ORLY?

The amount of which one is defrauded is the amount given by the victim to the fraudster, minus any amount returned by the fraudster to the victim. Money notionally transferred by the fraudster to a third party creditor of the victim does not count as money returned by the fraudster to the victim, especially when the third party never actually gains possesion of that money.

The fact that the funds are comingled goes directly to the fact that losing players were never handed back their money as they lost it. That players chose to spend money at the tables has no bearing on the legal fact that they did not actually spend money at the tables, and that they did not actually regain posession of their money after they deposited it, except when they received a withdrawl.

It is a lovely theory, but it is contradicted by decided law in this case. If you look at the DoJ submissions in support of the motion to dismss the claim of Webb, and the court order granting the motion, it should be clear to you that money was never returned to players except by way of successful withdrawl.

Yes, because you actually got the $20K back. Losing players never got their losses back, not even for a moment before it was handed over to the winners and to rake payments.

Don't worry. Not being American, I won't be making any submissions to the DoJ.

However if I was a US player who had substantial losses on FTP, I would certainly be taking steps to make a remissions claim based on net deposits, not balances.

Last I checked, the vast majority of poker players were losing players and your organisation was called the "PPA" not the "WPPA" (Winning Poker Players Alliance). If you claim to represent all US poker players, why are you taking a stand on remission calculation that would result in most of FTP's US players getting little or nothing? Why are you advocating a remission calculation that will result in total remission paid to US players being 65-70% smaller than what would be made if payments were based on deposits? When did the vast majority of US players tell you that they didn't want the PPA to advocate for remission based on deposits?

I'm a big admirer of the efforts you and Patrick put in, but in this mattter, I believe you are both wrong and not acting in the best interests of those you claim to represent.

Ultimately the position of the PPA is largely irrelevant. The primary mission of the DOJ is to keep as much of the money they have received from Pokerstars as legally possible. They are no doubt hashing a variety of legal theories and opinions to sprout forth with the one that offers the least amount of compensation to the fewest possible players with the most possible obstacles to deter people for petitioning for compensation. To believe otherwise, is to be one of the utter jackasses like Bustapro who continues to insist that the DOJ is working on their behalf. The DOJ is not on your side. They have signed a legal agreement with Pokerstars and will return as little as they legally get away with to players to honor that agreement.

If it makes you feel better about yourself to believe that the DOJ is on the verge of mailing you a check for your full balance (and points! lol) in the imminent future, then by all means keep on believing this. If it wasn't for people like you, no lotto tickets would ever be sold.

Maybe that explains why I preferred FT to PS. People were giving money away. I feel so used.

A player deposits in May 2006 and loses it all in a few days and never deposits again. Is this person entitled to his loses back according to your logic? There was no fraud at that time. When did the "fraud" start? Do you really think the DOJ has any interest in unraveling every transaction made to, from and within FT? The player not knowing that FT at some point in time did not have 100% of player funds available for withdrawal did not have any effect on whether they won or lost.

I am still routing for consonant. I am obviously not an Aussie.

An overwhelming amount of the communication I've had with the community on this has been supportive of remission based on balances, including the discussion ITT. In fact, the only pro-deposit voices I've heard are here ITT.

I believe this is because most poker players are honorable and don't feel they have a right to take back bets that were lost at the table.

Additionally, what is the cut-off date for when the fraud started? The DoJ would have to make a determination, as I imagine a deposit-based scheme would actually be a hybrid, based on balances on the date the fraud started + net deposits after that date. It sounds like a mess to me, and is something that's not really being sought by many.

There's a fixed amount of money available for remission, so it wouldn't be on the order you suggest.

Thank you.

You're entitled to your opinion and I thank you for sharing it. That being said, I think we'd be run out of town if we proposed a deposit-based remission. It violates all standards of fairness. Telling winning players that it was better overall because losing player would get more money in total probably wouldn't satisfy them, either.

According to the evidence cited by the DoJ, the fraud began in 2008, so a player who deposited in 2006 and lost it all in a few days would not have been a victim of fraud, so would receive nothing in remission.

I would expect that the DoJ would designate a start date (probably that of the first alleged false statement) and go from balances and net deposits from that date forward. They would assume all players from that date relied on the false statements made.

The player who believed the false statements about safety of funds put funds into play that he would not have lost at FTP if he had not been falsely induced to deposit. That he might have lost the funds at a different website instead is irrelevent to whether he was defrauded of them.

I'm glad to hear your oldest cat is still mainlining sashimi.

DOTHEMATH =great question ? because hes got money online with FTP.when black friday happened the PPA wasnt even put together because of balances. IT WAS PUT TOGETHER SO AMERICANS CAN PLAY ONLINE AGAIN >> TO GET BILL PASSED THROUGH CONGRESS!!!

