THIS. Look at it from a player's perspective. People who may have had thousands of dollars online, withdrawing to pay bills and such, leaving the rest online because it was safe place. Some of these people were forced to file for bankruptcy because of Howard and his "company".

Howard even said himself that BEFORE black friday even happened, they knew there was a backlog. And did he make it known to the public that there might be a problem? No! What does he do? "I need to go on this USO Tour. I can't cancel this trip."

Not to keep bringing up people like Negreanu, Ivey, or Jen Harman, but I would bet, with their conscience if they knew something was up with their company, they would have at least acknowledged it and said "Ok, there might be a problem." Obviously don't want to start a panic, but given the circumstances of what happened with Full Tilt, I personally would have rather heard that than nothing at all and our money stuck in limbo.

Logic fail.

Wrong! There is a level of bad taste that needs to be punished by society, one way or the other. Let's suppose that Howard Lederer had gotten drunk one night and ran over the Aria poker player's son. There was a big trial coming up. Howard hired the biggest attorney in town and was denying all guilt and fighting the case all the way.

Then Howard starts going to the Aria to play poker every day, right in front of the poker room manager who lost his son. What you are saying is that this behavior is perfectly fine. You are wrong, and some people in this thread have no concept of how the world works.

People who are unethical can get pressure put on them in many ways that don't involve the legal system. That is how a society functions. When you do something terrible, or terribly embarrassing that harms others, if you don't have the decency to not rub it in the faces of those you have harmed, there are ways you will be punished socially that have nothing to do with the legal system. This is how it has happened since the beginning of time, and this is how it should happen.

And to the posters who say: "Where do we draw the line. should we let murderers play, etc.". You are missing the whole point. The line gets drawn wherever it gets drawn. That is how society moves forward. Why not let 20 year olds drink alcohol? Where does society draw the line? In the United States we draw the line at 21 years old, for legal purposes. Just because you have to draw the line somewhere, and there usually is not a scientific way to do so, does not mean that you shouldn't draw the line. What is the difference between having the legal drinking age at 20 or 21? Not a lot, but society must use its best collective judgement at the time.

Those poker players at the Aria are drawing this social line right now. They would not likely be getting a petition signed to have Howard Lederer barred if he had never shown up at the Aria, but since he has the balls to show up as if nobody has been harmed by his actions, then the players are taking a stand, and rightfully so.

There are some people who will not associate with those who do hard drugs. There are others who will associate with them. There are many who will not associate with those who do hard drugs, but will associate with those who drink or use marijuana. Everyone makes social choices. These players are letting Aria management know that they would prefer to play at the Aria without having to see Howard Lederer there, and that they will take their business elsewhere if he continues to play there.

And their reasoning for this is perfectly legit in a civilized society where there is some sense of right and wrong actions, even in the murky world of poker ethics.

+1

That he is not a threat to the integrity of the game is not entirely black and white; the money he is (presumably, currently losing) is money that he effectively stole from other players, many of whom are in the casino when he plays.

On the flip side, I'd like to point out that Russ Hamilton is not by any means a threat to the integrity of a game in a live poker room in 2012. If he gets a lifetime ban from a casino for cheating anyway, I'm not sure that Howard is that much different.

The only way you are going to get any business to do anything like this is to show them that they will lose money if they don't. If every single reg or semi reg tells the staff that they will not play in a room until it is done, then it may have an impact. If they see the number of tables being played daily and tourney entries going down for a period of time they may realize it's better to have you there, but it's not guaranteed. Obviously you have to have enough people to make an impact, but I'm not sure it can be done. This is where I kind of laugh when people use the term "the poker community". If it's a true community then there should be no problem getting HL banned from lots of places, but I really don't think there is a "community". There are lots of poker players, but they are all self serving. They want to win money and will play when and wherever they have to in order to make it.

On top of that, I'm not sure the poker room staff/floor/manager would be the one to make this decision. It would most likely come from above, like from Bobby himself, but does anyone know how close Howard is to Bobby? If they are buds then there's a chance it will never happen.

Ban Howard

Whoa.

By the way. I think this goes without saying but anyone who does play in games with Lederer or even hangs out with him should be really careful what they say around him. He's still facing civil charges that could result in large fines and if the DOJ can come up with a case I think they'd be happy to throw criminal charges as well. In his interviews he's shown he has no problems throwing people like Ivey, Gordon and Juanda under the bus.

When the recent big bust on Pinnacle came down I wondered if Lederer or someone else involved with BF might have helped fortify the case. Especially since Pinnacle was also licensed through AGCC and I believe Lederer has some history booking sports.

1) Why ban just him? Weren't there other members of FTP too? Should Ivey, Juanda, Siedel, etc all be banned too? I mean, they made money off of FTP and I haven't heard anything about any of them giving back to the poker community what they earned from FTP.

