Mexican Drug Cartel Linked to Money Laundering through Horse Racing

[lawdude]

Originally Posted by tamiller866

It's the same 'religious conspiracy' that drove the mob out of Vegas, when there is 'real' money moving around, the government is going to get involved every time.

This is a great analogy. Another one was how betting horse racing moved from private bookies who set up shop at racetracks filled with fixed races (which was the prevailing model until the 1920's and 1930's) to a regulated sport run by a state racing commission with parimutuel pools that are taxed and conducted at racetracks that have their problems but in general are much more honest than the sport was way back when.

This is what happens over time. Gambling moves from a shady legal status towards respectability and legality, and as it does it becomes more and more regulated. Black Friday fits right within this story.

[lawdude]

Originally Posted by TeflonDawg

My point to lawdude is that the UIGEA is the starting point for where crimes committed by offshore unregulated sites actually grabbed DOJ attention. He says they've been looked at since 1999...no, they haven't.

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_ho.../20875482.html

The companies have strictly enforced a self-imposed ban since the Justice Department last summer upheld a Clinton administration opinion that Internet casino gambling is illegal under existing federal law.

http://www.the-surfs-up.com/news/gam...nlinenews.html

Since as far back as the Clinton administration, the DOJ had asserted that all forms of Internet gambling, especially online poker, were illegal.

http://partners.nytimes.com/library/...97techcol.html

Earlier this year the Clinton administration appointed a panel to conduct a two-year study of the impact of gambling, including the Internet and online wagering, on Americans. Proponents of legal gambling say the deck is stacked against them, though, because the chairwoman of the committee is Kay Cole James, a Christian Coalition member and an administrator at Pat Robertson's Regent University in Virginia Beach, Va.

http://www.gambling-law-us.com/Feder...s/wire-act.htm

"Despite the divergent views . . ., the official position as expressed by the Justice Department [during the Clinton Administration] and several state attorneys general is to treat the Wire Act as applying broadly and covering all forms of Internet gaming.

[TeflonDawg]

Nice job quoting me out of context. I hope people go back and look at the sentence directly after what lawdude quoted me on in the original post to understand what I actually said. To which I still respond...

...And yet they had no case on any of these sites and did nothing of significance until the sites decided to go rogue and circumvent the UIGEA.

Until the sites started thumbing their noses at the UIGEA, it was just a giant ambiguous state of ignorance on both sides, and the UIGEA didn't really change that. What it did change was the transparency of money transfers from transparent to opaque. It created crimes out of thin air, and what you are trying to say is the UIGEA tried to stop transactions that weren't happening until after the UIGEA created an environment for those transactions to happen.

[TeflonDawg]

Originally Posted by tamiller866

Teflon,

Your posts confuse me, as on one hand you demonstrate a good understanding of how the government operates, even citing yourself instances where the government has done the wrong thing for the 'right' reasons, but later in the same post revert back to the conspiracy theory.

You used prohibition as a parallel example of the government overreacting and the cure being worse than the disease, but not even the most fanatical tin-foil-hat enthusiasts suggest that prohibition was a conspiracy, the government simply got it wrong.

They again got it wrong on internet gambling, because just as people like to drink, people also like to play poker, so the industry actually grew after 'prohibition' rather than wilt away as they had erroneously anticipated.

But as the money continued to flow just as the alcohol did in the 1920's, the government recognized it's mistake and decided to reset and legitimize the market, again historically parallel to what they did before striking down prohibition.

For it to have taken the government six years to come around on this issue isn't evidence of some dark, unjust conspiracy, in fact if it takes another four years for a legitimate interstate i-poker market to develop it would demonstrate incredible historical consistency almost a century later.

That's because to me, the truth to me is a mixture of what you're saying is truth and also conspiract theory.

It really isn't much different from voter ID laws all of a sudden becoming a really important issue to Republicans so near an election, or Issa roasting the **** out of Holder (which I'm enjoying, btw) for Fast and Furious, or Obama suddenly being for gay marriage, upgraded from his evolving (lol) stance. Then he goes and panders to the Latino vote just to confirm what we all thought, he's just BSing the gay vote to get campaign money and rile up the base as he nears his election. The UIGEA follows in those footsteps.

