It's funny because I'm definitely the forgive and forget type of person, and playing with Chris all last WSOP didn't dredge up anything unpleasant in spite of the affect Black Friday had on me. I like you fine as poker fan and from our brief interactions, nor I can't fault anyone for sticking up for a friend.

This post frustrates me because you were just the face of a website ( Pokermania, there's a thread in Internet subforum ) that asked me to deposit 10k, and shortly after, closed shop keeping my deposit and the profits left in my account. You have a relationship with the owner, which is your business, but this guy faked that he was raided ( obviously false, and no record of this ) and used my money to offset losses from agents that owed him.

I don't give a **** if Chris plays or doesn't, and I thought that "apology" couldve been executed way more thoughtfully if it couldnt be done sooner for whatever reason. I think your post could potentially sway more impressionable readers because of your status on this forum, and I want to remind people that everybody's friendships and impressions of people are subjective and not indicative of their true character or motives.

I'm not advocating we chase Chris out with a torch or reply with more than an eye roll, but people's reaction to this video and how they feel about representatives of the company that ****ed them are warranted until more information is learned.

didn't Ferguson loan fulltilt $5mm right after black friday to keep the company running and taking rest of world deposits?

that is absolute bull **** and he should be shunned forever in the poker community

If he is innocent in all this why would his lawyer tell him to keep quiet for so long? or is it just a standard statute of limitations type of thing?

Couple years ago I asked Phil Gordon on twitter if he had seen Ferguson. He said he had not since BF. He was off somewhere doing something that's for sure.

I see at least 1 other realistic scenario.

3/ FTP was naively run & managed in a highly irresponsible manner. I've always had the impression that Bitar was a guy with little to no executive experience who got to be CEO of a company that grew bigger and faster than expected because he was friends with Chris Ferguson. Am I wrong?

I don't know anything about hot women feeding him fruit salad but I know he can throw a playing card through a carrot and for that reason I forgive him. FWIW, I never received my money back from Full Tilt but it's not a big deal. Best of luck at the WSOP this year Chris!

It means that people often have a hard time reconciling that their close friends are capable of doing horrible things. That's all.

Also, half those people have no business vouching for anyone's integrity or character.

You haven't been in the poker world long enough.

Unless I know someone personally, I am never loaning a poke player money. Worst idea in the world.

Goodbye credibility

He is my friend so he is innocent . At the very least and I mean very least , Ferguson and Lederer could have paid back the small amounts in good faith out of there pocket. I assume they didn't pay anyone because then they would have looked guilty. As far as I am concerned they had an obligation to come out and speak instantly even if it was through lawyers . The money is gone . They lined there offshore accounts with it. I am in the camp that Ferguson and lederer should be perma banned .

If I wanted to make life harder for Chris Ferguson, I'd probably look into rumors of sexual misconduct by Ray Bitar and see if I could find people willing to say that Ferguson knew about stuff and maybe even helped cover it up. In a world of Steve Wynn and #MeToo and Time's Up, finding evidence of that is the sort of thing that could end up making his life worse.

I look forward to seeing who releases a book about this first. Any guesses/lines?


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Because he's a psychopath?

Chris should be playing poker for cigarettes in jail!

What’s the story about the hot women and fruit salad? I don’t think I know that one

You are entitled to your opinion, with that said, I would put a lot more trust into the younger/newer generation (i.e. galfond) to run a poker site then see a lot of these old timers who have dirty history's. I certainly do not respect or particularly care for many of the players you mentioned but you are more then welcome to keep thinking these former figures in the poker spotlight are somehow relevant and trustworthy despite history showing they are not. Hey joey, pappiii, time to fire some shots.


Fossilman? Why should anyone care about this guy, all I know is he won the main event long time ago and has been out of spot light. Only threads I remember was one a few years back, where he got caught with egg on his face being a john while his wife and kid are at home thinking hes playing cards. Apparently a poster (top of page) is accusing him of promoting a company that ran with players money. O yeah, what a class act. He has my 100% respect. .


