All of Baazovs personal wealth has come in the last few years since Amaya was created (renamed). I think before the PokerStars deal, Amaya was toast. After an initial rustling up of $5m from an IPO using his contacts, he somehow got financing to buy multiple gambling related operations, all of which he managed to sell after a year or 2 'at a large profit' to mailbox companies / SPVs, in murky deals, like having the same street address 2 doors down, etc. This was coming to a head, and his master-stroke to get out of his version of makeup was to do a deal which dwarfed the earlier loss-making ones. If this one came off, the rest would be forgotten. So in addition to getting investors and banks to cough up $5b while leaving him with almost 20% of the shares, he's been paying himself handsome executive compensation, almost a million per year. Of course, in a billion dollar company, why wouldn't the CEO (& chairman) be worth that.

Note that Baazov is Amaya. He is the CEO AND chairman, something that's not supposed to be allowed, and the handful of others that make up the executive management are his buddies, not to mention his brother in the background that's not supposed to be working for the company. David himself must have decided that he was going to be paid while off work, not some 'independent internal review committee' or whatever it was called, that's like a home game where Dave is asked to stand outside the door for a minute.

It's debatable whether Amaya can continue without David. He's the front for the company and has done all the deals. I actually wonder whether David's involvement in Amaya is actually to present a clean front while his brother and other acquaintances call the actual shots. So many of the pre Stars deals had been backed by friends and acquaintances or using their contacts.

If I had to guess, I would say he needs the money coming in from his salary. He can't have a lot in reserve as his tenure as a billion dollar CEO is only 18 months old. Lawyers are expensive. I neither own nor short shares / options but I think Amaya is in financial trouble.

Wouldn't it be funny if they never really intended to buy PokerStars?

They're sitting in a room somewhere looking at their books trying to figure out how to make money and they come up with this idea to go into talks to buy PokerStars and spread rumors to pump up their stock price and make some money that way thinking nobody would actually lend them all that money.

Then they wind up actually buying the site and don't know what to do. Sure would explain a lot.

http://www.flushdraw.net/news/class-...-baazov-sebag/

Odds of Stars still being owned by Amaya in 2017? Looks to me like Mr. Baazov's house of cards is collapsing quite quickly.

Why bother with a trial under your worldview ? Why not just strap a cage full of rats onto anyone charged with a crime, until they learn to love Big Brother, circa 1984 ?

You do not seem to understand the concept of presumption or of a trial.

"Presumed" is not some function of "probability". Innocence is the legal status of anyone vis a vis any criminal charge, whether or not some prosecutor thinks he has probable cause to charge a particular person of specified conduct amounting to some specific criminal activity. In the US, criminal law is statutory and there is no criminal common law ....(except for Louisiana maybe, I don't know?).

No bill of attainder may by statute make a specific person "guilty" of anything. A law cannot make someone "guilty".

There is no guilt established by a trial unless a judge or jury is convinced of the fact and enters a verdict which finds it true. Ever see the phrase "beyond a reasonable doubt" ? If there is no "guilty" verdict, then the presumed correct fact of innocence stands. What's more, in the US at least, double jeopardy prevents being tried twice attempting to prove guilt of the same crime.

"Peoples' views" may be the arbiter of justice in Joedotland or wherever mob rule prevails, but you are mistaken about other legal systems. (I watched the Bronco chase from the Mirage sportsbook and may think OJ committed murder twice, and a civil trial found that he was liable for his actions as to the Goldman killing, but he simply is not "guilty" of murdering either of those two people. )

He has a point, though, and we are getting into semantics of the legal definition of the word "guilty" vs. a common sense notion of the word "guilty."

OJ is obviously guilty of murdering those people. The prosecution just failed to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

Baazov either traded on inside information or he didn't. The legal findings don't change what actually transpired.

NVG is not a court of law, and neither is a boardroom.