Originally Posted by tamiller866

Would it be better if we lived in a monarchy/dictatorship where the laws could be turned on a dime? Or perhaps just a more corrupt democracy like the one where I'm living (Philippines) where the laws are just warnings that a bribe might need to be paid?

Of course not. But it seems pretty obvious to me that the UIGEA was a completely disingenuous law. On it's own, maybe it has noble motives, but let's be real, it wasn't passed because Frist was really concerned about the Security of our Ports lol. Nobody cares about those ancillary points...Just like nobody cares about voter fraud. It's a nonexistent "problem" and is merely a voter-suppression tool. If anyone truly cared about voter ID laws, they'd make a whole-hearted effort to implement it in a way that has ZERO effect on voter disenfranchisement. THEN voter ID laws wouldn't be looked upon as a disingenuous movement.

[TheDarkElf]

Originally Posted by TeflonDawg

Nice job quoting me out of context. I hope people go back and look at the sentence directly after what lawdude quoted me on in the original post to understand what I actually said. To which I still respond...

...And yet they had no case on any of these sites and did nothing of significance until the sites decided to go rogue and circumvent the UIGEA.

Until the sites started thumbing their noses at the UIGEA, it was just a giant ambiguous state of ignorance on both sides, and the UIGEA didn't really change that. What it did change was the transparency of money transfers from transparent to opaque. It created crimes out of thin air, and what you are trying to say is the UIGEA tried to stop transactions that weren't happening until after the UIGEA created an environment for those transactions to happen.

Do you really think the act of offering unregulated i-poker in the US states was not itself a crime? Especially states like Utah? For real?

There is a good chance that the offshore were violating the laws of all 50 states. But states lack the power to enforce their laws extraterritorially. This is a job for the Federal government, and so, enter the UIGEA. Far from a perfect solution, but in reality, that is totally irrelevant. States have to have the ability to ensure that their laws are enforceable.

If you want to play i-poker in state X, you have to change the laws of state X.

The rest of your stance is based upon the premise that the government shouldn't go after off-shore sites unless they provide some sort of regulated environment themselves. I don't agree with this. The two are completely orthogonal issues. Regardless of the whether or not the government provides the latter, it is crucial to put these crooks out of business in the US for good. Americans have already lost $150M to FTP, plus millions more to UB. Screwing the players is becoming the norm for every site that is having financial troubles. And why not? Since they are effectively unregulated, the operators can steal all the money anytime they want without fear of prosecution.

[lilwhaldo]

And the government can steal the funds too, and just say they were enforcing the laws and it's their right. I'm not disagreeing that they were just enforcing laws, but let's call a duck a duck.

[TeflonDawg]

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

Do you really think the act of offering unregulated i-poker in the US states was not itself a crime? Especially states like Utah? For real?

There is a good chance that the offshore were violating the laws of all 50 states. But states lack the power to enforce their laws extraterritorially. This is a job for the Federal government, and so, enter the UIGEA. Far from a perfect solution, but in reality, that is totally irrelevant. States have to have the ability to ensure that their laws are enforceable.

If you want to play i-poker in state X, you have to change the laws of state X.

The rest of your stance is based upon the premise that the government shouldn't go after off-shore sites unless they provide some sort of regulated environment themselves. I don't agree with this. The two are completely orthogonal issues. Regardless of the whether or not the government provides the latter, it is crucial to put these crooks out of business in the US for good. Americans have already lost $150M to FTP, plus millions more to UB. Screwing the players is becoming the norm for every site that is having financial troubles. And why not? Since they are effectively unregulated, the operators can steal all the money anytime they want without fear of prosecution.

My whole point about the UIGEA was that "these crooks" who "stole $150 mil from Americans" only "did so" because of the UIGEA itself.

The DOJ can mislead the American public about FT being a "global ponzi scheme" (lol) all they want, but the fact of the matter is without the UIGEA, FT and PS would just be two sites battling for territory with PartyPoker. They'd be busy growing and printing money and paying players out instantly via PayPal or NETeller or something...like they were doing all along.

