Since when has this been about justice, this is more to do with what the DOJ thinks it can get away with because it's gambling on people paying up and bending over without a court case. Looks like their bluff is being called and I'm surprised it hasn't happened sooner.

He could have just bought an ad on 2+2. Or just made a shill account. Or he could spend months mucking through this mess to get a bunch of people with tons of money tied up to look at some 2 min video.

I am not sure but confidently predict another "Serious" investor will step up to the plate as, if and when this one disappears into the ether.

Why is there all this time wasting?

Call in the administrators now and have a public auction so FTP goes to the highest bidder and lets be done with it.

Al proceeds can then go to a player refund accoutn along with all money that will eventually be claimed back form the current shareholders.

This has to be seriously bad news as with all the legal battles that will ensue this is going to get dragged out for years and years to come.

I beg to differ.

Regardless of this the key to a new FTP is whether players come back making it a profitble and successful company...I cant see him doing a deal where he is allowed to see if it is profitable first before he repays players their funds.

All players funds will have to be there and available for the DoJ to sign off on the deal.

In the absence of that fundamental non negotiable???? factor no deal will be done .

That article is great news - how do you not see that?

You seem to have forgotten a couple of very significant points.

This will all be about whether or not bank fraud has been committed and that argument is going to take years and years to resolve (any lawyers out there want to put a timeline on it?). Before any seized/frozen money is released a decision on this will have to be reached. It will also give hope tpo Bitar et al to fight to the bitter (pun intended) end

Another important factor you seem to have forgotten is that the current owners of FTP got all their money and left the players to suffer 100% of the losses. (PLAYERS HAVE LOST ALL THEIR MONEY but nott he shareholders)

FTP cooked the books and the consequences of all this is that FTP shareholders benefited to the tune of $450 million whilst the players have suffered losses of $300million

Regardless of whether the legal argument is won or lost you can kiss goodbye to all player money if you have to wait for this legal argument to be resolved in the courts probably for the best part of a decade but I stand to be corrected.

Hoepfully a plea bargain could shorten this but with the amounts of money involved I go for a very VERY long series of legal battles before a decision is reached.

I would strongly suggest the current FTP owners return $300 million to the players and then set about arguing with the DoJ for their money back rather than allow the players to have to wait years to get what is rightfully theirs in the first place.

Now can you please explain to me how you see this as good news?

You're both wrong. This is completely irrelevant. These guys are positioning for future plea bargains with the doj. It has nothing to do with ftp. Elie is probably dead to rights on bank fraud. Campos is more interesting as I believe he's not charged with bank fraud. If he fights, he could win, but like 95% of other federal defendants, he will probably plea. In any case, none of this will happen for many months or years. FTP's sale or not has nothing to do with their cases.

I've hardly posted, anything. It's my take on the FTP reality. Your welcome to your POV. The situation will play out regardless.
FTP has no future customer base, like the previous customer base. And no banking. Its a brand name, hollowed out. Not able to resume operations as before. As for the barking on this thread about getting paid, well.. that's all it is.

The fact that people are making arguments in court doesn't make them anymore valid. This stuff was discussed to death after black friday. Bitar could always have made these arguments. So some guy is making them in court? Big deal. Who cares? Bitar wants to settle. He has leverage not to get completely destroyed if he can get players paid. If FTP goes under, he can go fight the good fight with Elie whenever he wants.

If FTP (also) argue they have done nothing wrong they will delude themselves into believing they will get all their forfeited money back down the line along with a considerable amount of compensation for damages etc etc.

Although not directly involving FTP it can have an indirect impact becasue if FTP want to threaten to be difficult I am sure the DoJ can play hard ball too. As such I do not believe it is totally irrelevant.

Far better to negotiate your way out of a confrontation rather than run headlong into one.

Hopefully Bitar wants to settle ...time will tell....but I do not know that this is given. He just launched a defence which may or may not be jockeying for position.

