he is worth his weight in silver

Nope, Fred Goldman's niece owns it now.

WAIT!! There's more:

But I thought you said, "I will have nothing more to say on this thread because of my lack of knowledge."

Have you suddenly become more knowledgeable or are you just a tease?





Thread Of The Year™

I don't think you will be able to trace the money. In the original thread there was an address that surfaced that traced back to a check cashing store in North Las Vegas. I would be curious to see if that location ever had a Western Union or Money Gram agent license. It would be very easy to conceal the transfer of funds if you controlled both the cashier as well as the pick up locations for money.

Also, people need to look at the history of online gaming as well as Russ Hamilton's background. Organized crime has been involved with gaming on the internet since it's inception. Also, a major need for organized crime these days is the ability to move money in and out of this country.

As for seeing legal action brought in this case. If and when you ever see legal action, you will not see it regarding players having funds stolen from them. The case, and that is IF there ever is a case will have to do with Money Laundering, Rackateering and Tax Evasion. No player will ever see another dime in a refund.

LOL nice one.

But, I'm just a fan of Rudy Guiliani, he used a BOOK to indict the COMMISSION of the US MAFIA.

That book was Joe Bonnano's autobiography.

We need a hotshot US attorney to show up and use the same type tactics in this case. The proof is out there, just need to follow the money

Long time listener, first time caller...

IMHO, I think that this whole situation is much simpler than what most conspiracy theorists believe it to be. It's the money trail that is a bit more complicated. RH is in all likelihood guilty of some % of the whole.
Bottomline is this is incredibly dissappointing and regulation needs to be instituted.
Nothing new on my part, just .02.

Barry, you are a smart guy and well-connected in the poker community; so if you know answers to some of these issues, please enlighten me.

2p2 has at least two members who are active and who have followed this scandal and are also lawyers. granted, their area of expertise may not be rooted in the issues that surround the scandal, but they are far more knowledgeable in the law than the rest of us IANAL posters.

so, Todd, Howard, let me know if this sounds wrong...

Barry - can you explain exactly to me how a case would go against Russ in a U.S. court? specifically, i am interested in the discovery phase. how would the plaintiffs' lawyers force discovery over MIT? the Kahnawake? the various companies that are offshore entities operating in countries outside U.S. jurisdiction? is it your assumption that the idea of a lawsuit is suddenly going to either force via law or moral conviction the release of incriminating evidence? otherwise, i do not see how a U.S. lawsuit against Russ would do anything other than be a nuisance, enriching the lawyers, and possibly giving online poker another black eye.



please don't confuse legitimate versus provable in a U.S. court of law.


i am guessing that it would be very difficult to trace the money without a legal instrument which would force businesses outside the U.S. to cough up records.

as an aside: do you think it was the threat of lawsuit by the I.R.S. against UBS that forced them to cough up records about U.S. investors using illegal tax dodges? or did UBS finally play ball b/c they rely on an ongoing business relationship to make their money? fear of what might happen if the IRS and SEC took action against UBS and their business on the NYSE?

i ask b/c unlike UBS, i doubt anyone affiliated with the scandal is worried about the IRS/SEC. none of these companies trade on U.S. exchanges and have zero business operations in the U.S. as i posited above, the ability to get financial records from the companies involved is virtually impossible.


you let me know when you get more than three steps away from Russ' bank...good luck with that.

the fear of punishment by agencies such as the IRS surely could bring something to bear...but do you think Joe Norton is real worried about the IRS? Greg Pierson maybe, but that is about the highest you are going to get and Greg probably only knows who wrote the "auditing tool" and how it might have been used. doubt he even knows who put it on the servers, who used the accounts, who shipped the money, etc.

so far, for all the investigation work done and the money refunded, none of it has been done b/c AP/UB/Cereus are afraid of being punished by any government/regulatory (hahahaha - regulatory and online poker - lol!) agency. i would hazard to guess it has all been done to try and whitewash a bad piece of publicity b/c of the fear of how it will affect future earnings. AP/UB/Cereus are only afraid about their dwindling user base....

please let me know where my reasoning is flawed.

thx!

Cool thread in which I'm sure much will be accomplished.

I had a feeling from the start this all scam was done by few big name pros.
I think all this investigation has been very very shady. I have ideas in my head what happened but they are just my guts feeling and really nobady cares about them so will just leave them to me.

Major player? Daniel Negreanu?

barryg1 is 100% correct - Rule #1 follow the money

UB must know where the money went RH used UB to filter money like a cheap hoe,
I always wondered why one of the superusers addresses was traced to a Cash Advance/Payday loan type Store in LV and everyone thought that was a dead end

Why isn't David getting more love for this statement? Its generally assumed within the online gaming industry that Russ was one of many people involved and that he is being used as a scapegoat to avoid prosecution of the others. I think there is a lot more evidence that Russ is not a programmer than there is evidence that he was - he needed to have someone else code the ability for him to access the hole cards and policies necessary to hide his tracks for so long plus he needed the support of managers to avoid research of the trail. Its only logical that Russ could not have done this without the knowledge of MANY people in the chain, we don't even know for sure if he was the "ring leader", we only know that he was the only person caught with his hands in the cookie jar and we dont have enough evidence yet to suggest where in the chain he might have been.

If Russ were to sing like a canary it could be far worse for him that being the admitted cheat, David and his source nailed it. BarryG also nailed it, this case can in fact be brought in US court, there is likely already movement in this direction without any of us knowing about it. If the Feds decided to use RICO then I think (I am not positive) this case may not be brought up for years while they piece the corporate shield and piece together the web of investors and staff members who may have been in on the scam from day one.

This is like Watergate

Poster = Older than Sklansky.

Or maybe he just saw the new film Frost/Nixon.