The DoJ charged fraud of two sorts: fraudulently inducing players to make deposits which were not secure and fraudulently inducing players to not withdraw funds that were not secure. Either they have to treat the operation as a fraud from the moment it started or from some specified date. While chosing a date is somewhat arbitary, they can probably use the date of the first fraudulent inducement, which is noted in the charging document.

If the remission is based on losses due to fraud and those losses are the funds deposited after the specified date plus the funds already on deposit at the specified date, then both players get $12K, Except if claims exceed funds available, payments will be prorated by the amount of money available divided by the all verified claims.

I think it will make sense to the DoJ, but might not make sense to some poker players. Remission paid on balances does not make sense to me. If a player was fraudulently induced to deposit $10K and never successfuly made a withdrawl, then he lost $10k due to the fraud. That he notionally "lost" half of it playing poker, and notionally lost the other half when FTP failed to pay his withdrawl request, is not relevent. FTP took ownership of all $10K at the moment of the deposit, and the money wasn't there to cover the losses at the table. There is no basis to presume that without the fraud he would play on the site or deposit only the amount he supposedy lost at the tables. OTOH, there is reason to believe that his deposit was lost before he got to the tables, so it couldn't be lost at the tables - it was already lost at the moment of deposit.

Sure one would hope so. The DoJ is compensating US players for losses due to an offence, but Stars was not compensating the non-US players for their losses due to an offence. Stars was assuming FTP's debts to those players. The basis of the payment is different, so the basis for calculating the amunt of payment could be different.

It is not clear that "the DOJ made stars pay back balances to ROW". Such payment is a provision of the settlement agreement, but it seems just as likely that Stars wanted to put that in as the DoJ forced them to accept it. In any event, Stars is paying a debt, not proving compensation for losses due to an offence. It is not necessarily the case that the losses due to the crime were the same amount as the outstanding debt. Just because deposits > balances it does not necessarily follow that the DoJ will pay only balances. If the DoJ was trying to maximize government income, they'd just not pay any remission. They are trying to do what is legal, not what is cheap or easy.
I could say the same thing about remission based on balances. Once FTP began fraudulently inducing deposits, the only way a player's balance equals the amount of which he was defrauded is if he breaks even in play from the date of the begining of the fraud.

There are implementation problems, but what are the legal problems?

It is only "blindingly obvious" if you equate losses due to fraud with unpaid debt, and if you accept the results of games as legitimate even when the money wasn't there to back the presumed stakes and when the games were being offered illegally (according to the DoJ). "Simple" I will grant you. Does it look to you like the DoJ is doing this in a simple way?

As it is in any remission claim.

What I wonder is.....

Is there even one single person who has thousands (hundreds?) of posts and an older account...

One legitimate 2+2 contributor, someone people recognize as worth at least a little something..

Who thinks balances vs. deposits is even a legitimate question?

I don't even care about my money on there, you people are just pathetic.

The criminal charges aren't relevant to the remission from civil forfeiture, remission from civil forfeiture is available to those who were victim of the offense giving rise to the forfeiture, but since SDNY accepted a forfeiture agreement without any admission of an offense that would give rise to the forfeitures, the 'rulebook' has already been thrown out of the window.

SDNY could do anything they want going forward, including not pay anyone since no one can claim to have been a victim of 'no admission of wrongdoing', they could also cook up some preposterous scheme to repay depositors, or they could simply remit based on the allegation in the second amended (civil) complaint; 'Theft of Player Funds'.

All of those are 'possible', leave it up to poker players reading the thread to calculate which is the most likely, but they were alleged to have paid themselves dividends from funds that were supposed to have been segregated, that lack of segregation didn't cause the loss of a losing player's deposit.

im thinking about starting a petition to bring back the old FTP thread.

it's clear to me that we are sliding back into uncertainty with regard to a final resolution regarding this.

as such, i propose that the old FTP thread be revived.

or just lock this until a processor is selected

I wonder if you have any money on ftp when black Friday came??? WHO FAULT WAS THAT GENIUS.

You really, really need to stop posting your "legal" opinions. You do not have one single clue about the law. First, FTP, HL, CF, RF were NEVER charged with a crime. It was alleged in the second amended complaint that there were violations of civil statutes that amounted to fraud. The complaint alleged that the monies seized in rem were directly attributable to the fraud as alleged in the complaint. The settlement agreements allowed the parties to dispose of the cases for money without FTP (ET AL) admitting any personal "wrongdoing" for the offenses charged. It does not state anywhere in the agreements that there was no fraud, because clearly there was. It does not state anywhere in the agreements that any of the parties involved are innocent of any wrong doing. The settlements merely allows the defendant parties to pay fines and make forfeitures to dispose of the case without admitting fault for the offenses. In exchange the defendants withdrew their claims against the in rem forfeitures and paid other civil fines. This is typical in almost EVERY SINGLE CIVIL FRAUD CASE THAT SETTLES. Settlements like this do not make the underlying allegation any less true than alleged in the complaint.

