Didn't see a thread for this yet, apologies if I missed it. I do think it deserves its own thread as opposed to just a post in ongoing Stars / NJ threads.

On Friday evening, the NJ Division of Gaming Enforcement released two documents related to the agency's approval of PokerStars / FTP to operate in the NJ regulated online gambling market.

The first - the Transactional Waiver order - is pretty short and outlines the conditions for the TW approval. It is standard for the DGE to post these orders online.

The second - a lightly redacted copy of the DGE's investigation into AYA / Stars - is notable both for its length / depth and also because, to the best of my knowledge, the DGE has never posted similar documentation when approving a TW for an online gambling supplier.

The document is a little dry but filled with interesting tidbits / insights into Stars and Amaya.

The big stuff:

• AYA has to fire four unnamed execs to get the TW.
• PokerStars has to hand over about $425k to NJ, an amount that corresponds to unclaimed NJ player balances on Stars
• AYA must avoid involvement with a long list of names familiar to those who followed the Black Friday story.

We have some additional highlights here.

I always wondered what happened to John Caldwell post Pokernews and The Poker Beat.
I didn't know he ended up as part of the senior leadership group at Pokerstars. He was always one of my favourites on Poker Beat.

great summary. thank you sir

regarding above, anyone care to venture who and why?

maybe related to ongoing insider trading investigation as part of stars acquisition ?

those are individuals they can not ever be associated with.

I was asking about the four current unnamed execs, they were requested to let go as condition of TW.

Yeah, sorry. I didn't realise what you meant.

How can an official investigation apparently keep some names a secret?

Weird huh?

Speculation that two of them are Lee Jones and Shayam Markus, since "because they were involved in the management or control of companies that violated UIGEA" is true for both of them.

my guess is howard, annie, ray and chris

My understanding would be that the four are listed amongst the names listed with an asterisk on pages 83-85 of the main document.

Shayam Markus hasn't sent a tweet since Sept 9th from his FTP Twitter account.
Lee Jones was still posting Pokerstars related tweets from after the Sept 30th date on the document.

From an article by Dan Cypra:

Heave Ho, Four Must Go

Not sure where we came up with that subtitle, but it rhymes. The DGE is demanding that "four individuals identified by the Division as having failed to establish the requisite good character, honesty, and integrity required by the Act due to their involvement in the business activities of the PokerStars Entities between the enactment of UIGEA and Black Friday" be dismissed. It is not known who the four individuals are.

The Blacklist

Isai Scheinberg (pictured), Mark Scheinberg, Pinhas Schapira, Yehuda Nir, Paul Telford, Paul Tate, Nelson Burtnick, Ray Bitar, Rafael Furst, and Chris Ferguson are prohibited from being involved in the business in any way, shape, or form without DGE approval.

Don't understand Lee Jones speculation. Dozens of Stars employees at his level in org and with similar involvement in business before, during and after Black Friday.

Typically, when a publically traded company goes thru investigation, only officers, board members, and any owners with greater than 10% (sometimes 5%) have to go thru personal investigation.

Regulators of course have the right to look into whatever they want.

Surprised that Howard isn't on this list

Says in the report and article Howard is not on it because his involvement in the industry is barred by his DOJ agreement.

Exactly, they didn't need to mention Howard because he's already barred.
Ferguson, however, was only previously barred from unlawful sites, like Bovada.

Your assumption is probably correct.

Lee Jones and Shyam Marcus are assumed to be clean, whomever the DGE requires to be removed from the company is likely higher up on the executive ladder (they are both major leaders at their company, but there are bigger fish to to fry in the DGE's eyes - which is of course good for players). It should be noted that some of the people on that list are no longer with the company but I assume these were not the droids they are looking for.

Cliffs, imo:

Amaya is licensed to operate Pokerstars in NJ as a company which:

1. Owns the computer software, hardware and systems of Pokerstars.
2. Owns the player database and other historical records of Pokerstars.
3. Owns the company operations of Pokerstars, but purged of all prior significant owners and top-level managers.

If you read the bottom of page 75 of the print copy (pg. 81-82 of the PDF), isn't it pretty obvious that Hazel and Rosenthal are two of the names that had to go?

I'm pretty sure that anyone tainted with close ties to the Scheinbergs has no future with an Amaya that operates in the US. If there was a 'DFS of Business' I would be dropping those two guys from my lineup in a hurry.

1. Were other companies that applied for a license in NJ put under the same scrutiny?

2. Is this a document other states will use in vetting Amaya/Pokerstars/Full Tilt?

Good shout.

I hadn't even read those pages but had both of them flagged based purely on their job titles in the list of people I mentioned earlier.

Those pages you mention are the key. 32 names listed, 20 have an asterisk meaning they are pre Amaya, 2 of which are Hazel and Rosenthal.
So it's 2/18...
It's tempting to just say Fabian and Bourenkov just because they are mentioned at the same time as the other two, but it seems too obvious.

It'd be quite a turn up if it was Steve Day, after all those months of him on the Pokercast, although those appearances did recently come to a halt...

That's just sensationalist speculation though.

As far as the $425K that Amaya surrendered to NJ for unclaimed funds, do those users stil have to go through the process of repayment through the US DOJ or the NJ DGE?

I thought pokerstars let Americans cash out?

Edit: nvm, just re-read and it says unclaimed

Pokerstars players didn't have to go through the DOJ to get their money. Pokerstars paid them out. If any of that money includes FTP funds (didn't read docs yet) they might not have to go through DOJ now. In either case I think they'll probably have to go through NJ's Unclaimed Property now.

I would of hoped they needed to fire more than 4 people

Just curious .... why would you have hoped that ?

p.s. for those interested, the DGE writes of this amount: "Most of these accounts have a balance of $10 or less". The number of accounts that make up this $428K balance, fwiw, is redacted.