What we need is a respected journalist to write a story on this situation and get it into the Times or another paper to get some awareness. (I realize now isn't the greatest time with the storm) At least put out some pressure to get some kind of statement besides them telling the PPA "we are working on it." Most people would frown upon our Gov making sure foreigners got paid in 90 days, yet Americans wait with no word of any kind. I thought the gov was supposed to serve their country and not the others first.

You can not compare ROW payouts to US remission process.They are two completely separate and are not related. The ROW have not been given access yet and you are already complaining?

Alot of remission cases take up to 2 years so count yourself lucky that it will not take that long. The PR thing is a nice idea but poker is not always held in high regards. Just sit back and wait, when there is news to come, I'm sure you will hear it.

Our Giants will certainly give it a hell of a try. Should be a good game

can you predict the score?

Never happen--Somebody from FTP has already said that for U S players to view their balance they will have to contact the DOJ. FTP/PS does not have that info.

In fact, iirc, PS/new FTP never received the info. It went straight from old FTP to the DOJ in the settlement.

I get that. I just think its BS that they demanded that ROW was paid within 90 days in order for the deal to go through. And that the people they work for, have no time table at all.

I suspect it went more like this:

1.) DOJ negotiated a deal with the mark (Tapie)
2.) The white knight (PokerStars) swept in and said "We can do better"
3.) The DOJ used the 90 days as justification for killing the Tapie deal

It's hard to imagine a scenario in which the DOJ actually gave a **** about the ROW. If Stars had said "Repayment within a year" the DOJ would have been completely fine with that IMO. It's *Stars* that wanted to repay ASAP, for obvious reasons.

As far as blowback now from U.S. players who still are waiting, I doubt the DOJ gives much of a **** about that either.

I wonder if it FTP would let us cash out points for money or transfer points to PS to cash out if we move outside the US.

Once you establish yourself outside the U.S. you can do whatever anyone else in the ROW can with the points, which is uncertain for everyone at the moment, last I checked (e.g. no FTP store yet).

His source in the nfl can.

He'll be able to next week.

Stars was just charged with offences agaisnt the state and against banks. Stars didn't steal anything, so they still had the player money in player accounts, so they just paid back the players who would no longer be able to play.

FTP was charged with all those same offences but were also eventually charged with stealing the money from the players (defrauding them by wire, to be exact). The money wasn't still in (actually never was in) player accounts, so it isn't there to repay players.

OK, I know you want to treat this as if the difference didn't matter but really, but the DOJ does not have players' money.

The DoJ has money which it seems it is going to give to US players. This money is not, and never was, the players' money. The DoJ is not going to be giving US players their own money back. It is going to give them somebody else's money to compensate them for some part (hopefully all) of players' monetary losses due to being defrauded by FTP.

FTP gave away players' money, but they did not give it to the DOJ. They gave it to suppliers, shareholders, employees, and friends.

DoJ took some of FTP's money on BF and before. This has no direct bearing on the repayment of players. They took the same sort of money in the same way at the same time from Stars, but this had no bearing on Stars' abilty to pay its US players.

As part of the settlement of the civil case against them for defrauding players of their money, FTP agreed not to oppose the DoJ taking essentially all of FTP's remaining assets (mostly non-monetary). The DoJ then turned around and sold many of those assets to Stars as part of Stars' Settlement Agreement. The money the DoJ got from Stars for the assets is money the DoJ is allowed to use for compensating victims of FTP's fraud, because it stems from the sale of assets forfeited in relation to the fraud.

DTM, as a practical matter, the difference doesn't matter. These people want their money, they know where money to get paid is supposedly coming from (whether or not perfectly understood), and all of the niceties are unimportant.

YDNRC. Bolded is incorrect.

According to the Settlement Agreement, It seems that the DoJ didn't take physical possession directly from FTP of the assets forfeited by agreement and subsequently sold to Stars.

Howard, I know they are mad as hell and just can't take it any more, but if they stopped to think, they might see that, as a pracitical matter, the difference probably explains why the DOJ insisted on a 90 payout for ROW while taking longer than that for remission. Hint: the ROW payout had to be completed before the remission could go ahead. Details will follow in a post I am planning in response to a couple earlier posts complaining about the DoJ allegedly treating US players worse than ROW players.

You are not taking the vast majority of your audience into account. I'll go out on a limb and say that they are younger than us, they have less business experience and less experience dealing w/ the government.