2) in regards to US players being paid back n him playing when they haven't....you do realize it is out of his hands right? blame the ****ing DOJ, not Howard, because those douchebags have our money. Not him.

Bottom line is casinos only care when you're taking money from them (eg. counting cards at bj). You can steal 300 million from their poker playing customers and they don't care one bit. But if one of those customers should take any money from the house, hoo boy, they'll act on that right quick.

I never thought I'd see so many people stand up for Howard Lederer in this thread. I'm amazed. No wonder he's gotten away with it. No wonder he shows up at the Aria like he doesn't have a care in the world. He probably goes home, rubs himself in peanut butter, and laughs at us.

I'm for the petition. It's clear the police don't care about poker players. It's clear politicians don't care about poker players. It's clear casinos don't care about poker players. The only people who are going to do anything for us is ourselves. So good on the people who are trying to stand up to Howard Lederer.

The DoJ has Stars' money. Howard Lederer, Ray Bitar, Chris Ferguson, and Rafe Furst still have our money. They got away with it and somebody else paid the bill for them.

lol @ you for assuming people like Ivey have the "poker worlds" interest before their own. PEOPLE LIKE IVEY WERE THE REASON WE DONT HAVE our money. It's not just all Howard's fault. There were other members that could have voted Ray off in previous years, that could've looked more at the books themselves n determined that something shady was going on, BUT THEY didn't.

You guys are naive to believe that the people on Team FTP that aren't named Howard Lederer actually give a **** about you or your $. They care first n foremost for themselves. Hence why nobody has given any money back to the pkr community (aside from Ferguson)

Either which way, it's no longer their problem. They sold the company. It's not up to him to make payments or payouts to players.

lol and then somebody goes even more over the top than MM.. Good job!

As long as he's dumping money to the casino on table games you will never see him barred.

There is a guy at my local casino who has gotten in over 5 fights in 3 years, had someone spit in his food, is hated by everyone and the casino refuses to bar him due to him dumping large sums at baccarat.

But if he doesn't pay back to the casino and his mere presence causes problems the casino has reason to bar him.

Remind me not to get on your bad side lol. If you are being serious it's looking like you are likely a bigger scumbag than Lederer though . Just haven't been given the opportunities to act on it yet.

"People who are unethical can get pressure put on them in many ways that don't involve the legal system. "
Agreed. Why ban him from a casino then? The whole point of this discussion is that there are other ways of putting pressure on him than banning him from a casino, and that because banning him from a casino sets a bad precedent those other ways are preferable. Casinos should enforce clear rules when it comes to banning someone and should avoid case-by-case reasoning as much as possible.

Once again it's not because I defend HL in this particular case that I like him. I don't give a **** that it's about HL, I am looking at the facts. I had money locked up on FTP and it was an amount that was very significant to me, and I already have it back. That you don't have it back yet is not HL's fault btw.

Considering Bitar, Howard, et al stole the money, yeah, it is their fault not everyone's paid back yet. If FTP was on the up and up, it would've taken two weeks to pay players back in 2011 like Pokerstars was able to do. Remember back then the DoJ had agreed to let FTP pay Americans the money in their accounts or has everyone already forgotten? The second time around the DoJ wasn't so generous.

Yes obviously the final blame will always rest with Bitar et al., but in theory you have your money back because of Pokerstars. Nobody is going to be able to ask Bitar et al. anymore to pay them back, it's someone else his responsibility now. The DOJ is just holding onto the USA players their money for now, while doing...nothing to get it back to the victims? That is not HL's fault . HL lost your money the first time, and we were lucky enough to be saved from his stupidity by Pokerstars.. Some of us are just still waiting.

Using the word moral and poker in the same sentence is comical..the industry was built on cheating and stealing. No one wants to listen to Doyle talk unless its a story about how he had to sit with his back against the wall in a saloon in bum f&^k Texas way back in the day. If HL has money in his pocket and there is no risk of physical violence against him they wont kick him out because of his moral indiscretions. A Chinese business man who runs a sweat shop in China that breaks every idea of what normal human rights would be in North America comes to Vegas with 10 milly in his briefcase...I'm pretty sure he doesn't get kicked out for being a bad guy.

afaik he wasn't working for the company pre black friday.

you can't really believe that because pokerstars bought FT's problem that its not HL's fault now that we don't have our money back. that is soooooooooooo dumb...

but what does that stuff have to do with what is going on now? THEY SOLD the company. It's not up to him or anyone else who worked for FTP to do anything now.

Sure, a year ago it was on them n it was their fault. Obviously, the company was run into the ground because of them and for that, they are guilty. BUT, they sold the company. The DOJ has had US player funds for months now. Howard is no longer responsible to pay us, the DOJ is. Blame them for not getting you your money back already.

the DOJ is doing their job...as well as Howard was. so...ya.

Guess the butthurt is strong in this one.