I wanted to play with the pros
what the ****
I thought I could trust them
No such luck

The professor built twenty houses
Ivey borrowed millions for craps
Now I remember all the shady **** they did
How did we have such a memory lapse?

From the AGCC regs:

Submissions to the DCMS Select Committee closed tail end of June, a date hasn't been set for the Committee meeting. There's the news hacking currently and they will possibly defer till a clearer picture of the FTP issue happens.

MPs' select committees have the formal power to compel witnesses to attend: specifically to "send for persons, papers and records". If they feel unsatisfied with the level of co-operation then white-list may turn to blacklist for the AGCC but we shall see as the facts become apparent.

Exactly, the AGCC now have the new requirement to legislate against the actions of foreign governments.

Most expected US to say block FTP / PS. China (?) managed to block google. Could have prosecuted their own citizens for skirting block or and made federal offence for owners to trade in their country. Rather than make the bank transactions associated with gambling illegal and charge with money laundering and fraud. If you buy an illegal gun, the government doesn't charge the bank that you drew the $$ out the ATM from.

Most probably couldn't predict DOJ indicting and freezing accounts. New legislation is required to protect against this possibility and it isn't just say AGCC, or any regulator, actually holding the players money themselves.

Do you fancy another government indicting who doesn't recognise players money?

Can't they be charged for taking dividends/bonuses prior to BF and in particular during the 2-year period the DOJ/payment processor problems occurred without covering the missing funds ?

I can see you're frustrated but you need to remind yourself of the way these things work.

FTP and the players see AGCC as the poker police. Mid investigation we cannot expect the police to come into chat rooms or indeed answer any questions relating to an ongoing case. Neither can we expect the police to stop every crime before it happens.

The licence was suspended and the ability for FTP to accept new deposits was removed by the regulator. This is the regulator protecting existing and future players from depositing to a site that no longer meets requirements.

You, and others either believe they did this too early, or too late. AGCC would be doing really well if they suspended the licence at 'exactly the right time' eh! You make assumptions that FTP provided all and any information the minute the regulator asked for it.

We also assume that FTP wouldn't have tried to sue AGCC if they removed the licence pre BF / just after BF. FTP were cashing out players and still operating way beyond BF as i'm sure you know - we'd all be crying 'there's no need to remove the licence FFS if they were still trading as usual!

I reckon so, see my earlier posts.

The 'lawyer' you reply to is viewing this as 'theft by a company' rather than any law that governs the way companies are operated i.e. Company Law. You can prosecute McDonalds for serving you a burger made of turd, but Ronald McDonald (owner) isn't getting a criminal record for it, the company would get and pay the fine. If you try to prosecute Ronald, he say that McDOnalds sold you the burger.

The TOS are completely irrelevant to the way you operate a company and it's finances under UK Company Law.

It's gonna be difficult proving that FTP stole your money, but proving the company paid out too much in divis in light of possibility of mass US cashout cause grey area, simple - Charge successful, directors have to pay back the divis.

Offences under UK Company Law = directors chargeable, not shareholders. Paying Shareholders dividends and the amount of said dividend is a decision made by directors.

There are a few entities based in Ireland and Guernsey which all have laws based on / copied from UK Company Law.

My West Nook will be making all the payments to shareholders - name suggests it's the hiding place, the secluded or sheltered place located in the west of the world

The frustrating part for me is that regulators claim to regulate and then are found to have not regulated. They should be looking over their shoulders and not turnign a blind eye.

Prevention (as someone previously pointed out) is better than cure or shutting the stable door before the horse has bolted.

This means that there are not adequate safeguards in place at present and new ones have to be brought in.

All gaming companies IMO should have in house inspectors who can demand to see anything they want whenever they want and they should issue regular updates to their jurisdictions on the basic essentials with regard to compliance.

Can't agree more.
If I were a new player, browsed FTP's website, read t&c, looked down the bottom of the page, said oh regulated by AGCC nice, researched AGCC's requirements and regulations etc, found out they were white-listed blah blah...
I think I'd be feeling pretty confident that FTP would never be able to spend my money because the AGCC are condoning them, and being a white-listed regulatory body I should trust the AGCC will do what they say they will do with regards to regulating FTP.
Therefore if I deposit because FTP is licensed and regulated by a (respected?) commission and they assure me they "ARE" regulating FTP as they are supposed to, but fail in their job, it seems to me I should be blaming them.

They took their license for something they should have known about a long time before.. Either FTP doctored their accounts or the AGCC failed miserably.
Can only be one or the other

I disagree, I think if the 1st is true, the 2nd has to be true...

Both AGCC and FTP have to fail miserably for this HUGE mess to happen.

So we got 193 pages with nothing but speculation and nothing concrete. great work guys

On reflection yes I agree with you.
You can only conclude then that the AGCC failed miserably no matter what

Why don't you lodge a complaint rather than moan on here....AGCC have an established procedure here . I cannot find anywhere where they state they will respond personally (i.e. non standard form) to a deluge of email questioning the most basic of their practices or asking questions even they don't know the answers to.

AGCC should know the intricate financial dealings of the 52 licence holders. Would be nice but back in the real world...

Either FTP doctored their accounts or the AGCC failed miserably
agree completely, but don't rule out that they simply kept asking for updates which weren't provided by FTP once they knew they fell foul of the rules. The time period you see here is how long it takes a decent regulator to remove a licence using means that don't leave you open to a complaint / suit from your licencee

Yip, bit like poker, incomplete info but forming a picture.

