FTP Discussion Thread (Everything but big new news goes here. Cliffs in OP)

[aggo]

I guess Noah is the best person to answer this...

If it's a well known pre-requisite that any deal must include player payouts, what couls be taking so long?? This seems to me a fairly black and white situation. Investor gets absolutely everything, and if he's putting in 300 mil im fairly sure he's got enough legal opinions and analysis before he even contacts ftp. So what's the holdup here?? Either ftp has an investor now or they will never have one unless bitar gets acquitted.

[hitgirl]

Originally Posted by Mycology

I would have no problem making more money on FTP, even if I knew I couldn't cash it all out at once or that i'd only be able to cashout X amount per month or X% per month. Regardless, it would be money made that I would be able to receive at some point. I mean, this whole mess right now is just a question of if we will get our money at some point, so why wouldn't I want the opportunity to make more money which I will receive at some point (within reason).

Good luck grinding each other when the small rolls are grinded down and no new deposits comming in. Doesnt look appealing to me.

[Mycology]

Originally Posted by munkey

^^ this man Mycology gets it

I personally would go for it if given sufficient protections for players are put in place. Maybe we need a pole?

Thanks man,

I think you mean a poll though, we've all been getting enough pole from FTP.

I agree a poll would be a good idea, but I dont know if anyone in power would notice, care, or implement any of our suggestions. The DOJ might be the most pertinent to give our opinions and suggestions to, but they seem to care the least of all parties involved.


hitgirl: Thanks for the luck. I am confident in my ability to swim in a sea full of fish, as I am to swim in a sea full of sharks. As people have stated numerous times, deposits WILL come in, degenerates / addicts / people who just want to play for fun will do what degenerates / addicts / people who just want to play for fun do best.

[DoubleDealing]

Originally Posted by munkey

I know it's a mistype but made me chuckle

Depends on your perspective if its a RIM action or a REM action! lol

Originally Posted by IsleOfMan

Rake does not equal profit.

It takes a lot of dough to market new players onto a site. You guys want to reg-fest against each other? Without marketing, there are fewer depositors, games get super-tough. Regs just cashout once it becomes -EV.

Tilt is a very expensive beast to run... costs multiple hundos in marketing spend to get one player to deposit for first time. Even cutting staff by 75pc leaves a salary and operational bill of 2m-3m per month (maybe more).

To rake 5m per week you need about 10m in fresh deposits per week.

Add to that its not the growth industry it was in 2000, been shut down for two months (and counting) and you have a recipe for why its not so easy to sell. Plus much of the invested capital runs out the door shortly after an investment, so on top of player money you need lots of marketing money, money for DOJ and, here is a big one, confidence that you will be able to keep a lot of players.

Your comment suggests to me that a large number of people 'feed' off new deposits, which makes sense, since you have a small percentage of winning players. Without new deposits the winning players would only be able to 'feed' off the other winning players and the games get harder. This may explain why there have been so many complaints that the games are a lot harder on Stars - winning players have just shifted from FTP to Stars. Stars' marketing appears to be way down. So maybe the new money Stars is getting is largely 'smart' money.

I believe MM on Quad Jacks said that ~80% (might have been 90%) of the players represented like $20M of the money owed and the rest of the money was for high stakes players. Do you know if this is true? And does this mean what it appears to mean that ~80-90% of the players lose money? If so, without lots of new deposits this is tough business as the winning players would see games become a lot tougher.


Jeff,

Can you comment on MM comment on Quad Jacks where he said that like $20M represented ~80-90% of the players?

[DoubleDealing]

Originally Posted by munkey

It's not complicated, I just started going over the details.
Why wouldn't it work, provide details?

Why must players be paid in full first explain why?
Several have said they would accept deferred payments.

I know lots of people suck w.r.t deferred gratification but getting all your 2 marshmallows back in the future vs one now is the most EV line

Sure, lots of people would go for it, BUT:

Differed payment would suggest the company remained insolvent. If the company wasn't insolvent the why not just pay? The issue is solvency, no licensing authority is going to let new people deposit into a business that cannot pay old people. Just a speculations on my part, but I think the licensing authorities might allow a grace period for repayment, assuming they had confidence that full repayment would actually happen in a reasonable time (90 days?). If you can devise a good reason why a solvent business wouldn't just pay out in full, short of Bankruptcy, then I am sure they would love to hear it. I would personally be suspect of anyone offering such a deal, since it would imply either a lack of willingness to pay or a lack of ability.

[AlphaScorpii]

Can som1 tell me what exactly did DOJ seize/froze in FTP? American accounts or what? I don't know how FTP's money structure looks like.

[XaQ Morphy]

Originally Posted by AlphaScorpii

Can som1 tell me what exactly did DOJ seize/froze in FTP? American accounts or what? I don't know how FTP's money structure looks like.

