And if the payment processors hadn't committed bank fraud by trying to mask gaming transfers as purchases of "golf clubs", "magazine subscriptions", and the like, DOJ would not have gone after them.

Circular reasoning FTL.

Go blame Bill Frist.

Personally I feel that in this case the blame lies with all the owners. I give sponsered pros who were on a salary/some other deal a pass when it comes to stealing player funds. Full on owners, even if only a small %, are the ones players should be directing their anger at imo - and I'd like to know who these are. We can make good guesses at the moment (I would GUESS at Lederer, Ferguson, Ivey, Juanda, Harman, Gordon, Lindgren, Seidel, Bloch, Cunningham and David Grey). But they are just guesses and I'd like to know who exactly to direct anger at.

nobody cares dude, give it a rest. Stars had this same stuff happen to them and they paid players. the Stars owners didnt steal all the money. FTP owners stole the money so stop acting like they didnt. Why you keep whining about whos fault it really is, is a waste of time and thread space. youre last question is just dumb and shows your ignorance on the whole subject.

I think if you own a % of a company, no matter how small, and that company is doing criminal things then you can be held partially accountable. Claiming you didnt know your company was stealing is not an excuse.

If you commit a crime, claiming you didnt know it was an offence does not hold up in court.

Agreed. Ownership stake doesn't reveal who was making business decisions, though.

I have a feeling it's just going to be everyone blaming everyone else or just everyone outright denying blame. Or, as DF has stated, everyone trying to take credit for saving the company from some other persons or agencies actions.

Hopefully one day the truth comes out.

Apparently you do care if you're placing blame. My point is that if you were a shareholder of FTP would you consider the seizure of processor funds to be your profits being seized or player balances? Would you consider phantom deposits to be your profits? Would you consider loans to be coming out of your profits? If you add all the outstanding cash up it may not be as cut and dry as you're trying to make it. People seem to like to make it simple and just blame the owners but it's not a simple situation. Letting the DOJ off the hook is ridiculous when they're a huge part of the problem.

I'm not trying to claim that FTP was run as well as PS. However, PS was also a more profitable company in the first place. It's possible they've made plenty of loans to players that we don't know the first thing about, because they had enough cash on hand to weather the storm.

If you were only talking about the last few months before BF, then I wuold agree with you, but you referred to past history. All those years that "seizures" were made you were made whole with real money.

For example: if a seizure for $15M happened in 2009, and your withdrawal was in that batch, and the check bounced, you were made whole and received that withdrawal on your next request. It was real money. The company was still solvent, had enough to cover player balances (even though not segregated) and that payment came from profit, it was not phantom. This was probably the case until at least mid 2010. Then the "phantom echecks" saga began, processors were hard to find, and eventually impossible to find, and withdrawals started to really slow down.

When the echeck problem began, I think its true that they expected to make it up, until it snowballed. But clearly that was not the reason that the companies (all of them, not just FTP) never (with a rare exception) made claims for those seized funds. It likely was because they would have been somewhat in the same boat as we are now for making such claims. They would have had to litigate vs the laws that allowed the seizures to begin with and still sustain their claims to the ownership. That means, at the very least, discovery to a huge degree, which no poker site was ever willing to voluntarily submit to. That $15M? I suppose the thinking was it was worth it to eat that vs the alternative that outs everything and everyone.

I will say this about the ownership structure. If it was as diffuse as we surmise it was, it explains why the owners didn't give their money back. They were facing a problem of collective action, under which some could have been willing to return the money, but they didn't trust or weren't sure that the other owners wouldn't do the same. So if you don't trust the fellow next to you to give his share, you start thinking, "well, I am not gonna be the sucker in this situation and pay for the other guys" so no one does it.

Or alternatively and perhaps more likely a narrow circle had made the decisions that had led FTP to its ruin and if they were to ask the owners to give some of their dividends back, they would have to reveal a lot of their own wrong-doing which in turn would make their position in the company untenable.

That's why they preferred trying to get an outside infusion of cash to the company, until external events overtook them.

At the end of the day, I think the likeliest scenario is one of a perfect storm of incompetence and miscalculation rather than deliberate and conscious malfeasance.

