This reporting by Haley Hintze links the Poker Players Alliance and its executive director to lobbying on behalf of a payment processor that was at the center of the DOJ crackdown on online poker. I think it would be good to see some discussion here on the implications of this reporting, possibly including a response from the PPA.

If someone more qualified than me can post a synopsis of the five-part post on flushdraw.com, that might help facilitate discussion.

I don't think this could be the case

wow, 5 parts, and all at once? i am interested in this and paid attention to the Chad Elie case and subsequent news. i will give a read through but we'll see if i am up to a synopsis. at least i don't have to wait a few months to complete...a la another "journalist" i'm thinking of. haley always does good work imo.

go home, PPA. you're drunk

I expect a better OP from you, OP.

Care to share how it should have been better?

PS had everyone's money FTP/UB/AP did not... The latter are all guilty of massive theft in the least and who knows where we would be today if not for the DOJ.

BF sucked, but at least now I know I have a shot of getting my money back. Before Ray could have just used it all on lobster.

"If word of this gets out, Crazy Clown Airlines will be a laughing stock."

ok, very interesting but not much new info from my pov. i do have some thoughts/opinions for what they are worth but i also would like to see a response from Rich 1st and also re-read some of his prior comments on the matter.

one distinction, or really no distinction that i think can and should be made is that while johnson/elite debit were leading the "lobbying" effort on behalf of Sunfirst(and the processing op), but really ftp/stars...so would the PPA/John/Rich although indirectly, on behalf of ftp/stars which at the time is where OUR money was "safe and secure"....as far as 90% of us knew which i would include the PPA in.

these allegations as far as i can tell remain in the spring of 2010 and not much thereafter.

“PPA is not in the tank for anyone. That being said, Druff said no one can start an effective poker group without outside donations, so it seems to be we have the best of both worlds — a subsidized advocacy effort and a player organization that is not in the tank for anyone but the players.”

The e-mails and lobbying history of the PPA on behalf of the SunFirst processing operation appear to contradict that assertion.

from the last part of the article. i started a thread on PPA ties to black friday and was blasted.

Pretty irresponsible "journalism".

The FTC says iWorks is cheating people, allegedly scamming consumers out of $275 million by billing them online for products and services they didn't order.

A federal judge in Las Vegas freezes Johnson's assets, and appoints a receiver to take control of iWorks and 60 other companies operated by Jeremy Johnson and nine associates.

Two of those companies happen to be the payment processors for FTP and Stars.

I can't see how PPA lobbying efforts had anything to do with the bust.

I don't know bazaro, if SunFirst had been able to continue to process payments without a problem, do you think it would've been a good thing or bad thing?

If no lobbying was done for SunFirst do you think black friday would never have happened?

Depending on your answer to those two questions, you have your opinion. I personally don't think BF would have just not happened if it weren't for SunFirst bank, and I also feel that if successful, better processing/steps towards regulation would've been a good thing for players.

I'm not in love with the article. It spends a lot of time talking about the Johnson bribery allegations. All he has is "I took out a million dollar cashiers check and made it out to some media company?" If that's all he has it's about equal to posting Scott Matasow statements in a news post. If the author has seen or heard something more substantial than what is posted, then this is obviously a huge story to follow. I haven't seen any indication of that yet.

At the end of the day, I'm not sure why everyone is now trying to paint the PPA out as such bad people. Everyone knew where the money came from, everybody knew that the government specifically told banks and other businesses that they viewed online poker processing as illegal. It was all good when we were yanking money from fish, but now that it's over, the PPA are left to take the fall? Why not hate PokerStars then? If the PPA uses PS money then isn't PS really the one controlling the strings? I mean you wouldn't hate that FairPlay group would you? You'd hate on the AGA for the actions of FairPlay unless employees were going rogue or something (and they'd be tossed fast).