Hellmuth is clearly a delusional idiot egomaniac that acts like he is seven years old. Glad to see his book was a colossal failure and if you haven't read it --- be happy and save your money. He has plenty of unanswered questions with his dealings with UB and look how he acts in polk/ingram podcast when asked about specific incidents related to UB. He gets winded up and defensive, its clear he is guilty in many ways. Hellmuth is also close friends with Russ Hamilton (biggest scumbag in world cheated players out of over 20+ million and got away scotch free) and still golfs with him nearly every week in Summerlin las vegas at TPC.

Mixe Sexton? Indifferent afaik. Doyle? Seems like a poker legend and my favorite one on your list.

Let's get some more old school idiots to come out and defend 'character' rather than talk about the merits of what happened with the FTP case

thx for this post. i wasn't aware that Greg Raymer was involved with an online poker site that ripped off their customers.

Read the actual thread before you assume Raymer is at all tarnished by the Pokermania closure.

Talk about being at the right place at the right time, being full on scum-bag/thief, having 'friends' that support you and your ways AND having the balls to go through with it all. Then have massive success at said scams, act like nothing has happened for years while continuing on with life unaffected, better off than all the people scammed. 7+ years later, saying you wish you could have done something about it in some 40 second dead sensed speech and everything is then OK?

OK..... 100% forgiven.

I'm literally surprised how this guy is even walking around.

Whatever happened, total criminal behavior , or total incompetence as business men, in the end , many thousands of folks lost lots of money for years before being made whole and some never. At the same time maybe a couple dozen or less got away with Gazillions and still have it. The haters have plenty of reason to rant! These FTP millionaires should just shut up and count their money in private like most have done actually.

This x 100! A bigtime player such as white magic vouches for said poker hero, and we should be thankfully for their lifetime of giving back to the community.

I thought exactly this for a good year or so after I got my money. Just figured okay, everyone got their money back, it wasn't the best manner in which that could happen (i.e. see Srsly's analogy about insurance above), but at least people were remunerated. This saga is over, right?

Then there was some article saying something like "94 percent of players have gotten their money back." It was made out to be a positive thing (which overall, it is) but the glass-half-empty side of me couldn't help but think about the other $30 million or whatever had never been repaid. The GCG remissions thread on 2+2 is a reminder that there are still some frustrated parties out there.

As for this Ferguson video...

I work in the PR business, so intellectually, I do get the whole apology statement thing. Doing one is far better than not ever doing one. There literally is no time at which Ferguson could have apologized and received any significant forgiveness from most of the poker community. If he had done this exactly a year ago, before playing in the WSOP, it wouldn't have sat much better with most of us.

That said, an apology without contrition is hardly an apology. (This is why I hate the "released statement" thing that is far too prevalent in the PR world.) If he had sat in front of the camera and spoke extemporaneously, this would have at least been somewhat easier to swallow. And for all I know, Ferguson does feel actual remorse but is simply not eloquent enough to express it. Doesn't change the fact that I hate this kind of statement.

These apology statements are almost the equivalent of "I'm just here so I don't get fined," like the person is simply fulfilling some sort of social contractual obligation. Again, Ferguson might actually be genuinely repentant. But by reading a scripted statement off a makeshift prompter, he might as well be saying "I'm just saying I'm sorry because I've been advised to do so."

Bingo. Always respected Greg, but this is troublesome. The ponzi scheme that enriched Judas and stole from the players is criminal, yet no one did time.
And the claim all were made whole is and will never true. Screw Judas, and the WSOP should introduce Lucifer Ferguson urinal cakes for 2018.

None of them defending it will ever understand it was wrong.

The claim all were made whole doesn't matter when you didn't dole anything out for it, standard lawyering bull****. The only reason we were made whole was simply because before it got new owners stars decided to do the poker community a massive favor. (even if it was for a business reason, I don't know it was +EV to do that)

This is the most infuriating part, imo:

CF: "I deeply regret not being able to prevent Black Friday from happening"

On BF, the US Gov exposed the fact that Full Tilt had only ~$60mill while player accounts totaled over $300mill. This wasn't the US Governments fault. It wasn't anyone's fault except FTP.

Surely Ferguson understands this, right? Yet he keeps trying to act as if somehow the US Government is to blame for all that missing money. In fact, there's a good chance a lot more money would of been stolen if it weren't for black friday.

Raymer, Mason, Hellmuth, Doyle are all clearly being duped by Ferguson.