It's clear without going to court - ORLY? : you seem to have the inside track on this. Can you tell us more?

My apologies. Given your blanket statements I had assumed that you meant that the licensing jurisdictions should never have allowed their licensees to offer US real money play based on the conclusion that offering real money play in the US was itself illegal. Instead it now appears that you are basing your claims solely on the allegation that the sites committed Bank Fraud.

Whether the sites were actually complicit in the alleged Bank Fraud is, indeed, a matter of fact for proof at trial. But if we confine this discussion to Bank Fraud, a lot of the concerns you express are then misplaced: I find it hard to understand how the regulatory agencies were to become aware of, much less police and sanction, the sites' commission of Bank Fraud; also, I do not see how the sites engaging ONLY in bank fraud could put segregated player money at risk.

There is no legal doubt that if the player transactions were otherwise legal, the transactions themselves (and thus the players funds) are not what US law allows to be forfeited/frozen. If the transactions were otherwise legal but conducted fraudulently, US forfeiture law stipulates that only the amount of profit made from the fraud is subject to forfeiture (in this case that is the amount that is the difference between what was paid for the transaction and the amount the transaction would have cost if there had been no fraud). See 18 U.S.C. § 981's definition of "proceeds" - sub paragraphs (a) and (b).

Skallagrim

Thats a bummer:-(

I have them in pdf file...any suggestions on how I can attach them?

I wills ee if I can copy and paste to word document and then to here.

Although I tend to agree with the statement US players have the trump card of the DoJ with lots of frozen assets. However, I also would like to believe that if FTP stiffed everyone that the DoJ would play nice and give us back what they have seized but more than likely those greedy government ****s will just spend it on someone's reelection campaign.

Fair enough. Yes I should have said ibas uk, but what I meant was the regulatory framework allowed for disputes to be resolved reasonably and in good time... Which clearly hasn't happened with various online poker sites' scandals.

Edit - some of those bookies I have had issues with have been licensed with the AGCC.

I don't fully understand the reason that Jeff Ifrah is asking to step down as FTP's lawyer. He says it will cost his firm to much money to litigate the lawsuit? Wouldn't that just be covered by FTP, assuming they could afford to do so? Assuming they can not afford to do so then the Todd Terry et al law suit potentially is causing FTP to spend lots of money defending it?

Thank god I never had any significant amount of money at full tilt. Biggest was around 50$.

This is looking worse day by day. If even lawyers are starting to abandon them then things are likely very grim indeed.

How can anybody know which money is USA and which is ROW? Looks like FTP put it all in one pot and left it for the bad guys( DOJ) to grab! ROW and USA have a moral right to recover equally here, but how the hell can you get it back from DOJ, FTP and all the" suits" with anything but winning some kind of CA suit and that could be years and ghastly lawyer fee. Maybe the lawyers of 2+2 have insight that's much clearer here!

Maybe he or his firm is worried they will not get paid.

I really don't understand the whole Ifrah situation at all. It made no sense.

It would not be very good for his firm's rep that they dropped the case if that was the reason. I'm guessing it's a different reason.

He needs to give a reason why he is dropping the case.

He has a choice of whether he can give the real reason or something that will merely satisfy the court.

Yes, it certainly brings joy to me every day as I watch King Howard preaching to his minions.

He truly is a Master of the Poker Universe.

I took it to mean that Ifrah's time and effort spent on FTP is taking him away from other cases which he may have been assigned to (or committed to handle) prior to taking FTP's case.

Maybe he took the job with the intent of handling contract negotiations between FTP and a potential investor and has now been required to answer complaints re: more and more civil suits brought by players and doesn't have the resources or time to do so. There's a million variations of similarities to this that I could come up with.

I think its a huge leap that he is withdrawing because FTP can't pay him.

Right, that is what I was thinking. But that is obv bad news for FTP's players if the lead attorney doesn't think they have enough money to defend themselves.

Also wonder why the players named wouldn't have enough to defend themselves too? And I wonder to what extent the TT et al suit + any others is causing FTP to burn through cash, and is it player cash?

Will someone who already has a rapport with Jeff e-mail him and ask if he will discuss why he's stepping down in further detail?

Lawyers don't step aside in the middle of a case because "things look bad". Especially when defending a corporation with the ability to pay large fees.

Jeff stepped aside either because he has doubts about getting paid or he breached some ethical/confidentiality grounds by posting here.

Or else FT simply fired him and will hire someone else.

On a side note...a trainer over here Barney Curley landed a massive touch with several bookmakers in multiple (parlay) bets involving horses he trained and won a few million.

Some relatives of his had the same bets with a firm called Betfred and they won ukp 800k.

However Betfared REFUSED to pay them as it was taken by their offshore internet/international division licenced in Gibralter.

ALL the other bookmakers paid up and reckoned Betfred should too.

However on complaining to Gibralter that licensing authority sided with Betfred and allowed them to renege on the bets.

Disgraceful and disgusting and this is the company that now own the UK tote too.

Unfortunately and at the risk of boring you all to tears this kind of behaviour is all too prevelant by all the licensing jurisdictions that I have ever come across to date.

Moral of the story is this: YOU CANNOT TRUST LICENSING AUTHORITIES as they have a conflict of interests. Basically they dont want to bite the hand that feeds them.

Ifrah was not Perry Mason or Matlock. They were in it for the money , as they should be, they get paid for defending whoever for whatever. IDK why they quit for sure , but you seem to have a theory, or know something. If so why not share it if you are free to?

One question - why remove the licence if you're in cahoots?

Going bust whilst you await for payment from whatever may be left at end of case ain't great for your company either.

I'm sure companies are able to assess which risks they wanna take.


You do realise that the owners have been unable to GIVE away this 'large' corporation you speak of? Do you fancy taking a two year employment contract with it, or betting your company you will get paid some day?

Any disputes I have had have certainly not involved 800k lol.

I take your point regarding licensing authorities. As a UK citizen I just find it disappointing that licensing bodies registered in UK protectorates can't really be trusted...

Perhaps Ivey will continue to play poker but now he is just 300mil in makeup??

if you stand up for these guys you might put yourself and your family in the same position where these "red pros" are right now, living in fear and hiding.

i think jeff just decided to choose life.

No, I am simply using my common knowledge that reputation for a law firm is very important in attracting clients, and I feel like dropping a case because "we might not get paid!" when you've been representing them for weeks/months does not do good for his rep.

You don't accept if you think the case is too risky, you don't get in and get out when you realise you ran bad in picking it.

Clearly if these so called regulators were real regulatory agencies that cared about their licensee's,players, and their reputation as a regulator they wouldn't have allowed licensees to offer play to those in the USA.

Real regulators wouldn't have took the risk and allowed licensees to offer play to US residents. Regardless of the any legal grey area. These regulators just don't care whether the sites operate legally or not, they exist to skirt the law.

Real regulators would have ways to audit the books of the sites, make sure bank accounts are funded and secure and have an effective way to enforce rules/regulations.

This was not really possible with the way these remote gaming regulators operate. Regulators are in one jurisdiction,the sites in another, servers located someplace else, bank accounts spread all over the world, and the principles living(hiding) someplace else.

The problem with the IOM,AGCC,etc is they can't be effective regulators even if they wanted the way they're set up. Most of these regulators are just as shady as sites like FTP and UB.

I agree that this could be the case if it's really an extreme situation, I just think it's stupid to conclude it's guaranteed that that is the reason.