Random fact: Scottish criminal trials have a third possible verdict of "not proven"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Not_proven

If there weren't any class actions filed in the wake of the insider trading charges, that would be as (or less) likely than Amaya deciding next week to lower rake across the board in all games...

It's news, but kind of non-news once the original story broke.

And like certain CEOs , the morality range of the people bringing these suits runs pretty wide, all the way down to the Lerachs, etc. of the world...

This is my take. There are too many holes being punched into the dam at once. I think it will break one way or the other.

In hindsight its comical isai scheinberg was deemed to be a bad actor and was not allowed to be apart of a regulated PS.

2years later and the new ceo gets arrested.

I don't think the post to which I was responding was limited to the Baazov matter; that poster had a general, mistaken idea of what a presumption of innocence means, did not understand that the presumption of innocence is NOT based on a notion of probability. He claimed that because as most charges result in guilt determinations, it was appropriate to change to a "probability"-driven determination about any individual accused of a crime ..... i.e. anyone accused is "probably" guilty, and no determination of individual guilt is required in his view. He would leave itup to anyone accused to prove their own innocence.

The poster wanted to reverse innocence and guilt, and place a burden of proving innocence on the accused individual, expressly stating :
"Therefore it should be changed to presumed guilty until proven innocent."

This is not semantics, and certainly common sense has little to do with any individual matter. "Common sense" is great for a lot of things, like making markets, weighing predictions, arguing on NVG and determining what public conduct is/is not acceptable, even passing laws. However, even if you think "common sense" is good at deciding guilt or innocence of a specific person facing a criminal charge under a law which was passed, it is already built into our legal system; that is why there are jury trials which are governed by rules of evidence and procedural requirements and the burden of proof lies with the charging prosecutor.

So we may have a 2nd US securities law violation on our hands...?

Just seems really strange - maybe the management team doesn't realize the requirement being familiar with only the Canada regulations for so long? Or are they knowingly not filing (or playing dumb about such reqs.) while trying to disguise various trading activity? (i.e. maybe Baazov proclaims publicly when he makes a purchase of shares, then remains quiet whenever selling shares (scheduled sales or not)).

The SEC has brought charges for this sort of thing before (obv).

https://www.sec.gov/News/PressReleas.../1370542904678

Well, I can see how you get out of jury duty.

Like poker, reality is a game of imperfect information. Until people become all-knowing, guilt will need to be proven with evidence.

Not at all, and it depends on the context.

With imperfect information we can never be certain. We try to make our best decision based on what information we do have. Someone would be pretty silly to refuse to wear a raincoat if the forecast was "only" a 95% chance of rain. And you are often forced to make a decision with a bluff-catcher despite being far from certain.

The evidence in front of most people's eyes will lead them to believe he is guilty, and as they are not part of a jury deciding someone's fate, it is perfectly acceptable for them to do this. In fact, not doing would be illogical. It's the reason why stocks react in the way that they do to rumours, and people are just as justified to react with their verbal opinions.

Exactly.

I'm not arguing that the legal burden of proof should be lowered, so I agree with Gzesh's last post and disagree with the poster he was responding to on that point.

Just saying, the whole "The courts haven't proven him guilty yet, so he's still innocent!" drivel is tilting. Dude is obviously a scumbag.

I don't have that knowledge but the utter indifference by Canadian law enforcement to the Absolute/UB scandal, despite the fact that the servers were on Canadian territory (albeit Indigenous land) and Excapsa Software of Toronto was implicated, suggests that online poker has never been much on the radar here.

Exactly. People are "presumed' guilty all the time. They have their assets frozen, remanded without bail, etc. But I'm suppose to look at the Ray Rice video and say, " Well, he is still innocent because he has not been found guilty in a court of law'?

The discussion about people being suspended with pay is interesting. It's hard to fathom that a large percentage of these people receive money for not doing their job and are eventually found guilty.

I guess there is no real solution to protect people, but i would like to see something where the accused gets a portion of their salary while the rest goes into escrow pending their guilt or innocence. Maybe something like they get 60% while 40% is withheld pending trial.

