this is revisionist history

first, americans would have gotten their money back from remission. so 50% of us would already be rolling in the dough.

then the row, would have gotten their money back eventually. yes it would have sucked, and they would have to play it out as a bonus, but its' better than nothing. And it will be better than where we'll be if pstars falls through too.

every day that goes by that we don't hear anything, i get more and more worried that we're screwed.

This may be true, but the GBT deal falling through has nothing to do with Stars AFAIK.

The release from GBT said that they couldn't come to terms with the DOJ over player repayment, and that basically they would have had to put more money than they were willing to do.

The PokerStars and GBT deals have nothing to do with each other. Everybody will get screwed if both fail, but it seems like the PS deal will be better for all players in terms of getting the FTP balances back (in full, without having to play them through as a bonus).

I think indirectly it does. It's clear that when they had this "deal" in place, they had to be working on it for at least a little while before GBT dropped out. Pokerstars probably came on the scene right around the time the exclusivity period ended (march 15/16th), and proceded to strike a better deal and undercut gbt in the eyes of the DOJ.

If pokerstars didn't come around, GBT would have been the only option, and it would have been foolish to turn them down.

Yeah, if it actually happens.

what i can't really fathom, is what they could be talking/negotiating about for SO long.

I can understand that topics such as limbo funds, phantom deposits, and methods of repayment are going to be hot topics... but how long can they discuss these topics?

Also, I wonder that if the deal did "fall through" and Stars doesn't want to buy FTP would we know about it? Or would bitar and co not say a word and hopelessly look for another investor while we continue to speculate / stay in the dark here?

Maybe they just ****ed up the deal and have no intention of buying?.

I guess that's possible, but it seems unlikely (to me) that Stars would have "undercut" another deal if they weren't going to follow through. I think the theories about them doing so in order to hammer down the final nail in the FTP coffin are absurd, IMO. FTP is already dead. We're talking about resurrecting a corpse, not saving a patient on life-support.

Obviously PS has motivation to get a deal done, especially if it wipes out the charges they face, but they also know the negative publicity if the deal falls through is potentially brutal.

Plus, I doubt any of us know what exactly the DOJ stance is/was. If they had pre-determined that ANY deal to buy FTP had to include full immediate player repayment, and if GBT would never have been willing to do that, then they spent a couple of months trying to negotiate but ultimately couldn't come to an agreement. PS waiting in the wings might have had nothing to do with it.

I just don't think there's really any evidence that PS undercut anything, although I guess it's possible. High level business maneuvering isn't really my area of expertise.

I'm confident that there is a partial connection. DOJ had the fortitude to stand their ground on the player repayment issue because they also had pokerstars negotiating. With Stars as a backup plan, they felt they could hold out for more from GBT and if GBT didn't budge, oh well, screw them, go with plan B.

If Stars had not also been negotiating, DOJ's alternative wouldn't have been there and their bargaining position much weaker. This would have made them much more likely to budge in GBT's direction on player repayments.

GBT even said that this was a last minute thing that they weren't expecting to be an issue and blamed Stars for their failures. I think this is what they meant, that if stars wasn't in the picture, DOJ would have caved on repayments, but since stars was there, DOJ held firm and GBT was forced out.

I'm sure they did say that. Whether that's true or not, who knows.

Given the LOL emails that GBT reportedly sent out to FTP employees, my impression is that they were more greedy/shady than we originally thought, but that's must my read.

PS's involvement may have made the DOJ more firm in their resolve, but maybe not. I doubt we'll ever know for sure.

Wow, that's like 417 times the amount that you were worried on April 16th, 2011.

I think you meant 834 times.

Anyone else think other poker sites may know something about the FTP situation that we dont? The decision has been made to bring rakeback back as of June 1st 2012 on carbon poker, and rumour has it lock poker has a 200% deposit bonus also set for june the 1st.....
Why do they want our business so much on june 1st?
Makes ya think.....Well it made me think anyway.

if you read this forum you may find that lock poker is not paying up the players!

lock smells like the next full tilt!

full tilt also threw out a deposit bonus in Mai when they were already withholding withdrawals!

No, because any agreement will be announced by DOJ, PS, FTP, or their attorneys, in some fashion.

But there will be lots of spam poker chinamoronic sites that will claim to know. If you want to sign up for them in order to receive completely unreliable and unsourced "information", have at it.

*wonders what would happen if ROW stood united and boycott online poker till U.S. and Full Tilt situations were taken care of...

Can't wait for the first site to post something like "Play 500 raked hands and get access to our exclusive statement about the FTP situation!"

Might as well wonder what you'd do if every grain of sand on the beach turned into a bundle of $100 bills. No possible way to organize something like that.

i tried to open a new thread forcing this idea - it was immediately deleted

guess 2+2 is making too much money as an affiliate to tolerate anything supporting this idea!

if only Oprah had a Full Tilt account....

This is about money not about whats fair. The DoJ and Stars have no incentive or reason to see FT players repaid or the site relaunched. Stars can choose to settle with the DoJ without any FT involvement or they may choose court which would certainly take many, many years to reach a conclusion, after the various appeals. It may actually be cheaper for Stars to do this rather than settle.

Also Tapie had all but resurrected the corpse up until 30 or so days ago. FT was Stars only real competitor and having them back in the market would have implications for their revenue in terms of player base and rake. Has Stars increased rake or decreased rakeback benefits since FT dropped out? Rhetorical question obviously.

Stars have powerful financial incentive to see the demise of FT and it would be worthwhile for them to break a few eggs to achieve this.

It would be an amazing coincidence that Stars only became seriously interested in FT [as described by the bloggers] on, or about, the day the Tapie deal was terminated.

I have no problem with Stars doing this, its business, and and if they are outplaying their competitors good on them well done. I'll keep playing there as it is the best option for me not because I think the owners are good guys.

Its is also likely that Stars are not interested at all and the rumors were fabrications that have taken on a life of their own. Any of the bloggers have any comments about their sources??

No. That is really all about Lock leaving Merge (effective June 1) and buying Cake network and fighting to get as many players as possible over to the newly branded Revolution network.

Ya personally my guess is that it just came down to PokerStars offering more money than GBT... so DoJ came with the full repayment demand which they expected would be a deal-breaker. GBT may have rightfully found this unjust which might explain that crazy email Laurent Tapie sent, since people will go to irrational lengths to seek revenge when they feel they have been wronged.

+1

GBT had several months of exclusivity in their negotiations with DOJ. That they couldn't seal the deal in that large window, when no other company could even make an offer, is entirely on them, and the rank amateurish way they presumed they could bully DOJ into accepting a pennies-on-the-dollar offer.

For DOJ to sign off on any purchase of FTP assets that requires any accountholders (ROW or otherwise) to earn their own money back by playing, is a tacit endorsement by DOJ of online poker, and that was just not going to happen under any circumstance.