Utter nonsense. The truth is the vast majority of AP/UB players lost money because their account balances were not kept separate from company coffers, coupled with the raiding of the company coffers by Scott Tom and his compatriots in crime.

Ben: "However, as an author, my goal is to go inside a story and see it through the eyes of the people who were there;"

But a good author doesn't just believe what he is told. And a good author doesn't discard contradictory information and proof. Ben makes the mistake of adopting the frat boys "story" as his own.

Ben: "The only agenda I have is to tell this true story in an entertaining, enjoyable fashion;"

Ben fails here because he believes he told the true story, when in fact at best he told one version of events, and at worst he repeated a bunch of obvious lies.

Ben: "Straight Flush is the story of the rise of AP from an idea formed by a group of frat brothers, and the crash of AP due to the DOJ's takedown of the industry."

A big part of Ben's failure as an author stems from this fiction. The crash of AP was not due to the DOJ. It was due to the business choices of the frat boys. Pokerstars survived because of the business choices of people there. Full Tilt failed because of the business choices of people with that company. The DOJ merely hurt the legitimate company. The two different house of cards of the illegitimate companies collapsed sooner rather than later because of the DOJ. That's all.

Ben: "It's about young men who turned a simple idea into a million dollar a day business;"

Ben likes to use this exaggeration. It's a million in revenue, which doesn't even necessarily mean the company is even profitable at all.

Ben: "My hope is that this book helps in the fight to make online poker legal,"

That's clear. Sadly you used a method that worls against your goal, both by telling the story of a group of fools who fell into a pile of money, and by telling their story in an inappropriate way.

Ben: "Both the AP cheating scandal and the UB cheating scandals are in the narrative; within the ten year timeline of the story, they are not the central focus, nor do i believe they should be; certainly, there are those who disagree with the way those scenes are written, and I look forward to reading other accounts of those events."

You can tell whatever story you want, but what you told about the scandals was inaccurate. And what you told about the Absolute company structure and decisionmaking is riddled with omissions.

Ben: "The truth is, the vast majority of people who lost money on Black Friday did not lose money because of cheating, or because of Scott Tom; IMO, they lost money because the DOJ shut the business down, froze assets; shady processors vanished with millions of dollars, many millions more were used to pay off employees because of costa rican laws, and millions more went to lawyers for legal defense."

No, that is not the truth. That is a lie. The reason people lost money with Absolute is because of business decisions made by Scott Tom and others who controlled the company. They chose the processors. They either cheated or were stupid in enabling it. They dispersed money that should have been held as a cash reserve to cover player withdrawals if this happened. That is the truth, Ben. Claiming otherwise is a blatant lie.

Ben: "If Black Friday had not occured, players would not have lost that money. Unfortunately, the company didn't have a big enough war chest to pay off its accounts, and many people were devastated."

Nonsense. No online poker company's "war chest" should ever hold an amount less than the deposits of the players. Black Friday was merely the arbitrary shove that knocked down the house of cards. If it didn't occur, something else would have.

Sure, all that great. But you cannot call it a true story. Your views on fiction vs non-fiction are what make you a scumbag. You think it is ok to tell readers that what you are writing is true, when of course, it is not. You do this for your own personal profit.

**** you.

Edit: Ben, I'd also like to reiterate how much of a coward you are for blocking people like Haley and Steve O'Dwyer on twitter.

Ben, I was one of the many Absolute Poker cheating scandal victims and also worked for Absolute Poker in their early stages. Scott Tom stole thousands of dollars from me under the Steamroller account and they never repaid me.

You have done a huge disservice for not going into the cheating scandal as a main story. This company lied publicly that Scott was even still involved and created several shell games and dishonest PRs to cover it up. You cannot tell a true story about AP without going into detail about how their greedy insider thefts and cover up.

Also, the DOJ did not make it so that AP/UP did not pay players. They only had about 15-20% of player balances on deposit when the DOJ seized their assets. I don't think you can place that blame on the govt. Your statement about that clearly shows you failed to do research into the most basic facts of the companies failure, which involved nonpayment of players due to insider cheating scandals and outright raiding of cash by insiders. This should have either been #1 or #2 in terms of the story and you did not even get the facts right (here, so I assume you made the same mistake in your book).