[TheDarkElf]

Originally Posted by TeflonDawg

My whole point about the UIGEA was that "these crooks" who "stole $150 mil from Americans" only "did so" because of the UIGEA itself.

Did the people who ran Microgaming have a DOJ problem? No, but that hardly stopped them from disappearing with a couple of million dollars. Purple lounge indicted by SDNY? No, again. But the player's money - it's gone. ...

Back to the owners of FTP. What you are saying is that they would have been able to make a ton of money without UIGEA, and therefore, wouldn't have had to steal the player's money. Let's not forget that FTP only became the #2 player in the online poker world because of UIGEA.

But the real issue here is very simple. The USA passed a law that was designed to stop off shore gambling sites from serving the players in the US. That doesn't give FTP the right to steal the player's money. Regardless of whether the law was right, wrong, or indifferent, what FTP did is outright theft. And the fact that it was done unequivocally shows that they are crooks, plain and simple. And what do crooks wind up doing sooner or later - they steal.

The DOJ can mislead the American public about FT being a "global ponzi scheme" (lol) all they want, but the fact of the matter is without the UIGEA, FT and PS would just be two sites battling for territory with PartyPoker. They'd be busy growing and printing money and paying players out instantly via PayPal or NETeller or something...like they were doing all along.

I don't know what your definition of printing money is, but FTP never did so. Sure they generated a ton of revenue, but they operating costs were huge. TV ads and programs are expensive.

[lawdude]

Originally Posted by TeflonDawg

Nice job quoting me out of context. I hope people go back and look at the sentence directly after what lawdude quoted me on in the original post to understand what I actually said. To which I still respond...

...And yet they had no case on any of these sites and did nothing of significance until the sites decided to go rogue and circumvent the UIGEA.

Until the sites started thumbing their noses at the UIGEA, it was just a giant ambiguous state of ignorance on both sides, and the UIGEA didn't really change that. What it did change was the transparency of money transfers from transparent to opaque. It created crimes out of thin air, and what you are trying to say is the UIGEA tried to stop transactions that weren't happening until after the UIGEA created an environment for those transactions to happen.

Bringing cases takes time. The point is, the government got interested in online poker in the 1990's and BF was the culmination of at least 12 years of work.

[TeflonDawg]

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

Did the people who ran Microgaming have a DOJ problem? No, but that hardly stopped them from disappearing with a couple of million dollars. Purple lounge indicted by SDNY? No, again. But the player's money - it's gone. ...

And AP, and UB, and the Chinese bots on PS, and the perpetual collusion and scamming and hacking/theft of accounts (both by shady players and sometimes unjustifiably by the sites themselves). But Black Friday was the first time the DOJ seized money from FT and they couldn't pay out. Seizures happened rountinely before then, and FT just ate the cost and moved on. I withdrew money on a weekly basis and never had a delay except once because my request was drawn on a seized processor. Meh, got the money two weeks later.

Still the point remains, FT paid out until they couldn't (and even post BF slowly paid out for the few days they could still operate with ROW players).

Nevertheless, all these issues didn't get solved by the UIGEA...They exacerbated them.

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

Back to the owners of FTP. What you are saying is that they would have been able to make a ton of money without UIGEA, and therefore, wouldn't have had to steal the player's money. Let's not forget that FTP only became the #2 player in the online poker world because of UIGEA.

I'm guessing you missed the part where I said if there wasn't a UIGEA, then PS and FT would be fighting with PartyPoker for market share. And they may or may not have become #2, because there were a few other sites around that were decent too (after Party, I jumped to Pokerroom and Hollywood).

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

But the real issue here is very simple. The USA passed a law that was designed to stop off shore gambling sites from serving the players in the US. That doesn't give FTP the right to steal the player's money. Regardless of whether the law was right, wrong, or indifferent, what FTP did is outright theft. And the fact that it was done unequivocally shows that they are crooks, plain and simple. And what do crooks wind up doing sooner or later - they steal.