Yes, PPA was not put together specifically to provide legal aid for FTP remission. As were founded prior to any such need, that's pretty much a given. However, I'm happy that we are able to provide this to our paid membership and, by extension, the rest of the community.

You don't have to accept PPA representation, Bigsid. It's certainly not being forced on anyone. You can absolutely pursue this on your own.

but if you dont mind if i ask you do have a lump sum on FTP?

Actually no, this is the exact place for the blatherings that go on in this thread. They can yammer on and on about speculative bull**** here till the cows come home -- that's the purpose of this thread, to contain **** like this so it's not roaming around everywhere.

I have some money locked up on FTP....a fact I've shared many times.

That had nothing to do with me pushing for PPA to help out, of course. That's just something PPA should do where we can. I know our paid membership was quite happy that we were able to do so here.

Well if that is how you frame the issue for them of course they will prefer balance-based remission. However, paying losers based on deposits and winners based on balances does not amount to pulling back bets. It is nothing more than being compensated for money dishonestly transferred from victim to perpetrator.

Probably 2008/07/18, but maybe 2008/03/19, 2008/03/22, or 2008/05/06.

I think that would be the model. It is no more a mess than determining actual balances once phantom deposits are corrected. I hope you are not advocating that players who made phantom deposits should get remission for funds credited to their balance but never received by FTP. Given the tranactional database available to the DoJ, I think the model is easier to automate than phantom deposit correction will be.

As of right now, there is ~$159M available. The amount of money will increase when Stars makes its subsequent payments (totalling ~$322M more, and may also increase (by ~$66M) if the claims of Kentucky and Cardroom International are dismissed as they should be, and may also increase if the claims against the FTP directors are successful. That the total amount of money eventually available for remission greatly exceeds half a billion dollars does not seem unlikely.

Of course winners would oppose a system that doesn't compensate them for lost winnings. That is not what I am suggesting. I am suggesting balance-based for winners and deposit-based for losers. And no, it doesn't "violate all standards of fairness". It pays all players the same portion of the amount of which they were actually defrauded, which is a different amount than the amount that they are owed. It is the amount they would not have lost at and to FTP if they had not been deceived by FTP.

If anybody runs you out of town on the basis of such an arrangement, I'd suggest they would be part of a small but vocal minority. If is important for groups that are allegedly representative to take into account the views and interests of the majority of its members, rather than merely the views of the few who forcefully express their opinion. How many poker players do you claim to represent? How many of them have actually provided informed input to you on this issue?

Probably true. Now try telling losing players (about 90% of all players) that it is better overall that they should give up a claim on ~$365M-$500M so that winners could get ~$65M more. (Note: these numbers are wild approximations only - we don't have enough info to calculate the exact amounts.)

every good ponzi scheme deserves CLAWBACKS (and jail time) ->

The ponzi scheme receiver has little discretion in his determination whether or not to pursue clawback claims, since those claims, and claims against third parties, are assets of the estate that cannot be abandoned without justification.

DTM,

Hi. Since Black Friday, I've received hundreds (if not thousands) of emails, PMs, and forum posts from players asking if PPA could help them get their balances back. Not one asked me for help based on deposits, and certainly no one asked for PPA to help them undo losing play. To the contrary, many expressed deep concern that it could be based on deposits.

Similarly, I've not heard of any ROW players complaining about FTP resuming play with their original balances, rather than undoing years of play. I've seen no articles in any poker pub -- U.S. or ROW -- even suggesting that remission be based on deposits. In short, I've seen no push for it at all, outside of a few posters ITT.

I don't think a dual remission system for winners and losers is plausible or even desirable. DoJ wants consistent logic upon which to base this. We'd also run the risk of exceeding the available pot, (the amount of which you documented nicely).

With all of this, PPA has already gone forward in advocating a balances-based remission process to DoJ.

The Kentucky claim you noted illustrates the need for player representation before the DoJ. As you likely know, Kentucky wants the money for the state and has stated it's not to be returned to Kentucky players. Gov. Beshear seemed to find the question itself ludicrous when asked by a reporter. I'm not saying the DoJ would have necessarily refused to refund money without PPA before them explaining that we are fraud victims, but I do think such representation was essential to ensure our position as players was represented.

All of you are wrong. The government is going to keep all the money as part of an overall deficit reduction deal.

The government got confused. They thought the money from the FT ponzi scheme was actually meant for the deficit ponzi scheme.

You will get a nice letter saying your funds are safe and returning the money is the government's most important task.

I didnt think that whole pot of money from Poker Stars was designated for remission.