Ok, lots of posts, too many to try to respond to right now, but first off, let me start by saying I agree with many of these points concerning the end game at AB/UB vs Pokerstars; in the book I think it's clear (though many of you seem to disagree) that Black Friday left the players devastated because the business, due to prohibition-like persecution, was being run using overseas, shady payment processing, with no regulations protecting player money; the nature of the payment system was inherently flawed because of these complex steps the companies had to take to get money in and out of the US via these phony 'companies' (i.e. the ones selling nonexistant golf balls, flower delivery, etc,). I think there's a pretty good explanation on this link:

http://www.billrini.com/2011/05/12/p...imple-version/

that seems, to me, to explain some aspects of what was going on in all of these companies, and why PokerStars was able to pay back accounts while other companies couldn't. This isn't the kind of writing I do, and it wouldn't fit in the kind of book I write; but I'm sure many of you can go even farther to explain that aspect of how things went bad. The broad strokes, in my opinion, are how i described it- and I maintain that the blame should be aimed at the DOJ and UIGEA for setting this all in motion and creating this prohibition atmosphere. But I don't have a horse in this race, you can blame whoever you'd like. Scott and Hilt maintain that for the final several years of the business they had zero control of the company, they were not shareholders, directors, executives, consultants, etc. Pete, Garin and Brent were still involved but only as employees. I assume this won't convince people or keep the blame from flowing their way, but it does seem to me that the notion that people lost money because these guys were "cheats" is based more on emotion than on fact. The cheating and Black Friday are two separate events, involving different casts.

Most of the other comments seem to either be attacks on my style of nonfiction- which i understand, it's not for everyone- or a furious calling out of the AP 'founders'; specifically, Scott, and then after that, I think the brush seems to have a pretty wide stroke); related to the AP cheating scandal. I'm not here to defend them, again, I don't have a horse in that race, and personally i don't think the book paints anyone as a saint, this is simply the characters built via interviews, as they are, in their own words. I agree with everyone that the cheating was indeed a scandal, that the bones of that story are in the book, and that the more complex intricacies of that story are still to be told. I believe that part of the book is handled appropriately, but others can certainly go deeper and dig for more facts. In any event, I am not an investigative journalist, and I have always been perfectly clear about what I write, and how I write it. Narrative nonfiction- true stories written in a thrilleresque style; some of you will enjoy it, some will not.

Again, best, hopefully more to come:

Ben Mezrich

NO NO NO NO NO NO NO did you not read a damn thing anyone wrote or are you just coming in here to piss us off? i mean, REALLY? like 18 posts in a row all say the same thing--UB, AP, FTP customers were ALL left out to dry because the owners MISMANAGED the business into the ground, and in some cases outright stole money from the players and transferred it into their bank accounts.

HOW CAN ANYONE come to the conclusion that AP was run into the ground because of "prohibition-like persecution, was being run overseas, shady payment processing, with no regulations protecting player money" WHEN THAT'S NOT THAT REASON THEY WERE BROKE AT ALL. are you going to keep posting nonsense, or are you going to read any of the criticisms people have for you?

do you really think by coming here anyone in this forum is going to let you off the hook and/or suddenly go buy your book?

Shocking that he continues to defend Scott and Hilt when they helped commission the book.

I hope the line about them being cheats is based on emotion and not fact is some kind of joke. Did you read anything about the super using?

And this book isn't non-fiction, it's bull**** that he can pass it off as that.

All that said this book, potential movie, could make online poker be a sympathetic figure which may be good. Just pisses most people off that it makes a bunch of scumbags look like sympathetic figures as well

Ben, despite your reasonably skilled wordsmithing, that paragraph is a deflection of blame onto everyone except the frat boys. Other posters here should be mindful of not letting Ben convert this thread into a debate about that eebil US Gubmint, which appears to be his intent. The SAE boys knew the risks, and they did their best for a decade to evade them.

Instead, Ben, the focus should be on your own fraud -within- the book, namely all the hard evidence that exists that points to Scott Tom's multiple crimes, the coordinated coverup (specifically including Pete), and your own willingness to falsify the damn timeline of events to craft a bogus tale.

