thats very true that i knew info that i could, and wanted to share- i went back and forth many times about what i thought was in the best interest of players being paid back, and tried to do what was right with that in mind. dunno if i did but doubt any course of action after mid-june would've made much diff

i've gone over what to do a ton of different times with a lot of different people, and early on i tried to make sure that my only motivation was getting players repaid (and removing any doubt that it wasn't by tying my personal finances to that like i think all people involved with ftp should've done). I went over my reasons for stuff in the other thread, but i'll do a few interviews about this, as i think thats the best way to show my reasoning/intentions (and i'll do them with someone like noah, and ask him to ask as many hard questions as possible- and not have any topics off limits etc... altho there might be some stuff i won't respond to, i'll mention publicly that i won't respond to it not jus to noah obv).

haven't talked to them... thought about it many many times- then recently learned they already knew everything i did, which made me disgusted that they hadn't acted. that combined with the fed nonstop devaluing the use made me really not trust the government. today's action made me really happy- now if the fed can keep it in their pants for once and not announce qe3 today/tmrw i'll start having some faith in the gov't again.

i haven't ignored the nda- the justice dept has made everything i knew public. what good would it have done to say i have an nda and not say anything about it except scare ppl that the situation was worse than it actually was.

also i doubt other people who weren't owners would've had an nda, or even known much info- ftp was ridiculously tightlipped and the only reason i knew is because i was good friends w/ people who looked at buying the company.

there will be no (or as little as possible) preferential treatment. whether it be to people who pm me or ask in person or w/e, everyone deserves a fair shake. if there a good and seemingly trustworthy (I'm really good at evaluating the trustworthy-ness of organizations ) liquidator i'd give the $$ to them, if not i'd probably do a 2p2 poll unless i personally thought that 1 option was vastly superior to the rest, but i would pay the same cost in every option (all the $$ i was paid). likely would need to be a lottery of some sort (if not a huge amnt of the $$ would go to payment processing)

galfond and i said hanukkah 2012 (I'm not jewish but do like dradels). likely it'd be way before then, but I'm not gonna take the chance (or at least not when the chance seems high) of getting free rolled and paying people back only to have ftp pay out later (i wouldn't like my chances of collecting). i still think the chance is non-zero (over 10%) although its getting much closer to a number that I'm willing to pay out anyway.

edit: to make quoting clean

likely something like 5% of accounts get 10c/$

yea, unless ftp repays all player funds

its just such a joke that they fkd off a business which should've been worth 500m right now. so many disgusting areas of mismanagement and lack of oversight.

this was a really tough issue i had, but at that time it shouldve been about 80-90% that they repaid the players. I questioned whether or not to say something a lot (and am now questioning this decision obviously).

idk i don't think ftp employees making 50k/yr owe anything to the players unless they really should've been able to sniff it out. but i do think that players who were getting 200k a year extra for wearing patches and very little work, while still having enough money to live on, should give some % of the money they made back. especially so because they were all some non-zero % to sniff out the shortfall in player funds (maybe only 1-2% but they still knew the right people n couldve asked questions etc). I don't think they owe it or legally are required to pay, but its the right thing to do imo. and i think i should be penalized for not trying to push that 5% or w/e chance it was i had of sniffing out the hole, and for not having the company audited.

In the future any company i'm affiliated with that either is a bank or acts like one, im gonna make damn sure i get audited. Part of the reason is so i dont get freerolled like i was with ftp (working for nothing), and i think other people should be incentivized the same way.

i knew a few parties with varying degrees of interest at this time, and had heard of others. i also had a very accurate picture of the books (from friends having the company audited).

im happy i was monetarily tied to the situation, because it made it much clearer to all the people around me that i was only trying to do what was i thought in the best interest of the players. also it let me plan for possibly being out a lot of $$ for longer (instead of realizing now that the right thing to do was pay back $$ i made).

i don't think people should be profiting from a situation that involved tons of people being defrauded. I don't think the people who were paid 50k/yr and needed it to eat should give back much (altho some peanuts would be nice and a good gesture), but i do think the sponsored pros should be giving back as much as they can for what they were paid since the company was insolvent.

if i had been with ftp for 5yrs i wouldnt be giving back all i was paid, only for the last yr or so- but since iv only been there 20ish mnths it seemed right and easier to jus give it all back

ive consulted a bunch of really good lawyers- more for their opinions on what was best to do. whistle blower stuff would only cover going to the southern district, not tweeting etc, and that didn't seem to serve any purpose while a deal was in the works. when a deal fell through 2weeks ago i was planning on doing that or something along those lines, and then i realized the southern district already knew everything. i sat there scratching my head really sad they weren't doing anything and confused about why, until i woke up today with some faith restored in the govt.

doj basically just did that.

i fully believe that i learned about the hole before most of the non-board member owners (in late april or early may dont remember exact). i have some reasons to believe this that im not gonna fully go into (altho feel free to ask)- but im pretty damn sure its right. Obviously i only now about select case(s) and theres a chance other owners did know, im just extrapolating.