Just remember if your backs up against the wall and you feel all is lost then you (Bitar) might decide to fight to the bitter end.

After all wahts the difference in getting a prison sentenc eof 100 yers or 1000 years

You really think FTP's lawyers weren't aware for this until these guy's lawyers filed the motions? I was aware of all their arguments and all I did was read poker leg.

Like I've said, FTP's owners are ****ing imbeciles, but it's clearly in their self-interest to facilitate this deal. Hopefully someone will beat about the head enough to facilitate a little thinking, but the odds are against it.

I am pretty sure FTP's legal advisors have considered all avenues and would still much prefer an investor to come in.

However if a deal doesnt materialize I'm guessing that the option of fighting to the death hasnt been totally discarded yet albiet a kind fo last resort.

If there's no investor everyone is ****ed anyway. The only relevant thing about any piece of news is whether it effects a deal. If all it effects is legal bs 5 years from now, why should anyone care? If there's no deal players will get basically nothing when accounting for tvm and the owners will likely lose large amounts to legal fees and judgements as well as having negligible future earnings, possible jail time, and a much reduced quality of life.

The deal gets done or everyone losses. It's pretty simple. It always has been.

Let's say the brand is worth 25 million. Could it be 50 million? Maybe so, but only as a debt instrument, preferred shares come to mind. No one sane will put real money into this deal. 70% of the asset's income base has been stripped away leaving it crippled beyond recovery. That's the iceberg in the crash scenario. Now it can only be a salvage operation, and the legal mess is huge. So many debt obligations and most of them, if paid out are left with no way to fund and play a future FTP. Therefore FTP's US players have no current value because they have no future value. The asset can only be sold on the strength of future business. There is some no doubt, but its not big. Its not in the hundreds of millions of worth. Game over. R.I.P.

I'll not disagree with that and I am still pessimistic about a deal getting done but still feel players will get back 50c in the $.

Who has a link to the latest FTP deposit balance exchange rate?

I am a FTP player and news writer in an spanish poker-related website.

All my posts are related to FTP or the upcoming Spanish online gambling regulation. I had no need to post anything more, maybe I'm not enough NVGtard yet.

And now, with my papers in my mouth, I want simply point that never before the Tapie Sr. interview, vaguely and loosely translated with not very reliable tools, was the existance of the funds put in question.

It seemed pretty logical that those investors were being taken so seriously precisely because no other one had proven such interest backed by the needed amount of money.

About the future sale of shares, Tapie had ever worked that way. He invest in financially distressed companies, forces strong adjustments in workforce and management, put some trusted people in charge with very huge payrolls and when the company is redirected he looks to sell and to profit.

Changing the subject and speculating a little more. I think that every player balances are included in the negotiations. There is no word about the class actions as a hurdle or obstacle to the deal and no public meetings are taking place with the class action lawyers.

.50 2-5 years from now is nothing to anyone that has any need for the money. Poker players can get very high returns on cash. This fact massively decreases the value of legal settlements years in the future.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19.../index612.html

Someone offered .35. Lots of people are trying to sell way above the market imo. Extremely opaque market though. Maybe people with inside info are taking ftp money at .7 or .8 because they know it's a done deal. I doubt it however.

How long are we going to be graced with your wonderfully repetitive insights? Thank you. We understand that your opinion is that ftp is dead.

Hello, its a syndication. The guy brings a million or two dollars to the table, waves it, and presents a deal whereby he is allowed to grab control of the deal, stake hold it, in order to syndicate it. This is not a boni fide offer to purchase. You do understand that... In other words, what you have just said above is meaningless.

You are quite welcome to demonstrate otherwise. Try it. Make something up if you like, so far everyone else has. You might find a new angle.

Nice imagination you have there.

I'm not going to demonstrate that the sky is blue just because you're too lazy to lift your head.

Thx for the link...amazed people are buying at 70 and 80c in the dollar...maybe they want to invest in FTP too;-) or is it Tapis?????