EDIT: TE is pretty clearly right, PPA membership would vote overwhelmingly for the return of balances.

Every time I read this thread I wish I didn't. Carry on with the deposits vs balances debate.

I think you're wrong here. I had many friends that deposited on FTP and lost and did it because it was fun to gamble every now and then. None of them would call themselves a "poker player" and none of them expect any remission. The PPA is acting in the best interest of poker players and poker in general. A few losing players have found their way into this thread, but the overwhelming majority of players want remission based on balances. It's just logical.

I think anyone arguing for deposits is a bit of a scumbag to be honest. Let me give an example to explain why. I decide I want to play a $1000 tournament on a site called LuckyPoker. I deposit, play the tournament and lose. A guy named John wins. A few weeks later I find out the site was shut down and players are being refunded by the government. Am I really going to go try and lobby for that money that I lost fair and square, and have it taken from John? That would be really scummy. DUCY

Let me clarify and say that I don't think that someone explaining why the government could refund deposits is a scumbag, I'm saying anyone that anyone who believes refunding deposits would be the right thing to do is a scumbag.

PS: Thank you Rich and co. for all you do.

OK, so you have heard from between 0.01% to 0.1% of the "millions of American poker enthusiasts" who are "the heart and soul of [y]our organization". That 's not nearly enough to ascertain the will of the people you claim to represent. Also, that sample is not representative. It is self-selected and stongly biased towards the minority of players who still had substantial balances.

Furthermore, that input wasn't directed to the issue we are discussing here: should players be compensated based on the amount of which they were defrauded (which is what remission is supposed to do), or just on their balances (which, in the vast majority of cases, are less than the amount of which they were defrauded)?

Well of course that's what they asked for. Many of those requests were made before the public found out they had been defrauded. As far as they were concerned, what they had lost was their balances, so they want their balances back. Many players, including you, apparently, still don't understand that, legally, most players were fraudulently deprived of more than their balances, and that they are entitled to be compensated on all their losses to fraud, not just their balances.

"Undo losing play" is a mischaracterization of what I am suggesting. I do not propose that pots be reversed or winners be deprived of credit for their winnings. I propose to undo the losses due to fraud. That's what remission is for.

And why would they have such a concern? Because the ones expressing that concern were in the small minority of poker players who were winning players. They are bright enough to realize that if all fraud losses are compensated, then nobody will get full compensation for their fraud losses. However, if compensation can be artificially limited so most fraud losss are not compensated, then this small minority of players probably will get full compensation for their losses whle the vast majority of players lose out on many more millions of dollars.

In contast to them, most losing players, the ones who lost all they deposited and gave up on online poker, have no idea that they may be entitled to compensation for those losses. They already thought their money was gone and irretrievable. Nobody, including the organization that claims to represent them, has told them they could be entitled to compensation. Most of those people don't read 2+2, and have never heard of the PPA. What your organisation is doing is abandonning what may be the majority of US poker players in order to protect the interests of a few informed, successful players.

What we see from the vast majority of people ITT is a lack of understanding. They don't understand the difference between refund and remission. They don't understand that, if they were a losing player, FTP illegally took more than their balance. They just want "to get their money back" and they think that "their money" is limited to the amount of their balance. If there had been no fraud, they might be substantially correct. The fact of fraud changes the amount and status of their losses.

I'm not advocating a "dual remission system". The fact that the remission system I am advocating can have different descriptions for two classes of players doesn't make it any more a "dual" system than the one you are advocating. I can describe either sytem in apparently dual terms or apparently single terms: what I am advocating is a system in which players are compensated for the amount of which they were defrauded - what you are advocating is a system where winners are compensated for the amount of which the were defrauded but losers are only compensated for money left in their balances, which is less than the amount of which they were defrauded.

Most imporantly, my approach is based on what the DoJ wants: a single legal approach, consistent with the aims and purposes of remission. Yours jumps through fictional hoops to explain why balances ought to be considered the amount of the fraud, rather than the usual definition of the amount of fraud - the amount of money taken by FTP from the victims.

My approach almost certainly exceeds the pot. So what? Your approach guarantees that only a small fraction of the potential pot will ever be paid out.

You went forward without ever seriously considered the alternative. You never even understood it. You went ahead without giving your membership an informed choice, and you certainly didn't do anything to educate them, or yourselves, about the possibilities of more players being eligible for more remission.

I regret that the effect of my attempts to bring understanding seems to be to cause you to entrench further in your inappropriate position.

You type and type and type in a rambling, excessively verbose way and there's no amount of typing possible to explain why losing players should get original deposits back when they were playing on a POKER site. Losing players legitimately lost their money on a legitimate poker site. Losing players lost money to other players at the table. Losing players lost money through rake. FTP not segrating the funds or continuing to accept deposits that weren't clearing doesn't change that. I know many of you think or wish it did. It doesn't.

