i say we take a discount ... 10-20% thats fair

LOVE YOU POKERSTARS

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KqqRPvM_Sw

This is speculative, but so are most statements itt, so:

A) IF the DOJ successfully gains lawful title to FTP's software either through a deal with FTP or the civil forefeiture suit

And

B) IF the DOJ decides to sell the software (and other assets of FTP) to some third party

And

C) IF the DOJ decides to view the players as victims of a fraud (rather that criminals engaged in illegal gaming activities),

Then

D) The DOJ could establish a restitution fund to return funds to the players who still have money locked on the site.

So, there are a lot of contingencies. And players would probably only get pennies on the dollar because FTP's assest probably won't cover the full balance of player funds. And the payout would probably be slow both because it is the government we're talking about and because FTP's accounting might make it hard to determine exactly how much everyone is owned. But, ultimately there is a scenario in which players would apply to the DOJ in order to get back some of the money they had on the site

Anyone considered the hassle of having to pay back players? both US and ROW? I can't really imagine the DoJ wanted to be involved in that. It makes more sense to me if the DoJ just says here you go PS, you figure this **** out. Which would be great since PS repayment would be infinitely faster then anything government related

I think you are making a fundamental mistake. The Travel act makes no declaration that gambling businesses are unlawful. They define "unlawful activity" for purposes of the Travel Act to be "any business enterprise involving gambling ... [and/or a bunch of other things] in violation of the laws of the State in which they are committed or of the United States". A business enterprise involving gambling not in violation of laws of a state or of the United States is not an unlawful activity under the Travel Act. It is the gambling that must be in violation of state law for the Travel Act to apply, not the business generally. A business enterprise involving gambling whose non-gambling activities are what violate a state law is not subject to the Travel Act (unless its violations involve liquor, narcotics, controlled substances or prostitution offences as a part of its business.)

Again this is not what the Act says. The act says that if you are a businees already breaking a law regarding gambling etc., then it is a further offence under the Travel Act to further those illegal acts through the interstate or international projection of violence, bribery etc. or promotion, carrying on, facilitation, of those original acts.

IOW it is not the "conspiring/bribing/circumventing laws" that makes the business an illegal act subject to the Travel Act. It is the gambling in violation of state law that makes the business an illegal act. The furtherance of this illegal act through violence, bribery or other trans-border furthering becomes the additional offence under the Travel Act.

This time I read the act before commenting, rather than just going on what you quoted. On its face it seems you might be right, if their gambling activity was illegal under a state law (we pretty well know it isn't illegal under US law) and the actvity occurred in that state. Then they could be in violation of the Travel act regarding using "the mail or any facility in interstate or foreign commerce" for promotion, facilitation or carrying on of the illegal activity which is a business involving gambling in violation of a state law.

The problem will be to show that the activity which constituted the violation of state law was a gambling activity and actually occurred in the state. The Stars MTD gets to the main point: where did the alleged acts occur. Stars maintains all actual gambling occured in the Isle of Man. FTP would likewise claim that all their gambling activity took place in the Channel Islands. The only acts that arguably took place in any US state were the monetary transactions between players and payment processors, and possibly between the processors and the sites. In re Mastecad would seem to support the notion that these acts did not constitute gambling, so it might be hard to show they are gambling activities in violation of state law.

I think it will be a losing tactic for the DoJ to suggest that the state laws apply to gambling that occurs overseas, but that they will try (wrongly, IMO) to prove that the gambling activity took place where the customer was located, not where the server was located. I think it will be bad for international relations if the US develops, on its own, a comprehensive legal doctrine that internet transactions take place at the site of each customer. I doubt that the US judiciary or executive branch much cares about this, and I suspect the legislative branch probably would support such an approach.

Sorry, but your idea just makes too damn much easy common sense!! They will have to take the dumbass route and confuse and **** up everything!

Serious question here.


Does anyone know of anyone that had a huge amount of money there whether its a ton of money or say not a lot but it was a huge amount compared to what they had on their bank account and then went and killed themselves?


I'm thinking what if theres a guy there with like 30k and then only had say 1000 in his bank account. I'm curuious if there was any story of this. I mean, i read about a guy that mentioned he had a friend that had like 50k on tilt yet had pretty much no money to his name.