Also bit like the title of the thread - a discussion

We also found out Ray eats Lobster and gives head a lot.

Yip, whatever they'd have done, someone would be concluding that it was wrong (licence too early, licence too late, check players balances hourly, what is a check of player balances, did the AGCC not visit the vault and see the cash for real, they relied on a statement, OMG

So yes, the regulator will fail miserably, especially if you do not know what the regulator has seen or done

Glad to hear the NGC guarantees the multi billion dollar business of Vegas - wow, that is news

very much true. I feel so sad every time come to this thread seeing lots of idle hands. Heart breaking story.

I only have 29 pages

Feel free to clarify anything that hasn't already been touched up on...


Not to beat a dead horse with a stick but with regard to the earlier conversation about the FTP owners taking the money without the intent to permanently deprive the players I think there's a pretty big misunderstanding of what that phrase actually means. In this case it isn't like the owners of Full Tilt accidentally took money out of the wrong bank account and returned it upon discovering their error. If that was the case it's obvious there was no intent to permanently deprive anybody of anything. However, the owners of Full Tilt paid themselves dividends with money that clearly wasn't theirs. There was no express or implied permission from the players to borrow the money. It doesn't matter what they used the dividends for and it sure as heck isn't good enough for them to say "we were going to pay it back later". If that excuse was all it took to avoid a theft charge it would be easy for anybody that ever stole anything to say they were going to return it at a later date to avoid penalty. I can't ride off with someone else's bike and when stopped by the police tell them I was just borrowing it. Borrowing without permission either express or implied is theft.

People are not to be held criminally accountable for honest mistakes (ie picking up the wrong suitcase at the airport). What the owners of Full Tilt did with player's money was far from an honest mistake.

Just to clarify a couple of points.

I am not a lawyer and am not practising in law. I know you said 'lawyer' as you are unsure of my background, but I just wanted to clarify.

The info you have above is correct - but offences under UK Company Law are a civil matter and not in anyway related to criminal law, which is what was being discussed - whether there was "a crime" committed.

Sry for being a tad abrupt. I probably got you confused with some of the other claiming to be lawyers.

If offences are proved under Company Law, this establishes the crime by company and hence the directors running it. All directors then charged under criminal law i.e company law proves the fraud, the directors are then charged with the criminal offence of allowing / instigating the fraud.

If a company has say 50 directors, not all of them may be involved in the fraud. The company is involved so fined, but criminal investigation then done to find which directors are responsible.

If the company is found to be guilty of dividend fraud, it's simply a case of all that years (and subsequent years if proved) being returned to company. And then directors being charged under criminal law.

Well yeah obviously they could have regulated better and they deserve all the hate they get for that, but given that they didn't they had to shut them down once they knew the license was violated.

FWIW I think Harry has exactly the right approach to pressure the AGCC by challenging their fitness to hold white status. This is the best way of ensuring that the players are not the only people with their future payoffs impacted by AGCC actions/inactions.

As a rough guess there is probably $15-30m of UK money locked up of the $320m total. Alerting the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport to the fact that a large sum of money appears to have been put at risk by the loose regulatory framework set up under the previous government is a good way of getting them to review the White List. Particularly so if you emphasise that there are large and sensitive organisations who remain covered by the AGCC (The National Lottery has a license with them according to the AGCC website). That way any inaction becomes very much the current governments concern.

Copying in a newspaper like the Observer who covered Full Tilt's shutdown, and would also be keen on an anti offshoring slant is another possibility, as well as the AGCC itself.

This is not to accuse the AGCC of any impropriety, merely to say that in the event of a regulatory failure (which our inability to access funds for the last 2.5 months clearly is), it is only right and proper to reconsider the level of safeguarding required.

A war with Iran/North Korea/Antigua was looking like a prospect a while ago - them bad boys don't come cheap. Troops, helicopters, F117s, burgers 'n; root beer.

And there's also the possibility of banker-bail-out part II. And didn't Obama just give the US free health care for the poor?

Plenty of fun stuff for Governments to spend their cash on.

Edit: FT owners, I assume the cash will fund more lobster, plastic surgery and handgun training.

Mmmmk - alienating an organisation that still has leverage over the object of your hatred (FT paid $400K in fees - I read that as wanting to stay in the Alderney's good books) - sound tactic?

Maybe lobby instead for them to abandon discretionary co-mingling and adopt total fund separation. I admit that doesn't get your cash back in this case [let the flaming commence!] but it will protect future players (including those playing on the 52 casinos or whatever it was).

Can't the American players put any kind of pressure to the DOJ to release any funds still held, perhaps under the condition that they will be returned to reimburse solely US players? It doesn't seem right the DOJ is trying to hold on to funds that at this point could be used to repay players.
In addition, if FPT were sold it wouldn't seem right to fine the new owners for FTP's past violations and let Ray/etc to walk away.
Without a DOJ fine and part of the American players balance covered by the DOJ and the current owners FTP could still be sold.
Can't the American players protest more?

Solely pay US players? The ******ed politics of the "great" US is the reason we are in this mess. How about players who live in countries where it is LEGAL yet have our funds frozen by a foreign ****ing government?

Man I hate the US.

They must not owe the Euro player base too much money - I can't see them owing 150 million or so to the citizens of Europe and not end up on an Interpol list.

I bet the amount owed to non-US players is very very small relative to US. They can stiff the US for a big number and blame the DOJ, probably not so much with the rest of the planet because they have no one to blame - i.e. no other story makes sense for non-US players other than the company was looted and fleeced by its management.