Yes, we're talking about standing, we're talking about being a real party in interest. When the DOJ objects to players attempt to claim against the funds, it is saying the funds are now the property of DOJ and the players have no justiciable interest in them; that's what standing is about. DOJ's theory is the funds were FTP funds because of the lack of any constructive trust or fiduciary duty. That is the same DOJ that in the Amended complaint at paragraphs 100 to 104, pp. 63 to 70, makes its entire claim against FTP center on FTP's promises to keep player funds in "secure" and "segregated" accounts.

A wrongdoer can't benefit from his wrongdoing but apparently DOJ has no qualm about being the beneficiary of FTP's wrongdoing. Lawyers make arguments that ignore and contradict some vital part of their case all the time but it should be pointed out when they do that. The court chose to ignore the contradiction in DOJ's positions but that doesn't make them go away. Judges decisions are right because the judge says so but they may not be just.

of course it comes out of FTP profits. its the cost of business. they were illegally running their business. when you get fined (processors getting seized) its a cost to your business, its part of the risk of doing shady business. its pretty cut and dry. until you get a clue theres no need to respond to you anymore.

It still comes nowhere near the 300m. Remember they accepted 127m of phantom deposits they couldn't collect on.

I find it hard to be angry at anyone who was not making or did not have the authority to make business decisions. I'm upset that they were distributed player funds which we were told were kept in segregated accounts. But I'm upset at the decision makers for doing that, not at the passive owners.

I may become upset as passive owners if they refuse to return wrongfully disbursed profits to help right a wrong (in the event we don't get paid). Even Durrrr who wasn't an owner has offered to do this, I'm sure he profited far less than many of these people. However, I understand them waiting to see how it plays out before stepping forward to do this.

That would make every stockholder in the world a criminal.

Yes! Throw all those former Enron and Worldcom shareholders in jail!

Not disagreeing with you one bit sir.

Btw, back in the US for good or just for WSOP?

Site was owned by degen poker players, they did a std poker play; trick others into giving their $. I just wish they would tell us we're not getting paid and get over with it....

to trick, trap, delud

http://www.pokerolymp.com/articles/s...e#.T-H1PWdZ6Wj

Link from Kevmath on twitter about some funds being unlocked by DOJ to pay off balances owed to companies (not player funds).

Getting fatigued. Just wish this would end.

I know this is a complicated deal, but seems odd that if all parties are working 7 days a week that it would take so long. Hope progress is being made.

If that is true, looks like a big news... like things are moving forward in some direction I guess.

Back for good. I liked life in Italy, but didn't like the taxes. I'm very happy to be back in Las Vegas and playing poker daily.

I didn't say, and should have, that I understand that the real bad guys were at FTP. I just think that players are a real party in interest with regard to the seized funds.

I also just re-read the judges decision and my comment is that it is a decision searching for reasons rather than a reasoned decision. Very poorly done. I have said before that I was involved, as an attorney, in sorting out the implosion of a large real estate investment trust; we tracked down funds and had constructive trusts imposed, in contested actions, in all sorts of situations that this ruling would say were wrong.

What many non-lawyers don't realize is that generally there are enough varied decisions floating around to allow a judge to quote (cite) law to support whatever decison he/she wants to make.

BTW, DF I really think you do a great job and appreciate your efforts.

Enough of this, I'm off to play poker for the day.

I agree I wish there was end soon. For good or for bad.

DF dismissed this a few pages back. Who do you trust more?

Durrr, I think you are a honest guy. The vast majority don't blame you for anything. You were paid for your services. You had some epic battles on FTP, you were worth your money. But that greedy buddy of yours, Phil Ivey (may he rot in hell), that is a whole different story. That guy already had many, many, many millions without FTP. Won many, many millions on FTP.
Untill now there is now problem. But 40 million in dividends payed out of our deposits. Millions in loans, payed out of our deposits ( I mean, wtf, loaning money if you already have 100 million). And he is just sitting on that money while we are starving. Maybe legally he is not a thief, but morally he is.
I am broke. If I buy something at a store and the girl gives $50 in change too much. Knowing she has to pay shortages out of her own pocket, I give it back. No matter how much I can use that $50 right now. But that greedy sob Ivey, who probably has $100 million, which makes it much easier to do the right thing, keeps that $40+ million, that is ours, leaving thousands and thousands broke. Like I said, he is a filthy thief.

(BTW, Is this really Durrr?, anyway doesn't matter, as long as this story keeps getting told.)

4/15/11 - Can't log into FTP. Where's my MFin money?

6/20/12 - Can't log into FTP. Where's my MFin money?

the article on pokerolymp.com has been removed.