I guess a lot of it has something to do with people advocating a state by state strategy. Of course those people look great now, but it would've been irresponsible to take away efforts to have at least some influence on some player provisions and specifics (things casinos and gov't don't care as much about but players do) as the PPA appeared to have in the proposed federal bills. Without that effort, you have the AGA running things completely, plus the PPA wasn't rolled to handle realistic state by state efforts prior to the wire act reversal (which seemed to spur enough support from several states to make it a worthwhile endeavor).

Everyone will be results oriented though and hate failures and praise success.

And just so I'm not called a PPA kissass or something, I still think Pappas P5s quote was stupid of him to say, and I didn't like the backing from the PPA on that statement (or the opinions of the other people involved in the PPA).

Basically the PPA did help contrinbute to Black Friday. The biggest problem is they continued to Lobby a pipe dream.

They wanted the US government to legalize offshore, unregulated poker. When what they should have been doing is trying to get the sites to leave the shadows and come to the US and be regulated in the US. Problem was Howard couldn't go on stealing then so they just went along with the "offshore will last forever" dream.

How did that work out for ya?

i doubt that this is the case OP

I think it is a stretch. Sure, mismanagement or poor tactics may have lead to a very dubious association, but online poker is the wild west and to get anything done you are clearly going to be associated with the unsavory.

If the PPA were responsible for Black Friday it would be because their lack of weight in the political world allowed the DOJ to sense weakness and pounce. I wouldn't think this is the case at all, because as we see with marijuana, the DOJ does whatever it wants despite the will of the people and President's edicts.

The problem the PPA faces now is having no access to money, which means it is virtually impotent. Their biggest boosters don't have much to gain now by associating with them, and not having money means people are hesitant to support such an organization. I think the PPA to be useful for anything needs a purge of those in charge now, and a re-branding attempt...but of course this also takes money.

I know people in American politics and they all think along the same lines about the PPA. They know what I do, they know that it is BS to worry about something as American and universally embraced as poker, but there is nothing to be gained right now by either association with poker lobbyist groups, nor siding publicly with the issue. At best they will quietly support it under the guise of defending other freedoms.

I think in the next 15 years we will see total legalization of marijuana in the USA, and online poker will take even longer. Marijuana legalization has orders of magnitude more support, makes more sense, and yet it has been a complete uphill battle with the DOJ.

Don't forget that there are also lobbying groups that don't want to see regulated, legal, online poker in the US. For instance the tribally owned casinos. It's not for any other reason than money. It has nothing to do with what is right and fair.

Indeed. Online gaming has been the only issue Las Vegas and the Indian casinos have agreed on in history.

If anyone remembers the bitter campaign in California waged by Las Vegas to shoot down the Indian casino's effort to have Las Vegas style slot machines in the late 90s...Las Vegas lost, but it was extremely costly for both sides and took multiple referendums.

Still looking for some commentary from the PPA on this whole situation.

If this was all in the best interest of players, surely the PPA can come out and give us a rational explanation for the whole thing.

It wasn't for the best interest of the players. It was in the best interest of Howard Lederer. They signed on to an idea that would have the US government legalizing offshore poker with no changes in how they were regulated or policed.

This of course was insane. Until someone actually tried to make that happen we were nowhere. Which was why Black Friday happened. No we are getting piecemeal legislation from the states and Lederer is not in jail. Not to mention how many players are out thousands of dollars.

It's a joke really. It should have never happened.

PokerStars and Full Tilt were online poker in the eyes of most of the PPA membership, ~95% of PPA membership came from freeroll entries conducted on those sites, so establishing the legality of those sites accepting deposits from US players was equivalent to 'benefiting the legalization of online poker' - the stated mission of the PPA.

When the UIGEA was passed the PPA lobbied the Treasury Department to exclude 'skill games' such as poker from the enforcement regulations, then lobbied further to have the enforcement of the published regulations delayed until 2010 when they couldn't get a safe-harbor for poker.

