I will never forgive them. Even though they never stole any money from me directly, they are a part of the reason why online poker is dying. If you ruin the whole ecosystem by scamming on the biggest site in existence, you can ruin the whole business area and they definitely did that to an extent.

Agreed! GTO Wizard will also destroy what is left of online poker. And there really is not much left at all compared to the mid 2000s Boom.

You should probably be blaming all of the various governments. They are the ones who shut everything down

Can’t say they had to in order to save us from FTP “Ponzi”. Because they also “saved” us from PokerStars which clearly no one needed saving from them. And it’s not even 100% certain FTP wouldn’t still be operating today in US had the government not stepped in.

No.

Yeah I agree, I think the fact that online poker is banned in USA is a total joke of this planet. The nation that invented the game, where gambling is not a taboo in the general population doesn't allow you to play cards online for money. Just ridic.

Governments in general are super stupid when it comes to any online regulations tbh.

Considering our puritanical roots and a completely dysfunctional government the current state of online poker (as well as every other issue that is a problem today) is a pretty logical outcome. Until people start realizing that neither party cares about anything other than enriching themselves and preserving the status quo we will continue our steady slide towards being a footnote in history.

When the "Rise and Fall of the United States" is written the author can devote a chapter to how we never owned l learned from failures like prohibition and the war on drugs that were triggered because the government decided people needed protection from themselves and they knew best.

Some point to ftp as an example of why government needed to insert itself, but if the government got out of the way the industry could regulate itself and free market forces would drive players to play on platforms that they believe to be the most reputable.

As the recent home game scandal involving Airball, Wesley, Mars, etc has demonstrated, poker inherently draws certain profiles including scammers. Scams during the early days were inevitable, but over time the profits that can be made by being one of a couple dominant global platforms would outweigh the gains from short-term grift and online poker would thrive.

Poker being a magnet for awful personalities with the worst values who enjoy exploiting people is not new. Its literally the basis for the game.
MMA likewise draws a 'certain type' with their own motives. So does astronomy, so does racing cars, etc.

If anyone is in the poker world and needed 'recent events' to teach them this, they're either Day 1 new around here, or lacking the observational skills needed to make accurate observations.
If you dropped someone who understood the poker world into a random city and tasked them with getting someone kneecapped, they know for certain they could probably go to the nearest poker room and find a willing/able party faster than any place else, other than maybe the smoking section outside a rehab clinic. Poker has always been seedy on its surface.

https://youtu.be/hnNmJ7lKCm0?t=148

Poker players are trash, da'hling... and always have been.

This is overall true. When I told my father I was playing poker online during to 2003-2006 Boom he said "Why? You don't want to be like those bums." Which is why it's so amazingly incredible that poker players were elevated to celebrity status during the mid 2000 poker boom.

Preaching to the choir. I have met a few people I consider part of the poker community who I consider decent humans with good intentions: however, I would not willingly associate outside of poker with the vast majority of people I encounter at the tables (including many that I enjoyed playing with) or in the broader poker community.

I consider myself a for profit rec player, but 99.9% of my income comes from full-time employment. My experience observing others is that things go tits up once poker is your primary (or worse only) source of income. I have seen and heard just unreal justifications for terrible, unethical, and even illegal behavior. Not saying that is exclusively from full-time players, but my experience is the desperation that one feels when they are on the bad side of variance (or more likely when they have fooled themselves into thinking they are good enough to make a living playing) and cannot pay their bills or are a gambling addicts / degens results in them compromising whatever integrity they had in ways they would never have imagined.

More disgusting to me is when the scam is not out of need, but rather to support a lifestyle they perceive they are entitled to. Poker is certainly not alone in this regard as we have seen innumerable examples of fraud in other industries, but my experience is the proportions are way worse among the poker community.

How many of us would have a positive reaction if one of our children, niece/nephew, friend, etc told us they were going to pursue poker as a profession? We know our own.