There is a reason Scott Tom spends his days playing backgammon in an ass-end, off-beach Antiguan bar: he's a crook.

This is actually pretty interesting, so they told you they had nothing to do with the company in the last few years and you just took them at their word?


Well if you listen to the UB cheating tapes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OFSg_7A4bA

You'll hear them talk about how they are going to try and get the new AB/UB company (that was supposedly owned by Norton) to foot the bill for the UB cheating scandal.

Hilt and Scott are mentioned specifically as the guys essentially still owning the company.

I don't imagine that Mezrich will actually listen to the whole tape (research doesn't seem to be his forte) so if someone (possibly Druff) can link to the relevant part(s) maybe then Mezrich will realize that they lied to him about this very specific fact (that they had no involvement in the last few years) and if thats the case, how can he believe anything they say?

This, along with something in another post of yours which I will get to in a moment, really leapt out at me.

You don't have a horse in this race? Your horse got permanently put in the race when you wrote what you did about the AP scandal and Scott Tom.

Which brings me to the other post and sorry I cannot quote it, but it is the one where you take people to task for having no evidence but accusing Scott Tom of being behind the AP superuser scandal. Excuse me? What evidence did you have that a lower level employee made it appear to be Scott Tom and it wasn't Scott Tom? It seems you are trying to have it both ways.

Since I can't edit my post anymore, I'm quoting it to correct a wrong word. No evidence but accusing now reads no evidence when accusing.

His target market is interested in reading a good yarn. He's not writing for the max 2,500 people interested in reading the nitty gritty about who cheated whom, confirming what they believe they already know.

Is it frustrating to know that the real story of the architects of the cheating will be whitewashed by, what will undoubtedly become, the definitive (but wrong) version of events.

But this has happened since the dawn of the printing press, and will continue to happen.

You think Lightoller's family like the fact that everyone thinks he pulled a gun on the passengers of the Titanic? Well that's what everyone thinks. This is the reality of storytelling for the mass market.

The difference is the Lightroller story got immortalized in fictional accounts of Titanic while Mezrich is passing his book off as "The True Story...."

Seems to me that Scott Toms knew that both a factual book and movie were being written and wanted to get ahead of the story. So he hired Ben to write a book that tells the story his way. That's what good PR people tell their clients to do. Get it out first, your way.

Ben saying he doesn't have a horse in this game is kind of laughable but true. He doesn't have a horse in the game. He is the horse, and Scott Toms is riding him.

I wish he would just admit that instead of continuing to suggest the cheating that went on at AP was orchestrated by someone other than Toms himself.

Ben what's next on your list? Going to write a book about the holocaust and paint Hitler as a misunderstood genius hero that wasnt in control of the monsterous decisions made who had to sit idly by and watch as the empire he built was used for genocide?

Hello Charles Lightoller.

Mezrich blaming the DOJ for UB/AP/FTP crashing and failing to pay back players is so outrageous. EVERYONE knows and understands that those companies fell apart because of:

1) greed
2) mismanagement/incompetence/neglect
3) zero risk aversion

I think Mezrich really wants to stick it to the DOJ, but what he's doing is unethical.

+1. Exactly what I was thinking. wp

I'm loathe to ever use the nazi analogy, but in this case it's also exactly what I was thinking. This was like writing a book about Hitler's impressive charisma or incredible ascent to power...and then when challenged about how you could leave out the tidbits about the genocide, responding "That's not the part of the story I set out to explore; I'll leave that to others", and thinking that will resonate with a bunch of Holocaust survivors.

You just don't get it, Ben. What Scott Tom and the other guilty AP parties did was the single worst thing you can do in the world of poker or business: lie, cheat, and steal tens of millions of dollars. You don't get a free pass to write about their "noble" or "admirable" pursuits, but ignore facts (and in other cases fabricate ones entirely) that paint their entire endeavor in a negative light. Their bad actions dwarf by 100-fold any 'local boy makes good' angle you think exists.

