You understand that he just suggested that FTP treats deposits as opperating capital, no? And you are aware that there has already been one blow up (Tusk) where players monies were not held in trust? In general, you don't want your marketting people making you look shady...

Also, if I am not mistaken, stars does hold the money in trust. There is a thread somewhere listing which sites did and which sites didn't. There were a lot of sites that didn't. This is not why stars is winning, of course, but I would suggest that the reasons they (stars) takes such care about these sorts of things is a reflection of the management team, culture, and philosophy, and that those are also the reason they do the things that have actually gotten them their user base. That is, I agree with Amulet that the FTP management team could be doing thing a lot more professionally, and that the slipshod way SOME things get done is and will continue to hurt FTP.

I would never write that i have an interest in Tiltware, that is an assumption people here have made. The laws on ownership are clear, however, the DOJ is interpreting them differently then every lawyer I know would. Therefore, since said laws in the US are being interpreted ambiguously I would prefer we not discuss ownership again.

Your post is interesting. I should add I regret starting this thread. I made a huge mistake assuming that the private information I have was somewhat public. Therefore, I made a statement that I cannot back up. It lacks credibility and unless I can find public information, I apologize to everyone for writing anything on this topic.

In regard to your post, at the end of last year FT started going after the overseas market aggressively. That effort was moderately successful. As I previously wrote, a new initiative is in the process of being launched at the overseas market.

However, my concerns are exactly what I posted originally. PS has out grown and out performed FT dramatically. I cannot prove it here, so my writing it is meaningless, but it is fact.

In the first 15 to 20 years of the automobile business almost 3000 companies were started. Many had short-term success, only those that should BOTH constant growth in market share and profitability ending up making it. A handful.

Thank you for your well thought out post. I hope this thread will now die, but I doubt that will happen.

Stars probably gets more exposure worldwide, so your average non-thinking new subscriber is more likely to go there. Your average thinking new subscriber is also more likely to go to Stars given that you can now get the equiv of a rakeback deal via RTR and due to FT's ties to the KGC etc.. So it's no surprise that Stars is ahead.

Pokerscout shows FT about 38% to 39% less then PS last July. Today it is 50% less.

I can not provide my additional proprietary information.

Therefore, I apologize to everyone for starting this thread.

I am going to attempt to let it die.

Amulet makes some solid points, ftp has had severe server issues, a longtime and at time horrific lag at there tables. Support is pretty bad. These all fall under what mgmt/ownership is in charge of and hasn;t really addressed to the expectations of there customers. So, even though ftp is a major site and has volume, there issues are still out of control and not getting any better. The rakeback issue has also been an issue that they have stalled on for many months as they were looking into converting non rb accts..with stars everybody is a VIP..these things have definately imo effected them from being a bigger/well run company.

Also PokerSpot is a textbook example of not keeping players money in (a) trust.

One question for fnord, it seems the company still earns the interest from the trust, right? So the only advantage of not putting the money in trust is if you are using it for operational purposes (i.e. your business is undercapitalized), which is very frightening.

You can have it in an interest bearing account, but they only garner a few percent interest (but that is total gravy, and really adds up when you are talking about the amount of money that they hold). It is indeed frightening that a company would use that money for anything operational.

I'm not sure where most of the information in this thread is coming from, but I do want to clear up the most important piece of bad info. I didn't write the following, but hopefully it answers the operational funds question:

"Trusts are legal vehicles whereby funds are deposited into a trust account under the control of a trustee who manages the funds in accordance with the instructions of the trust settlor (you). Given the thousands of deposit and withdrawal transactions Full Tilt has to process each day, the variety of methods used to deposit funds, and the delays in actually receiving funds which are deposited by credit card or check, a trust is simply not practical for our purposes.

Players' funds at Full Tilt Poker are kept in several deposit accounts throughout the world, all of which are separate and distinct from our operating accounts. Funds are transferred from the players' deposit accounts to Full Tilt Poker's operating accounts only after we have earned them. This is not done each time we earn rake or even daily, but as our earnings accumulate, we make periodic transfers of those earnings from the deposit accounts to our operating accounts."