This could go in the Matusow thread but also works here




Mike Matusow, Phil Ivey, and a few others should go to bed every night and thank the stars that FTP was run the way it was run. People like Phil Ivey got paid just a hair under a million a month. Damn near all the top players had near unlimited borrowing power from the company. Because of the ease of access to money the Phil Ivey of 2007 plays totally different from the one we see on streams today. Good poker is boring to watch, but its what you have to do when you don't have a bank behind you with endless credit and thats the Phil Ivey of today. Same goes with Mike and a ton of other players who were sponsored by FTP.

Mike will never admit it, but Howard and Chris made him. Without their reckless running of a company they would be like a lot of the pros from other sites that we forget about. Howard, Chris, FTP...they made those players. They ought to light a candle to Howard and Chris everynight for letting them take the fall and help them make the most money possible during a gold rush.

Yes it is easy to play with money you steal from other people. Of course it means you are dishonest piece of scum but it does allow a more aggressive style.

Matusow taking credit for the Poker Boom. LOL! Of course he never mentions Moneymaker. And without Full Tilt none of those pros would have made so much money. Everyone you see on this cover got most of their fame and money from Full Tilt. And does anybody think Clonie Gowen would have reached the level of fame she did without Full Tilt. She was the Star of their 26 page insert in Maxim Magazine magazine back in 2006 as you can see below

No!

Close thread pls

Do I forgive them? Yeah, sure.

Do I trust them?

Nope, not one bit.

Needed to donate that money somewhere.

I realize it might create a tax headache. At very very minimum, should have given money away on a net tax basis i.e. They be same as before they got money

I do remembere Chris got legal advice that "giving it back?" was all very difficult/risky

Poker boom would have happened no matter who was on tv...

I think the list of "special" poker tv players is very short... Phil, Phil and daniel. And I dislike 2 of them

Give back what money? Everyone got their money back already.

yeah

No both were pieces of **** and like someone else said have never spoken about what happened.

I'm surprised they haven't tried to cash in writing a book yet.

Hence the idea of donating it to some philanthropic cause. The "giving it back" advice, if it happened, probably took place prior to PokerStars' picking up the tab.

You've really hit a bullseye here on a phenomenon that is totally real, but not talked about that much; the 'lifestyle creep' of the poker world and how it can compromise otherwise upright people, or at least people who started out that way... for the exact reasons you said.

Once you decide to do it for a living, you're on a path where the integrity hazards get bigger, faster. You're around types of people who are very comfortable doing things you wouldn't want your kids doing, you're now immersed in a culture who prioritizes 'values' that are often times against the norms of broader society (or, just not what it takes to live a good, well-satisfied life). The pressures to drift into the poker-adjacent 'hustles' or gray-area 'opportunities' present themselves at every turn and when you're down huge with a depleted bankroll that's making you consider a 9-5, or worse, moving back in with mom, suddenly, that guy who makes you the offer to drive a carload of vape cartridges from Colorado to North Dakota might be on to something. Or the business owner who can't cash his chips at the case because of an IRS lien, but he's willing to give you 10% to do it for him...

I completely 'get' what you're saying, it demonstrates you truly have been in the 'world' and were paying attention.

I don't think the government is dysfunctional in this regard and I don't think it has anything to do with morality. The government operates for its interests, and UIEGA came about because big casino lobbyists wanted it to protect their big business, and the politicians facilitated that for them and got perks in return. They only used moral arguments, as they usually do, to mask their true intentions and motivations. In that sense, the government worked perfectly for the people it serves. You or I are, unfortunately, not one of the people it serves.

As far as Lederer and Ferguson, they're pretty common examples of what happens in pretty much all, but most especially unregulated, environments with no accountability. Smart, powerful ruthless people win at the average, moral, disempowered people's expense. How can you forgive a snake? He just does what he does.

You misspelled "House Speaker Tom DeLay had been hustling tribal casino owners for huge campaign contributions, and needed to do something to demonstrate that their money wasn't being wasted." It was exactly this hustle that got DeLay indicted and convicted of money laundering, costing him his political career (although the conviction was later overturned).

Never forgive, never forget.

Nope