After all this time I know that you like to present the facts but you are asking too much in a general discussion thread involving a group of people inexperienced in the subject, excepting a very few.

That they wonder why ROW gets paid before U.S. players when it's their own government that arranged the deal makes perfect sense. Take it easy on them, imo. Simple answer, keep it simple, and, for crying out loud stop w/ these gyrations.

I'd leave them alone at this point. You and I both know the system will grind on in it's own time. Let that be your statement, imo. Time and patience is the answer, time and patience, nm all of the fine points.

It only looks like BS if you don't get the distinction between the payment the ROW players will receive and the payment the DoJ will make to US players.

I think you are way off base.

Let me suggest to you that by requiring ROW players to be paid back by Stars within 90 days, the DoJ created an environment which simplified and speeded up the remission process for US players.

While a lot has been written about the considerable discretion available to the government regarding making remission payments, I do not believe that discretion goes so far as to allow the government to make payments to some qualifying victims but not to others who do not differ in qualification in a material way. For instance, I do not think the government can decide not not pay remission to people merely because their name happens to begin with a 'Q'. Even if they technically did have the power to exerise discretion in such an arbitrary way, I do not believe they would. Remission will be paid to all qualifiying victims.

A qualifying victim is a non-related person who suffered a monetry loss due to the offence committed - in this case due to the fraud on players. That's anybody who suffered a loss due to the fraud, not just US players. Country of residence is not sufficent reason to be denied remission. Unless ROW players are somehow made whole before the remission process is announced, they will also be qualifying victims, and the government will have to administer a remissions program for more than twice as many claimantrs, and more than twice as much money. Running a remission process internationally will have a signifantly higher per claim cost. Processing many more claims will take longer. By getting ROW players covered off by Stars, the DoJ greatly simplified its task, and managed to simplify the legal framework as well (no worries about jurisdiction about fraud by Irish/Alderney companies against non-US residents.)

To avoid numerous complications, to reduce the amount of money used up by costs, and to speed up the payment of claims (remember- they probably cannot pay out anyone until all claims have been assessed), the DoJ arranged to disqualify ROW players as victims, by arranging to have them paid. No loss - no victim - no claim.

Fewer claims, and all located domestically, means a much faster remission process. By getting ROW payers paid off outside the remisson process, in a timely manner, the DoJ sped up the remission process for US players compared to what it woud have been if all players were paid by remission.

I prefer not to dismiss them all as unreachable.

Post 2519 is nearly unreadable. Scientists writing for the public would have their editors throw such a thing back at them for a re-write. You're turning most of these folks off rather than reaching them, imo.

Beale, you really need to stop feeding the troll. All of DTMs posts are unreadable. He is definitely makes the mark for top 3 idiot ITT ez.

I sympathize w/ your sentiment but DTM is not a troll nor an idiot, he's trying to be helpful and is more right than wrong but, after all of this time, I, like you, finally got tired of his approach and decided to say something. But he won't (probably can't) stop.

Paragraph 6 of the Stipulation and Order of Settlement Regarding PokerStars discusses the U.S. extracting information necessary to effectuate a remission process pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 981(d) and (e) and 28 C.F.R., Part 9 for the Full Tilt Group's former U.S. players, the administration of which shall be the sole responsibility of the United States.
To me, this language seems to contemplate the US conducting remission solely for the benefit of U.S. players (which, as that language has been used in the balance of the document, would include some foreign nationals (those playing in the U.S. as of closure) and exclude some USA citizens (those playing in another country as of closure)).

WTF is all this? You must enjoy making things up, and the more long-winded, the better.

Plonk. (And I've been more than patient.)

Yes, exactly. Under the terms of the Settlement, the only players expected to get remission will be US players. Since such a restriction does not follow from the regulations, it must follow from a condition arising from the terms of the Settlement. It is a specific provision of that very Settlement that Stars will pay all the non-US players. As contemplated by the agreement, after this payment, the only players continuing to be victims will be US players.

Keep in mind that, before the settlement, in response to specific queries, the DoJ said that non-resident victims were eligible to apply for remission.

A minor point is that the wording you cite might still allow for non-player victims to receive remission. There is simply no information in the database that would be needed to support remission for non-players. The best reason for thinking the only recipients of remission will be players is that the offence for which remission is being paid is wiire fraud against the players. It is easy to imagine that only players would be considered victims of such a fraud.