yes. the amount of money they made was insane... and that was with a ton of gaping holes in management and overall longterm policies (i think stars has some of these too). with some brainstorming and refinement it was a great deal imo for a while.

this company had way less oversight than it shouldve (or it obviously never wouldve gotten to this point). any competent person who had a % of ftp wouldve shut down processing to the us at any point once they noticed the hole, and bam they still have a 9figure business.

if i knew about it earlier i woulda fixed it. doug was a guy, and seemed nice/sincere. *think* hes one of the good ones but not sure obv

im obviously regretful that i said i thought ftp would pay and they didnt, but i really don't fault my reasoning. Its just such a joke for them to not have player funds in escrow, and its the only way they could fkup a huge cash cow of a business.

the other threads are (obviously) getting a bit out of control, and i'd like to answer what i can here to give people a clearer picture of the ftp situation.

In late april (25th i think?) i went to ireland because friends of mine were debating buying ftp. I was pretty adamant that i didn't want to be included in any nda, and that ftp didn't really have a choice except to trust me. I say that because i had enormous bracelet bets that would've more than doubled my net worth (counting equity on the 2 in 3yrs bets), and i got 2nd in a 1500nl. not to imply that the guy who won had bad morals or anything (he seemed nice), but its likely that i could've paid him off if i wanted to be a scumbag- and a bunch of those bets were against ftp owners, so they really shouldn't have had a choice except to trust my judgement. however much to my dismay i was included on my friends nda without being personally liable. normally nda's aren't enforceable, but seeing as i was paid a bunch by ftp/ member of team ftp etc. it wasn't fair for me to risk a huge amount of my friends $$ on this (way more than i could hope to ever cover from poker). obviously if this was just my own $$ i would've gambled it up, fought any potential lawsuit (probably won) and felt better about it. but the thought of grinding 1$/2$ for the next 800 years didn't sound very fun.

For the last 4 months i've been constantly bothered by the elephant in the room, and obviously if i addressed some issues while not addressing the most important (pertaining to the elephant) it'd come off pretty scummy and make people question ftp even more/ be bad for players. however now that the doj has outted that elephant, i think theres just about nothing i won't be able to answer (except stuff in the doj release and thats easy enough to find).

as far as i know there was 1 extremely bad decision made (the right decision would've been to stop processing to us players while still allowing them to play on the site), and a slew of terrible decisions made trying to avoid owning up to the 1st bad decision. What should've been an annoying problem after a few weeks, turned into a ****ty problem, then a really ****ty problem, and then a gaping hole capable of killing the company. Even after april 15th there were many poor decisions made, but the good news is that as far as i know (and i try to check everything i can from ftp about 18 different ways) for the last 2 weeks its been managed pretty transparently and well. before that it was in talks with an investor for about 2 months so there wasn't much opportunity for mismanagement, and as far as i can tell (again i tried to vet this a bit), there wasn't much.

if ftp doesn't pay i'll pay back everything i was paid. i dunno the best way to do this but it'll be a very transparent process.

i currently owe ftp $$ that i'll be paying back (in addition to the other $$ ill be giving) either to the players or a liquidator (if they go bust) or to any person who's buying ftp (and paying all the players- if they stiff some this $$ will go to those players). I almost paid ftp this $$ after black friday, and i'm really happy i didn't because i think the players deserve it. obviously if given good reason (deal which i believe is likely and they need operating costs for an extra week or w/e) i may give this to ftp- basically i'll do w/ it w/e i think is best for the players- this may not be quite as transparent but i'll try (only wouldn't be if i thought it wasn't in players best interests).

gonna have this thread locked and mods move any questions they feel are appropriate that i'll answer. feel free to put me on the spot/ ask anything u want- just trying to avoid needing to answer the same question 20 times. hopefully some other people from ftp will join me in this thread

also i'll be doing a few interviews in the next few days about all this (since now the only stuff i can't say the doj has said) and i'll link those here or something.

i don't think its appropriate for me to answer who it was (you wouldn't want future investors being afraid of their name getting out). the talked about offer was sufficient imo to pay player funds + doj, but the money wasn't there to follow through

i think there was just one big mistake in late 2010 (crediting player accounts when people deposited), and then a slew of other mistakes not owning up to the 1st. I really dont believe anyone involved intended to be a criminal, but thats not to justify their ridiculously criminal actions

idk. it should've been a lot but idk if it was. they were both on the board, and definitely both couldve changed the company if they knew about the hole. im inclined to believe they must've found out before april 15th.

together id think they couldve gotten any changes they wanted done to ftp or its structure

thats ridiculous wording by them and not true. a ponzi scheme doesnt have a huge source of income. there were many things about ftp in 2011 that were like a ponzi scheme, but ponzi's schemes dont make tens of millions of dollars a year.

didnt have ownership in any ftp entities. pretty sure doj has way more complete info on ownership than i do. i'd need to go back and check exactly how much i was paid, but i assume i can find that with my agents help. its over 1m (but not by too much)

edit: jus put it in ftp account, and i was supposed to play every month.