*EDIT: or if you want a less emotionally charged analogy, this was like writing a book about Bernie Madoff's amazing life, rising to become one of the most rich and successful men in the world, framing him in a positive light at every turn...and then relegating to a footnote the fact that, 'oh by the way, he also stole $10 Billion dollars, but i'll leave that story for someone else to cover.' Are you starting to get it now?

the problem with both of our analogies is that everyone who would read these hypothetical books would be well aware of the actual crimes committed by hitler and madoff. in this case, many of the readers are just fans of mezrich who liked his zuckerberg and blackjack books that dont really know the true story of what happened here. this is actually a worse offense than either of our examples because the truth is not well known to its readers and he is perpetuating a bull**** story fed to him by Scott Tom and his cronies. this is a huge disservice to poker and every player who lost money in the AP scandal.

IMHO this article from yesterday may explain young Ben's motivations in completely glossing over the AP/UB scandal and "talking up" Scott, Brent, Hilt, AJ and all the other crooks:

http://www.boston.com/names/2013/06/...enL/story.html

Specifically this quote seems to spell it out between the lines:

“Two of the founders pitched me on, the story and it seemed like a blend of “21” and “The Social Network” so that’s why I got excited,” said Mezrich, who wrote the books on which those movies were based.

Ben's "excited" to write about his buddies....you can see where this leads...

Oh my.

This explains everything.

Can someone find the time in the tapes where this is brought up? Would be good to link B Mezrich to

Taking Ben at his word that he wrote this foolish book with good intentions, what needs to happen now is a sequel titled "The Education of Ben Mezrich"

More than anything else, his book is embarrassing. Cluelessly repeating statements of people trying to cover their own ass combined with factual errors leads to a book that makes him look like an incompetent fool as a writer to anyone who knows some of the details of the events involved. The general public might find it entertaining if they are fully unaware of the events, but to use the Hitler comparison, a book that doesn't just quote Hitler saying he didn't know about the Holocaust, but itself asserts there was no Holocaust is not just a bad a book. It's an ignorant one, so Ben needs to do some learning before he embarrasses himself further.

The DOJ seizure did nothing to cause players to lose money. What it did was cause Scott Tom to lose his ability to profit from running a business recklessly. There is never any reason that player deposits should be in jeopardy, except for that amount of money in transit to and from bank accounts. This amount of money should be covered by a financial reserve should the money be lost somehow. That reserve should not have been used on hookers and cocaine and ugly cars. This should be the key bottom line you need to learn, Ben. Absolute failed 100% only because of bad and dishonorable business practices.

The daily and monthly revenue numbers you repeatedly quoted were meaningless. Payments to affiliates for providing players, payments to processors, payments to support staff and lawyers and engineers cut into that gross revenue. Absolute did make a lot of money, most of which Scott and Hilt hid from other owners, but Absolute was never as large an entity as your book makes out. A company 1/10the size of Pokerstars is not one of the biggest companies on the Internet.

At one point you fawn over the $250,000 annual salary of Buckley, who had one of the most critical roles at Absolute. 250k is small potatoes in the poker world. Lots of players make that. Lots of employees of the bigger online poker companies make more. Of all the items in your book, the fact that Buckley made so little money in his key role is the one eye opener, if it is true.

Your assertion that absolute had to fail without American players is wrong, as was your assertion about the percentage of players that were Americans. Absolute was more vulnerable than Tilt or Stars because its flawed company policy depended much more heavily on Americans than the other poker rooms, including Party and 888 and others before them. Prior to Black Friday, 90% of AP's business may have been from the US, but Pokerscout showed only about 33% of Stars was. Tilt was somewhere inbetween. The point again is your frat boy buddies built a a business doomed to fail from their own decisions.

Get a lamp and try to find anyone in the industry who believes Scott Tom wasn't the key person with Absolute until the very end. The frat boys told you a bunch of lies and half-truths and made you look incompetent. Just because Scott Tom didn't sleep in the office anymore does not mean he wasn't the ultimate boss for the tangled web of shell companies that controlled Absolute.

Ben, some people here read your book and think you are a deliberate liar. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you were gullible, biased and incompetent. Those are the only two choices though, especially after some of the assertions you've made about the DOJ and so on. Educate yourself and you may be able to undue some of the damage you have done to your own reputation.

Ben, can you explain how the book was originally conceived, and just who approached who? Did Scott Tom and Oscar Hilt Tatum approach you with this idea?