 13 billion JPMorgan paid is a joke.

Don't forget that the US lost their WTO appeal to the powerhouses of Antigua and Barbados.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Trade Representatives Office, Gretchen Hamel, conceded that the WTO ruling had gone against her country. But she insisted that the U.S. would maintain a ban on Internet gambling financial transactions to "....protect public order and public morals as long as it doesn't discriminate against foreign companies.

They went after the banking to specifically break and/or bankrupt these companies, because they couldn't outright ban them and damage their WTO standing. 2 out of 3 wasn't bad. Sore ****ing losers.

Taxpayers paid for the bailout they needed so they actually were even defrauding people that weren't their customers

DOJ is not the mafia, nor is the US gov't.

Extortion is an ugly word; Party paid $123 million or so because they settled a case; Dik**** paid $300 million because he settled a case (which coincidently WAS brought as a Wire Act case); Optimal payments paid $millions because they settled a case; Sheldon Adelson's Venetian paid $47 million because they settled a money laundering dispute.

When Tony Soprano says pay $20,000 to settle a beef on HBO, tht is not quite the same thing.

Well look it is almost the end of February I do not think one person has been paid out from FTP yet when they said payment coming in weeks at the end of January, so do not believe a thing to DOJ says.

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has been calling the DOJ. To have them say that they believe we should be classified as victims, the same way FTP players were, is great progress. They now also believe, whether its feasible or not, that it would be logical for remaining FTP funds to be used for a Cereus remission. When I spoke with them over a year ago this was faaaar from the consensus. I believe the calls from players are helping as is the PPA by meeting with DOJ.

Just got an email about FTP saying payments are going to go out in 7 days. Let's hope that once all the FTP stuff gets cleared up that UB finally gets some attention!

who i call? what i say?

any phone call from you should include a huge "boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo oom"

JASON COWLY: DOJ (212)637-2479

US Attorneys Office
Sharon Cohen Levin
2126371060

Michael D. Lockard
2126372193


Introduce yourself and ask if theres been any update on Ultimate Bet.

WHAT?NO! this is a super duper serious thread. SOmeone ban this fool. he is counterproductive to our righteous cause

So where are your buddies hiding out?

It's a Cereus thread, specifically

Not that this will help getting our $$$ back but I encourage people to call Greg Pierson Iovations phone number (503) 224-6010 Ext number 6703 leave a message (usually goes to the voicemail) and explain to him ur situation and why you want your $$$ and why he is a scumbag...... 2 yrs ago Hellmuth played the 1 drop and finished ITM. A few days later I was at his table in a $2500 event, and he was bragging that he made his 3 investors who bought a % of him a lot of $$$$.. Pretty sure if you connect the pieces to the puzzle, that Pierson who is the owner of IOVATIONS which was built on stolen $$$$ was 1 of the 3 investors.. I came to this conclusion when he was on the rail at the final table during the 1 drop sweating Hellmuth. Having 75k stolen from me and having this **** go on with no repercussions really pisses me off!! PLZ CALL THIS SCUMBAG AND WRITE HELLMUTH ON TWITTER OR MESSAGE HIM ON FACEBOOK.. **** THESE GUYS

And if Rich or Scott can please explain to me where this $$$$ went and if its still available why aren't the players seeing it???????? 25% of 75k is better than nothing what ever came of this?????? http://www.tightpoker.com/news/absol...ustomers-3123/