I had 25k on there and 450$ in my bank account. I deposited 150$ at 19 yo and never had had over a thousand $ prior to playing poker. 25k was nothing for me though, I just saw it as buyins for a cards game. Reality wacked me in the face after :/

[QUOTE=i doesn't make much sense to be honest, If you didn't see it as real money and you never withdrew it from the site, therefore you should feel the same, it wasn't real money they were bluffing!

I think there is tons of them! I had ~50% of my net worth there when they shut down

no comment, i just have to say i love your location.

there are a few sad stories of american players. But it has a lot to do with not being able to play at all online too, not only the money stuck

This is pretty good but you missed some contingencies and some other possibilities.

First of all the DoJ would have to decide that the victims were either victims of the actual crime that led to the forfeitures or of a crime related to the crime that led to the forfeitures. The FTP assets would seem to be subject to forfeiture due to the original charges of UIGEA violation, bank fraud, and money laundering, and it is arguable that the players were not victims of these crimes. After all, Stars is accused of the same crimes but its players are not victims. FTP players would seem to be victims of the new fraud charges, and the FTP assets are not being forfeited due to those new fraud charges. So player's best hopes of getting proceeds of FTP forfeitures is by having the fraud declared to be related to the other crimes. Might happen.

The other possibility for players comes from the fact that new forfeiture allegations have been made in connection to the fraud charges, for assets belonging to Bitar, Ferguson, Furst and Lederer. If their motions to dismiss are not successful, it is possible that players could get remission from the proceeds of these other forfeitures.

I must not be making my point clear, PokerStars tacitly admitted that they were in violation of some State gambling laws (those with internet specific prohibitions), but they argue that those individual violations do not make their entire business unlawful and subject to forfeiture.

But under the Travel act, there would be no burden on the government to prove a violation in each State, literally one State gambling law violation (such as Indiana, where offering contests on chance on the internet is illegal, and games played with cards are contests of chance without exception) would be all they need to label the whole business unlawful, because it operated interstate.

Using the Travel Act as a RICO predicate, the government could even seek treble damages, whereas under the IGBA they would be limited to some estimation of the IGBA damages in only 10 States.

The Travel Act could also cover the interstate transfer of the client software, making PokerStars IGBA argument that their site doesn't actually operate within individual States irrelevant.

There may be some other reason the government chose not to use the Travel Act, but a fear of being able to establish a State gambling law violation can't be it, as the requirement is the same under the IGBA.

I bet the software itself is worth a couple billion easy!

Yea this is what got me the worst, at least for a while. I've also heard some horror stories, I'm aware of a guy that had I think he told me 80to90% of his networth on FTP, which was like mid to high 200ks. Also a good friend had literally like a couple hundred bucks to his name, and 20k on stars, the only site he played. I always tell him how good he ran there.

I have between 21k and 23k on FTP, don't remember exactly. For the greater part of the year I was really poor. Spent hours looking for pennies in my home to buy sigarettes.
5 weeks ago my luck changed. Played a tourney on PS with 2 frequent player points. 5 weeks later I have turned those 2 FPP in $25k. That's a chance of 1 out of 1.25 million.
I always thought that the chance of getting my money back from FTP is bigger than 50%. Turned out that my 2 FPP were more valuable than the 20+k on FTP.

That sounds a bit high. The software may be worh at least 100 million but not 2 bilion.

Turned out no one cares

I have more than 60k on FTP and only 1k in my bank account. Luckily I was able to cash out something to neteller and grinded my way back up on other sites. Had to take some risks and do aggressive BRM but I seem to be ok now. Small downswing and I would have been in big trouble though.

Cool story bro, seriously.

Are you in the US?

You calculate that yourself? The probability of turning 2 FPP into 25k?

I googled it to confirm but nothing came up.

PROVE IT, LIAR LIAR PANTS ON FIRE!

omg this is almost exactly my story word for word, only i happened to have around 2k at stars but was so turned off by poker and thought Tilt would pay within a few months that I decided to just wait and spend it all on life stuff and take some months off being lazy... if I had known Tilt would go tits up I'd have immediately started grinding that money (where idk merge wasn't open yet).

Uhhhh..... merge has been open since this happened? Awhile before actually.....