When we talk about innocence and guilt in regards to the law, we are always talking about how the courts regard the guilt of that person. And in general society, it is society that determines the guilt of that person. In both cases, evidence is how we determine that guilt.

Your weather analogy really doesn't have anything to do with what we are talking about. When you are talking about tomorrow's weather you are trying to predict the future, not trying to prove something that happened in the past. Not to mention that a personal opinion isn't the same as a societal decision.

Your post completely misses my point in that I was disagreeing with someone's notion that actual guilt is what we should be taking about here; as if anyone can see reality through the eyes of Zeus. Life would be a lot easier if we had perfect information. But until then guilt is determined with a vote regardless if it is by a court or by society.

If Baazov is actually innocent but wrongly shown to be guilty, or vice versa, Baazov's future is going to be determined by a vote, not by objective reality. Anyone who has had to sit in front of a jury knows that. It's his culture that will determine his guilt or innocence.

The rules that determine guilt and innocence in Canada include the principal that someone is innocent until proven guilty. Those are simply the rules that we play by. That principal can't simply be dismissed. Until Zeus starts adding his 2 cents to these dialogues that's just how we play the game.

There's nothing harder for me than to use the word 'innocent' in regards to Baazov considering that we've all seen him steal the 2016 benefits from the VIP players and not give a crap about it. But in regards to the present charges innocent until proven guilty still applies, even though It's my personal opinion that he is as guilty as hell.

+1 There are plenty of legal fictions that serve a purpose. For example, where I am, if you send papers to someone by recorded delivery and they refuse to sign for them, the papers are considered "delivered" for legal purposes (i.e. served). A corporation has legal personhood - so you can sue a corporation rather than all its shareholders individually. Innocent until proven guilty is another one that serves a good purpose.

Pretty sure it said somewhere that the judge is the trier of fact for AMF cases, so there's not going to be any vote.

The Bill of Rights was added to the US Constitution to as a bulwark against governmental tyranny. It wasn't intended to force society to believe that a person must literally be assumed to be innocent until they've been convicted of a crime. For example, Presumed innocents are still required to post bail before being released pending trial, as mentioned before.

First of all, the judge is given the responsibility of voting, so yes there is a vote.

Secondly I very specifically included both the rule of law and society as 2 separate entities which would decide guilt. There's the court of law and the court of public opinion. No one is trying to force the public to believe anything that it doesn't want but the court of public opinion can't cross the boundary and claim that someone is legally guilty.

The whole thing about not being able to post bail, or frozen assets, etc. has nothing to do with determining or declaring guilt or innocence of the crime that someone has been charged with. Those are just necessary steps to keep people from fleeing, keeping society safe from potential threats, keep people from running off with assets, etc. Those things relate to separate laws that have been proven necessary in order to allow a government to enforce its laws.

The Oregon protesters have been trying to use the angle that they can't be held because they haven't been found guilty yet. The judge has just been rolling her eyes and suggesting that the defendants need to ask their attorneys about that.

His departure can only be a positive for the company, all other things being equal.

And he doesn't need the money from his salary. He can get a nice loan anytime he wants by simply putting up some shares up as collateral.

Not sure I understand your point - weren't you saying that the 'presumed innocent' assumption requires the Amaya board to continue to pay Baazov's full salary until the judge has rendered a verdict, because we all MUST LITERALLY treat him to be innocent?

But then you acknowledge that the law is no longer treating people merely accused of crimes as being fully innocent, because everyone's required to post bail before being released pending trial. And you were even the one to add that there's is a chance some of them might pose a danger to society.

And you weren't going so far as to say that he should have been allowed to stay CEO until the verdict was reached.

So there are consequences to just being charged, all the time. I think meleab's explanation about the levels of proof explains why things aren't so black and white.

Will his shares not be "frozen" if he is charged with insider trading?