Apologies for the factual intrusion, you may now continue to NVG it up.

Doug

Dough,

There is a difference between trusts (trust funds) and funds held in trust I believe. Tusk probably did not touch any funds until they were earned, but because they were not held in trust, players are being treated as unsecured creditors in their liquidation.

Since some sites DO hold funds in trust, and it appears certain jurisdictions require it for on line gaming, it hardly seems like an insoluble problem.

As for using monies not earned, it sounded like OnWithTheSnow, who implied he had inside connections with FTP and appeared to be taking the counter point to amulet (pro FTP management) who seemed to imply that practice was employed. I would be surprised if that were the case, but little shocks me any more.

Really...well thanks for douching it up with that last comment there Doug.

You are a tool, and for you to represent a company in this way is laughable - apologies for this factual intrusion...yeah whatever you guys are the epitome of factual and honest these days.

I was going for jokey. Sometimes I miss the mark, sorry about that. I have a snarky one-liner compulsion that I have trouble reigning in sometimes.

fnord - I don't know enough about the specific legal terms for all of this to speak with any authority. I can say with authority, though, that we do not mix deposits with operational expenses, so the implications you mention were what I was trying to clear up.

Doug

Fair enough. Given the Tusk incident, though, I think it would ease players minds somewhat if someone like a CFO could issue a statement about how players funds would be handled in the unlikely event of liquidation.

Hi doug, always nice to see you post these days. Now if you bosses can work on not bouncing checks and to actually have your rng audited and a full explanation on your site not some forum that was popular 6 years ago things would be peachy. Good day Doug

LOL @ anyone thinking that the players on ANY site would be anywhere near first in line to receive their funds if a site shut down, also LOL @ thinking that the money is 'on hand' somewhere if all users decided to withdraw at once. Keeping all our money in some account, ready and waiting for us, would make poker sites (who we all agree have almost no worthwhile regulation over them) unlike just about any other financial institution in the world.

Mark

No offshore bank account that takes gaming clients is going to pay interest and all of the FTP money (or any other poker site) would be held with processors, swept to bank accounts on scheduled intervals minus reserves, fees, etc and from there they count it and ship it out. i.e. the credit card proccessors owe them X amt, moneybookers balance is y, neteller balance is z. The e-wallets (hopefully) will pay them on demand. It piles up, they wire it out, then give it to Ivey so he can play craps. As far as earning 4% or 5% on this gigantic pile of money everyone thinks the bank has...errr no.

To think they have 100% of the customers deposits in some interest bearing trust, or that this is even logistically possible is not reality. The "interest" part comes from the fact that there are actually banks out there still willing to work with these operators and additional "interest" is paid when the bank actually lets them access their funds.

Looks like this is very useful, out of date but probably still true.

Interesting find.

Nice spot. Wheres the money Doug?

Ha! Nice find.

in those accounts- thus why they consider the DOJ to have "our" money, not "theirs".

Ok Doug, so our funds, according to your statement in this very thread are in completely separate account than your operating funds. So please answer this. The DOJ has given you clearance to disburse those funds, and since they are all so neatly set aside in their own accounts, then why haven't we been paid yet? And why is there no explanation of what the hold up is? You are bleeding customers fast with your current handling of this situation, yet you are still silent, something doesn't add up. If you keep this up, you won't have anyone playing on your site soon

not to toot my own horn but these posts were prophetic (except the part about never needing 100% of the customers deposits - too bad I wasn't the only on that thought that):

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...9&postcount=44

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...8&postcount=66

The smug remark from FTPDoug is typical and unfortunate. His apology for the "factual intrusion" was intersting and ironic, to say the least

Orly?

Please Doug post in this thread and tell us why our money hasn't been returned to us if this was factual indeed.

uh, more likely it was never true.

Doesn't mean Doug lied tho, just that he was lied to.