I was just speaking with a friend in The USA and he assures me they are still talking. Unfortunately he was just going to bed so I will have to wait until tomorrow to find out how likely any deal my or may not be to go through.

As for the AGCC licence being a major stipulation.....you shouldnt trust any statements that come from persons that have their own agendas.

The numbers used by me were from NoahSD, DOJ and WSJ.

I wager that between bwin and Pokerstars, both already have 95% of the FTP database anyway.

It's not like ROW players had just one poker account pre BF.

And for the miniscule amount of players that only had an FTP account; it's highly unlikely those guys have not registered with Pokerstars / Party since BF.

plz keep us up to date if you dont mind. much appreciated.

True, i was merely suggesting a max price tag... there is no way a name on the database is worth more than that, maybe I did not get my point accross too well.

Bitar. Alone in his office. Eating lobster and sobbing gently.


How much NET profit do you think they made after that $500m? After rakeback, rent, licences, payroll (staff) taxes, advertising, lobster, craps addictions, main event buy ins etc etc.

Also, from what i've heard, $500m is an optimistic figure, a more conservative estimate would be much lower.

You are making assertions from an uninformed position and shouting them very loudly. Take a step back, try and learn a few of the boring details of how businesses work, and re-evaluate the situation.

Ask more questions about the things you don't know about - as opposed to sounding very convincing and loud on a subject you know very little about.

Originally Posted by NoahSD:

Rake is gross profit, not net profit. Deposit and withdrawal fees end up costing a solid third of rake or so all by themselves for US customers. Affiliates and rakeback cost 35% (lowered to 30% at some point) of rake for affiliated players. Running the ireland office cost like $175M/year. Plus FTP spent a boatload on advertising and pros etc

Please share what numbers your expert estimates are based on.

Rake is not gross profit.

If players weren't already aware why they couldn't play on FTP, and TBH from what I've heard anecdotally from others -most just fired up Google as people do these days. They certainly do know now once the amended civil complaint & 'Ponz scheme' press release and to a lesser extent AGCC revocation hit all major news outlets e.t.c

In the UK the Telegraph, FT newspapers have continued the story today.

FWIW I seem to recall reading in the FT (or London Financial Times as you foreigners call it ) suggest that Orinic Limited was intended for the Swiss region.


re: players returning to a new site

You must remember how immediately post BF, although there was some caution and a dip at first players continued to play despite having option to play elsewhere and numbers recovered (see Pokerscout).

Although the situation has changed since the amendments to the civil action I expect a similar thing to happen but with an initial loss of some more players.

If a few of the other sites are waiting to offer good deals when a new FTP opens then it should be clear without the presence of a new FTP they wouldn't be offering these deals else they would have already made these promotions. Therefore multi-site ROW players would be wise to support a new FTP with some of their play or these fabulous promotions from other sites wouldn't be available without the new FTP presence

It should also be considered a new owner means it's kind of a new site especially once after stablilisation they start making their own mark and changes -so it's entirely possible there will be some migration from other sites to 'Le nouveau FTP'.

It remains to be seen what will actually happen, just risk and reward - if there was guaranteed no risk there'd be no reward for the investor LDO.

I am trying to politely tell you that you are pulling numbers out of your arse, and you do not fully understand the concept of revenue vs profit.

The profit poker sites make is way, way lower than the rake they generate. This is because of the costs involved in generating that rake. I can't believe this needs to be explained to you.

I have no problem with you not understanding how business works - there is a problem however when you take that limited knowledge and apply it to this situation, and shout loudly from the rooftops to anyone who will listen.

I only single you out because I haven't figured out whether you're connected to FTP in some indirect way, or are just really naive know-it-all that doesn't really know anything.

So since fulltilt had 4 licenses each one held by a different company and only 3 was revoked there is still a chance to sell and get back online?

Read this, vladc, and anyone else who hasn't done so yet.

Nexus, did you study finance in London?

Stop treating me like a little kid and DON'T PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH!!!!!
You disagreed with my figures before you had seen them!
The 500M is a -conservative- estimate from Forbes in 2010, not plugged anywhere.

As you can see from my math I assume they make 27.5% net profit on rake income.
If you disagree with that please use numbers to explain why and not one liners without content.

The only room I feel connected to you might have heard of; the Gutshot. Lots of financial guys there, let's continue this "debate" on their forum.

They did not make 27.5% NET profit on rake generated. This is where your entire calculation - and argument - falls down.

Everything that follows is just an erroneous tangent you're going on chasing the tail of incorrect information.

And I studied Finance in Cambridge, not London

There was a full page feature on it in the Sunday Times this weekend, it's definitely out there in the mainstream.

It's largely irrelevant. It's been reported that only $9m of the $128m (SP) of the phantom money is still in the accounts of the phantom depositors' accounts: They were losing players. You can't not honour the account balances of the people who won that money, not that it would be possible to pinpoint what dollar "belongs" to each deposit in any case.

If that is true then I have to accept that.

Since the numbers aren't public I don't know how much their net profit is and have to work with whatever I can find despite that or use numbers from publicly traded companies that are not fully comparitive, most of all because of the difference in processing fees.
Before they left the US market PartyPoker made 60% net profit over the rake.
I am dying to know how you are so sure FTP made less than 27.5%.

Losing players lol. Most / some of the US players just withdrew the phantom deposit immediately - 100% ROI!. Repeat process, porfit, repeat process, porfit....for up to six months, or $128m.

FTP have to honour the account balances. After all they loaned the money to the phantom depositors.

It's statements like this that led me to call you out in the first place. Where did this figure come from? 60% net profit? Dude you are so wrong I really wonder what your motivation is for claiming these massively inflated profit margins.

Maybe you don't understand how net profit is calculated (I don't hold that against you) but in that case you should be a bit more humble in your proclaimed knowledge. You post like you have a lot of facts, when in reality you have none.

You need more question marks in your posts, as your numbers are wild guesses that have been way off every time.

Like I said, ask questions instead of making assertions and you'll be corrected without the frustration

Like my old grand daddy used to say: the less a man makes declarative statements, the less apt he is to look foolish in retrospect.

"If a man say him a ting, then him a ting" - New man, Phone Shop (Sutton branch), 2010.

Not that I know of, but Grant Thorton probably isn't sleeping well these days.

Diamond/Noah, do you know if the 30th deadline for FTP to answer the Civil Compaint has been delayed?