"outright theft" is your opinion. mine differs. crooks? outside of some arbitrary line that magically makes them criminals, i disagree.

obviously what they did was wrong, and of course they don't have the right to break US law. but the point is...what the hell were they expecting? i mean, these sites sought lawyers who believed they were bending but not breaking the law. even without some hollow sought out backup interpretation of the law, they would've continued on anyway.

it's just plain dumb, after Prohibition, the war on drugs, and the continued operations of sports books to this day, to think that online poker was just going to magically bow out of the country (Party only left because they were publicly traded).

and of course shady quasi-crooks ultimately take the route of self-preservation. that's why you don't write a stupid ****ing UIGEA. you pass laws that make sense. This law didn't make sense, and the legislators knew it. it only passed because they're unethical bordering on corrupt, avenues of opportunity opened up at the right time (midnight regs, 9/11 still had America in a fetal position, nobody was really paying attention to anti-gambling groups, no PPA, etc.), and lobbyist and corporations effectively write the laws.

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

I don't know what your definition of printing money is, but FTP never did so. Sure they generated a ton of revenue, but they operating costs were huge. TV ads and programs are expensive.

They were all printing money. FT faltered because despite printing money, they discovered their breaking point when Black Friday hit. They were asking for it, but they were fine until that point. All the phantom deposits (effectively money stolen from them by players at this point), loans to pros, and DOJ seizures from 3rd party processors were just dirt off their shoulders.

We know this because cashouts never experienced any type of significant delay. Ever. Until BF.

Originally Posted by lawdude

Bringing cases takes time. The point is, the government got interested in online poker in the 1990's and BF was the culmination of at least 12 years of work.

And again, they curiously had zero standing to indict sites until years after the UIGEA passed and they shook down a snitch or they would have done so beforehand. Of course I could be wrong, but the timing is too coincidental to me. And too coincidental = no coincidence. They didn't really care until PS and FT got ridicubig and it was clear they were lying to banks, trying to bribe banks and politicians in the process.

[TheDarkElf]

Originally Posted by TeflonDawg

And AP, and UB, and the Chinese bots on PS, and the perpetual collusion and scamming and hacking/theft of accounts (both by shady players and sometimes unjustifiably by the sites themselves). But Black Friday was the first time the DOJ seized money from FT and they couldn't pay out. Seizures happened rountinely before then, and FT just ate the cost and moved on. I withdrew money on a weekly basis and never had a delay except once because my request was drawn on a seized processor. Meh, got the money two weeks later.

But then didn't eat the cost did they? Eating the cost would have meant they would forgo their 10$M monthly payment. They did no such thing. Instead they just let the deficit get bigger and bigger.

Bottom line: they make the players eat the cost - blanked us up our blank real hard.

Still the point remains, FT paid out until they couldn't (and even post BF slowly paid out for the few days they could still operate with ROW players).

Except for the countless players who got nothing but bounced checks and dumb azz excuses instead of the money they were entitled too.

Nevertheless, all these issues didn't get solved by the UIGEA...They exacerbated them.

I'm sure even the DOJ was shocked at the level of thievery going on within the company. They probably figured that FTP was like PS; a company that in their opinion was violating US law, but at least had the decency to honor their debts. Many were surprised at what a dirtbag Ray Bitar is.

I'm guessing you missed the part where I said if there wasn't a UIGEA, then PS and FT would be fighting with PartyPoker for market share. And they may or may not have become #2, because there were a few other sites around that were decent too (after Party, I jumped to Pokerroom and Hollywood).

Is there any reason to believe they wouldn't have stolen every single dime the first chance it was convenient? After all, that is exactly what they did, isn't it?

"outright theft" is your opinion. mine differs. crooks? outside of some arbitrary line that magically makes them criminals, i disagree.

obviously what they did was wrong, and of course they don't have the right to break US law. but the point is...what the hell were they expecting? i mean, these sites sought lawyers who believed they were bending but not breaking the law. even without some hollow sought out backup interpretation of the law, they would've continued on anyway.

I'm cool with them breaking US law if they were planning on fighting it. And even they weren't, (and obviously they couldn't be bothered), it's OK for them to do so and pay the consequences.

Problem is they paid nothing. They made the players pay.

it's just plain dumb, after Prohibition, the war on drugs, and the continued operations of sports books to this day, to think that online poker was just going to magically bow out of the country (Party only left because they were publicly traded).