Your claim that the lack of an admission by a specific person to the wrongdoing makes as though the wrongdoing did not happen is beyond ridiculous. If someone working in a bank embezzles customer money, but is never specifically identified does that mean there was no embezzlement? No loss? Does it mean there are no victims? If subsequent to the embezzlement the bank is charged with some sort of civil culpability in the embezzlement and agrees to settle the case for money without admitting liability does that mean there was no embezzlement? No victims? No loss? If they pay money to settle the case and some or all of the money is designated in the settlement agreement to be used to repay the bank's customers do you really think the government can do "whatever they want" with the money?

The settlements in this case also make it clear they do not in any way reflect on the merits of the governments case. This is important language because it means that despite the settlement the government still can claim the offenses alleged within did occur. The settlements are also, all of them, specific in language stating that all the parties agree there are VICTIMS OF THE OFFENSES ALLEGED IN THE ACTIONS and that those victims WILL HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO FILE PETITIONS with the DOJ. Since a settlement agreement is a binding legal contract upon all the parties involved these settlements bind the DOJ to allowing "victims" to file petition for remissions against the forfeited monies. The DOJ can NOT just do "anything they want going forward" as you claim.

Get a clue before you post BS designed only to make people here more concerned and worried than they already are.

For the 4,085th time, after all that has been said and done by the DOJ, if the sentient observer has learned anything during the last 11 months of this process, it's that what is "blindingly obvious" and "simple" to people like you does not factor at all into what the DOJ is doing.

yea is this ever going to happened? sigh : \

Do the math is just a big troll desperately trying to get his losses back. Notice the people that support his idea are the people with no respect or credibility in the poker community. Most of them are lifetime losers in poker, and a sore loser in general. It's just ignorant in so many ways to think that they will pay back deposits instead of balances. I feel stupid just discussing it, all the reasons why have been previously stated in this thread. Yet do the math insists on writing the same tired arguments multiple times in the same thread. The real sad thing is Do the Math continues to check on this horrific thread DAILY and probably doesn't even have an account balance. Now that's pathetic

Right, dude.

They are FOLLOWING THEIR DEFINED PROCESS, which is what the government DOES.

Some of us hoped they might follow it a little quicker, but they've done nothing remotely strange or controversial or illogical. They are just bureaucrats, doing what bureaucrats do.

They aren't idiots or irrational, and they aren't going to make up some bizarre, unworkable repayment plan because some Internet morons write walls of text about it.

They are going to pay back what FTP owed its players, which was account BALANCES.

Thanks for your thoughts department of justice

thanks for your thoughts of his thoughts of the department of justice

But but but...how would I get updates then???

Inside source telling me they are having trouble with the printer (teaser GIF):

Full vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSK1D...layer_embedded

Are we there yet?

Yes because if you are respected or credible in the poker community, you are also respected or credible in the legal interpretation community.

This is wrong,just log onto fulltilt.com and request account history.

is this done through the software, or on the website? I tried getting accoutn history from support and they said no

What I did was download fulltilt.com:

http://www.fulltiltpoker.com/download-poker

login and request account history through the requests tab,it worked easy for me.

Through the software.

All true, but irrelevent to what I posted. I never said anything about criminal charges in the post you replied to. I did once refer to the underlying fraud as a crime, so perhaps that is what confused you. (I'll try to refer to the fraud as an offence in the future, just for you.) However I thrice referred to the payment of conmpensation for losses due to an offence, not due to a crime.

1938ford has more than adequately dealt with the rest of your post.

Unfortunately, this is the best thing this thread has produced in weeks.

When are Dwan and Galfond going to make good on their "guarantee" to pay back players? They each promised (lol) to contribute 1MM....I want my money guys!!

Big? Well certainly above average height and weight.

Troll? Well I do have some scandinavian heritage.

Losses? What would those be? I'm not American, so not affected by remission. I never had an account on FTP. I also have had no account on any US-facing site since the passage of the UIGEA.

I'm a lifetime winner both live and online. I think I've only had two losing years lifetime, and I've probably been playing - and keeping records - longer than you've been alive. I attribute my success to careful game selection and sticking to stakes within my limited abilities, rather than any particular skill at playing the game.

I'm not sure what skill in poker and a respected reputation in poker do for one's ability to understand the law. Sure, people who have a vested interest in the outcome from one theory are more likely to support it. However people who have no vested interest in either theory (such as me), might be less biased.

I never said that I think they will pay back deposits. I have repeatedly said I think remission based on balances is more likely, but there remains a possibility that remission will be based on deposits. I have said that I do not understand how the argument for balance-remission makes legal sense, but I am quite willing to admit this could just be due to a shortcoming of my understanding of relevent US law. From a legal point of view, I think they should remit deposits and I think they might remit deposits, but, for reasons I do not understand, they probably will not.

Well, perhaps you should feel stupid. Why not try stating a reasoned argument, with reference to the relevent law and regulations? Can you do that? Very few of the reasons posted by others ITT have been legal arguments, and many of them have been made by people who are ignorant of the law and regulations.

I must have missed the part where the DoJ said that the losses due to fraud were the unrefunded account balances.