If the games were fixed so that certain players always won or certain players always lost or the cards weren't random or many other possible scenarios, then maybe losing players would have a case. But, in this case, imo, they don't.

The facts of this fraud don't justify losing players or any players getting back anything aside from current account balances. So many of you only have a hammer and everything looks like a nail. There's many ways to commit fraud and there's many ways to deal with each possible fraud. Just because "fraud" was committed doesn't mean the fraud was a "ponzi scheme" nor does it mean everyone is entitled to money.

Imagine hypothetically they found a superuser on FTP, does that mean every person gets back original deposits? Why not? That's fraud. Hey, that's a ponzi scheme, too! Right? Because it's fraud and wrong doing and they are all the same thing and I'm not a lawyer but I play one on in this thread.

Are you suggesting that actual fraud victims who mistakenly think they are not victims are legally unentitled to compensation?

The best interests of poker in general would be to maximize the amount of remission paid, thereby maximizing the amount of money in the poker economy. The approach currently advocated by the PPA puts an artificial cap on remission payments, at between ~1/3 and ~1/5 of potential total remission, and disadvantages about 90% of people who played on FTP, relative to the approach I am suggesting.

This is self-contradictory. Only a few losing players have found their way into this thread, yet the vast majority of players are losing players - oh wait - according to you, most people who lose money at poker are not players. There is no evidence that "the overwhelmng majority" of all people who have played poker on FTP would prefer that remission be based on balances rather than on fraud losses. What is logical is that all players would prefer remission to be based on their own fraud losses. Remission based on just deposits would disadvantage winners. Remission based on just balances would disadvantage losers. There are far more losers than winners, yet I am not sggesting that remission should be based on deposits alone.

I think anybody who mischaracterises the position advocated by others, or deliberately puts forward false dichotomies, is a bit of a scumbag.

Why not lobby for having the money fraudulently taken from you by the site returned to you, and the money fraudulently taken from John by the site, which includes what he won, returned to John?

Then let me clarify that I am not advocating that remissions be based on deposts any more than I am advocating that remission be based on balances. Both would be unfair and inconsistent with the intent of remission. Remission should be based on fraud losses. In most cases these losses equal net deposits, and in the other cases these equal balances.

That's an intriguing argument, DTM, but the fact remains that the games were played. As an organization for poker, I think it's important that PPA adhere to the principle that the results at the table count. Most players do too, which is why no one (literally...PPA has not received a single email asking for this) is reaching out to PPA for help in weaseling out of their bets.

Agree. It's like if you were at a live casino and a dealer was fired for stealing chips and a guy who just busted says, "Oh, I'm entitled to all my money back, because this casino committed fraud" - one has nothing to do with the other.

You'd never convince DoJ that winners deserve their winning but losers should have their losses refunded. Rightly so IMO. The games were not fraudulent. Money was won and lost at the tables. For most of us, it's really as simple as that.

yet somehow I manage to maintain a much higher valid-content to word-count ratio than you do.

Players gave money to FTP, not to other players. FTP obtained that money through fraud. Players are entitled to be compensated for money they gave up to a fraud.

FTP stopped being a legitimate site when they started defrauding players. That doesn't mean the RNG was rigged. It means the supposed results of play were not being honoured by the movement of actual dollars, just notional dollars. The actual dollars were given to owners and friends.

If that were true, then winning players would have that money. They don't. FTP didn't give them the money that FTP had taken from the losing players. FTP gave it to their owners and lent it to their friends. In this manner, FTP defrauded winners of more than deposits.

Technically, only the winner of a pot pays rake - losers do not pay more than their bets, while wnners get less than the total of their own bets and the losers' bets. Rake is a charge for the provision of a certain sort of service. FTP did not provide all the services it claimed to provide. Since FTP misrepresented its services, the rake was not earned.

The fact of fraud justifies players being compensated for the amount of the fraud. The amount of a fraud is the net amount obtained by the fraudster from the victim, which in this particular fraud is usually different from the amount of the balance. The fact that FTP put on sham poker games (games whose supposed outcomes did not result in a transfer of actual money indirectly from loser to winner) does not deprive fraud victims of their right to claim the money they notionally lost in the sham games. Such claims by alleged losers do not deprive alleged winners of the right to claim what they notionally won.

and the knowledgible critics are giving you poor reviews. You have been consistently wrong ITT.

IANAL, and I don't pretend to be one on the internet. People who are not lawyers might mistake me for one, because of how I write and from my higher-than-average familiarity with a few aspects of the law. Real lawyers would almost certainly not make that mistake.