In the Summer of 2009, when another processor had it's funds seized, the PPA came out publicly arguing that peer-to-peer poker player's money was not subject to the IGBA (the statue under which it was seized), and even filed an amicus brief on behalf of that processor prior to him taking a plead bargain.

The PPA never made it a secret that, from the time the UIGEA was passed, that one of their primary goals was to get poker processing excluded from UIGEA prohibitions, whether it was through legislation, lobbying, litigating or negotiating with State AG's, it was a priority for both the sites and the players.

Did it blow up in their face and possibly expedite or perhaps even cause Black Friday? It would appear so, the DOJ would likely have been happy to continue playing the cat n' mouse game of seizing poker funds where they could and actually building cases to put people in prison - let's not forget the government was running a covert processor at this time in MD to gather more evidence.

Getting mixed up with this Johnson character and his FDIC/FCC investigation almost assuredly forced the DOJ's hand to bring down indictments when it did, but hindsight is always 20/20, if the PPA had been successful at convincing the Utah AG that 'poker isn't gambling' (and therefore immune to the UIGEA), then PokerStars and FTP might have continued transparent processing right up until Congress was forced to pass new legislation.

Was it idiotic? It was Flying Stupidity, to argue that poker isn't gambling because skill prevails in the long run is mind numbingly idiotic, as the prizes (pots) in cash poker 'contests' aren't awarded over 'the long run', they are awarded every single hand, even most tournament poker 'contests' aren't deep enough to be a valid determination of skill, and even if they were, paying a fee to enter a contest of skill falls under the definition of gambling in many States.

But when the guys writing the checks (Scheinberg, Lederer, Ferguson) actually believe it, and their lawyers offer up statistical analysis, case history and previous AG opinions to support it, what choice did the PPA have but to take that preposterous idea and run with it?

If it ended up hurting the players in the long run, it was entirely by accident, not a scam or anything 'shady', so there is no scandal to see here.

You mean it is your opinion that this is what happened. Because while they lobbied for federal legislation, I feel reasonably certain in saying they never expected things to stay business as usual if it happened. I remember a couple years ago in 2009 or 2010 when one bill was in the process of going through committee and had a small chance of getting to a floor vote, PPA had been actively involved in promoting it and it had bad actor clauses for blacking out anyone in violation of the UIGEA (which would have inc FTP and PS for certain) for a minimum of 18months and possibly longer. So to think they were actively doing what you say is being rather disingenuous.

You have way to much rage and hate inside which you need to release. Go roll one and get a hooker.

On the one hand, I think the PPA leadership needs to comment, but on the other I think a number of people in this thread have already convicted them so what's the point of commenting.

I have often been at odds with the strategies or decisions of the PPA. However, it was universally known that PPA lobbying, wherever, was funded by indirect contributions by PokerStars and FTP thru the IGC. This is not news.

The series seems a real stretch to blame the tail, rather than the dog wagging it. (Personally, my belief is that Back Friday was triggered by someone (reportedly FTP) dropping a dime on Tzvetikof, placing him into Federal hands.

Could Black Friday have been avoided ? Absolutely. Miscoding financial transactions provided a huge advantage in a competitive market. (If anyone here thinks it began with PStars or FTP, they might read the prospectus issued by Party Gaming in its IPO.) Poker players and FTP and Stars could have avoided Black Friday by not miscoding transactions or lieing to banks about processing.

Go back and read the hundreds of threads on 2+2 where US players complain about delays and difficulty in depositing on this site or that site. The market rewarded fast processing, the processing crossed the line into miscoding to meet that demand.

Nah, the PPA did not "foster" Black Friday any more than a tail wags a dog. The PPA did not pass any laws, did not cause the creation of a Federal Solution strategy; it did generally attempt to implement lobbying strategiesas a players' voice, not create them. It certainly did not "foster" its contributors' payment processing choices.

(Interesting reading though.)