It basically is. Once the feds finish off the FTP case, they will take care of what's left. The Prohibition analogy isn't good. Arguments that worked in the 1930's may be useless in 2012, and this shouldn't surprise you.

and of course shady quasi-crooks ultimately take the route of self-preservation. that's why you don't write a stupid ****ing UIGEA. you pass laws that make sense. This law didn't make sense, and the legislators knew it. it only passed because they're unethical bordering on corrupt, avenues of opportunity opened up at the right time (midnight regs, 9/11 still had America in a fetal position, nobody was really paying attention to anti-gambling groups, no PPA, etc.), and lobbyist and corporations effectively write the laws.

They were all printing money. FT faltered because despite printing money, they discovered their breaking point when Black Friday hit. They were asking for it, but they were fine until that point. All the phantom deposits (effectively money stolen from them by players at this point), loans to pros, and DOJ seizures from 3rd party processors were just dirt off their shoulders.

They made less than $150M in their miserable existence. I don't call that printing money.

I bet even Lederer and Fergurson wish they never started this chit.

We know this because cashouts never experienced any type of significant delay. Ever. Until BF.

Except a couple of FTP checks that bounced higher than Michael Jordan on steroids.

Oh, and many people got stories about payment processor issues.

What a joke. The company is "printing money", but they can't pay off the 5% of their customer base that actually wins.

[LT22]

They made less than $150M in their miserable existence.

link?

[TheDarkElf]

Originally Posted by LT22

link?

$440M in dividend payments - $330M they currently own = $110M.

There is probably a couple of million floating around somewhere, so I said < $150M to be on the safe side.

[tamiller866]

Originally Posted by lawdude

Bringing cases takes time. The point is, the government got interested in online poker in the 1990's and BF was the culmination of at least 12 years of work.

They became interested in online gambling in the 1990's, primarily tribal bingo/lottery and offshore sports betting, but poker wasn't big enough to become a real concern until long after they had already decided to prohibit internet gambling.

Teflon, the UIGEA didn't pass because of crooked politicians being bought by lobbyists, it was actually the exact opposite, Congress was prepared to pass a stand alone ban on internet gambling (not just transactions) before 9/11, but Jack Abromoff used the republicans to block the bill on behalf of Indian tribes by having Ralph Reed declare that any Republican that voted for the bill was pro gambling since it included carve-outs for things like horseracing.

The UIGEA didn't need anyone to lobby for it, when Abramoff's emails made the press, Congress had little choice but to pass legislation showing that they weren't corrupted by lobbyists, the poker industry was fortunate that the bill basically only required them to stay under the radar.

From the UIGEA House testimony:

Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.

I want to begin by thanking Mr. Leach and Mr. Goodlatte for staying in there when the outside lobbyists were trying to control this institution. And people must know, if you go back and look at history, this institution, this institution, was manipulated by outside lobbyists. So there is a test today whether that outside lobby, outside influence will continue to take place.

With the guilty plea of lobbyist Jack Abramoff and the information revealed about his role in the defeat of the Internet gambling ban a number of years ago, it is time to strengthen the law enforcement tools to crack down on illegal gambling.

With online gambling, people can do it in their bathrobes, as Mr. Leach said. They can do it when they are standing in line. This is a test. Quite frankly, this is a test for this institution about outside influences, ones that all you have to do is read The Washington Post and the New York Times over and over and over to see what they have done. They have manipulated this place.

And today, with Mr. Leach and Mr. Goodlatte and others, you have an opportunity to reverse the manipulation and pass this bill without amendment.

My point being that the UIGEA had nothing to do with going after poker, they were going after i-gambling before the 'boom', poker just got caught in the crossfire and the sites own lawyers told them they were operating in a 'gray area', yet they insisted on operating (advertising, convenient deposit methods) as though they were white listed.

And how brain dead were they to all share the same processors? Really, what choice did they leave the government?

[TeflonDawg]

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

But then didn't eat the cost did they? Eating the cost would have meant they would forgo their 10$M monthly payment. They did no such thing. Instead they just let the deficit get bigger and bigger.