Their structure looks kinda like this imo:

http://youtu.be/zmZJc68zyAA

Morphy

[yesright]

Originally Posted by DoubleDealing

Depends on your perspective if its a RIM action or a REM action! lol





Add to that its not the growth industry it was in 2000, been shut down for two months (and counting) and you have a recipe for why its not so easy to sell. Plus much of the invested capital runs out the door shortly after an investment, so on top of player money you need lots of marketing money, money for DOJ and, here is a big one, confidence that you will be able to keep a lot of players.

Your comment suggests to me that a large number of people 'feed' off new deposits, which makes sense, since you have a small percentage of winning players. Without new deposits the winning players would only be able to 'feed' off the other winning players and the games get harder. This may explain why there have been so many complaints that the games are a lot harder on Stars - winning players have just shifted from FTP to Stars. Stars' marketing appears to be way down. So maybe the new money Stars is getting is largely 'smart' money.

I believe MM on Quad Jacks said that ~80% (might have been 90%) of the players represented like $20M of the money owed and the rest of the money was for high stakes players. Do you know if this is true? And does this mean what it appears to mean that ~80-90% of the players lose money? If so, without lots of new deposits this is tough business as the winning players would see games become a lot tougher.


Jeff,

Can you comment on MM comment on Quad Jacks where he said that like $20M represented ~80-90% of the players?

This sounds reasonable, I would think a big % of former players have zero in their accounts.
Most players will play till they bust. (some might have a few cents in their accounts but thats essentially zero)

The players that have no balance (or tiny balance) at FTP are the ones FTP has a shot at getting back as they probably dont care as they arn't owed anything.

We know JM is owed 5-6 million according to MM, you have to think the top 30 players at FTP are owed at least 60 million alone
The top 1000 balances probably account for the majority of funds owed.

[RANGERgfx]

I think JM sold his balance after BF to durrrr for 85%.

[SGT RJ]

My thanks to Mr. Ifrah, who did all the work for the Q&A thread himself.

I also deleted a lot of noise from last night and discussion about whether or not people would take it upon themselves to punish Bitar. I understand there's a lot of anger, but let's try to keep the derailing to a minimum.

[IsleOfMan]

Originally Posted by DoubleDealing

I believe MM on Quad Jacks said that ~80% (might have been 90%) of the players represented like $20M of the money owed and the rest of the money was for high stakes players. Do you know if this is true? And does this mean what it appears to mean that ~80-90% of the players lose money? If so, without lots of new deposits this is tough business as the winning players would see games become a lot tougher.

I estimate (based on very good info) that only 10 percent of the money owed would be enough to cover well over 90 percent of players with non-zero balances.

Why not do this right away? Because a huge number of these players have tiny (a few cents) or very small (less than ten bucks) on deposit... and many of these players don't know (or have forgotten) they have money on 'Tilt! this may seem odd to US people, but there are a LOT of sites available to non-US players and I bet I have a half-dozen dormant accounts with a few cents or bucks.

So 10m would go a long long way ... but most of that 10m is for players who probably would be surprised to hear they have a balance!

[hitgirl]

Originally Posted by Mycology

hitgirl: Thanks for the luck. I am confident in my ability to swim in a sea full of fish, as I am to swim in a sea full of sharks. As people have stated numerous times, deposits WILL come in, degenerates / addicts / people who just want to play for fun will do what degenerates / addicts / people who just want to play for fun do best.

I wish you all the best but dont you think the people who really loves to play and cant do without might have found a new playground and have adapted to new software and bonus offerings?

[RANGERgfx]

It may sound a bit harsh, but FTP should really concentrate on paying off the MSNL and SSNL grinders first, because:


1) they put in the most volume and generate a lot of rake

2) their balances are generally "only" in thousands of dollars (not millions like the HSNL players)

[TheStuntman]

I really appreciate the timeline for those who haven't been keeping up with the day to day stuff. It's very informative. The next key date it seems is in a little over 2 weeks. I hope good news will come from it. Does anyone know what's going on with the negotiations with the european investors that Full Tilt and their lawyer were talking about?

[AEPpoker]

Originally Posted by IsleOfMan

I estimate (based on very good info) that only 10 percent of the money owed would be enough to cover well over 90 percent of players with non-zero balances.

Why not do this right away? Because a huge number of these players have tiny (a few cents) or very small (less than ten bucks) on deposit... and many of these players don't know (or have forgotten) they have money on 'Tilt! this may seem odd to US people, but there are a LOT of sites available to non-US players and I bet I have a half-dozen dormant accounts with a few cents or bucks.

So 10m would go a long long way ... but most of that 10m is for players who probably would be surprised to hear they have a balance!

theres potentially another reason not to do it right away -- they havent even got the ten percent liquid.