Bottom line: they make the players eat the cost - blanked us up our blank real hard.

Every player who ever requested a cashout prior to Black Friday received their money.

Only on Black Friday was the shortfall too great to overcome because the devastation did not allow them to continue to operate, which would've allowed them to make players whole just like PS did. You keep ignoring that after BF, FT continued to operate and did pay some ROW players back, albeit slowly, for obvious reasons.

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

Except for the countless players who got nothing but bounced checks and dumb azz excuses instead of the money they were entitled too.

I got bounced checks too, bro. Anyone who goes lolz FT stole my manies, outside of Black Friday, is being disingenuous. Everyone who requested a cashout prior to then received their money.

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

I'm sure even the DOJ was shocked at the level of thievery going on within the company. They probably figured that FTP was like PS; a company that in their opinion was violating US law, but at least had the decency to honor their debts. Many were surprised at what a dirtbag Ray Bitar is.

Actually, I think the DOJ was shocked that PS paid their players back almost seamlessly. They probably expected to own both FT and PS, and sell it to future online poker operators or something. After all, they're rumored to be selling FT to PS for 750 mil.

Ray Bitar isn't much different from Isai Scheinberg. I think it's pretty funny that people automatically give PS a gold star and FUUUUUUUUUUUU to FT when their owners are really both criminals committing the same crimes. Just goes to show you people only care about their money, damn everything else in the grand scheme of things. I don't think for one second Scheinberg wouldn't have done exactly what Bitar did if found in a similar situation.

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

Is there any reason to believe they wouldn't have stolen every single dime the first chance it was convenient? After all, that is exactly what they did, isn't it?

You can use the word stolen all you want, it doesn't change the truth of things. You're painting a picture that isn't quite telling the whole story, and you can't discount the fact that there were (and still are apparently) efforts being made to find a way to pay US and ROW players back.

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

Problem is they paid nothing. The DOJ devastated their operation in addition to the terrible business decisions they made making paying players back impossible.

fyp

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

The Prohibition analogy isn't good. Arguments that worked in the 1930's may be useless in 2012, and this shouldn't surprise you.

I also used examples from the modern day so I don't know why you're making this point because the parallels even nearly a century ago hold true today.

If I'm am not mistaken and also ironically, Prohibition was repealed in part because of a need for new tax revenue. The same thing can be said today of the expansion of gambling/gaming to the internet.

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

They made less than $150M in their miserable existence. I don't call that printing money.

Nobody knows the true parameters of their cash flow, but don't forget the actual business was worth something too. And by something, I mean a ****ing lot.

Regardless of what you define printing money as, the fact remains that when the DOJ shut down 3rd party processors the site made players whole almost instantly all the way up until Black Friday.

Originally Posted by TheDarkElf

Except a couple of FTP checks that bounced higher than Michael Jordan on steroids.

Oh, and many people got stories about payment processor issues.

What a joke. The company is "printing money", but they can't pay off the 5% of their customer base that actually wins.

This is just more disingenuous talk. Players can have all the whiny stories they want, sans Black Friday, they all got paid. That they want to be impatient little bitches in an environment like post-UIGEA and pre-BF or complain about what ultimately ends up being their own incompetence dealing with customer support (which I admit were incompetent in their own right often enough) or bankroll management is their own fault not Full Tilt's.

It still amazes me people can't appreciate the fact that sites, albeit with selfish motives, still chose to risk ruin just so we could even play poker at all never mind with a near unlimited selection of games.

Originally Posted by tamiller866

And how brain dead were they to all share the same processors? Really, what choice did they leave the DOJ?

fyp

And the answer is the government blazed the trail by writing the UIGEA. It worked because fortunately for the DOJ, the sites were indeed brain dead, and oh yeah there's that snitch that likely clinched the indictments.

Be that as it may about the story of Mr. J-off, the UIGEA was crafted by another set of lobbyists and passed in a post-9/11 world on a bill that nobody was voting against ever. Sure it may have had nothing to do with poker, but it had everything to do with anything taking away from Harrah's, the NFL, and Churchill Downs' bottom line.