Oh, and I completely ignored that DOJ fines are often over five or ten years or whatever. That obviously changes things a lot. (h/t to tamiller)

Even if ftp fails for . The entire investment will not be lost! Ftp should still have around,15000 users active at all times. Roughly 1/3 of what was post bf, pre agcc licensing issues

great post noah.

I'm a neophyte regarding business but, any chance Tapie plans to offer a casino and/or sportsbook? Could that possibly raise his ROI?

It's kind of amusing some posts of claims of predictions turning out correct e.t.c - it's akin to saying "LOL I knew he had AK" instead of using ranges of outcomes

The civil Court documents also give a deadline for claims by FTP by the 14th, so not too long to wait for press releases e.t.c of more details imho.

Bump. Thanks h/t extended, FML didn't know one could do this.

Just to add a note to the analysis posted by noahSD. There is also the fact that the GTP strategy requires certain risks to be a potentially very good deal. If it wasn't for the current uncertainty and risk which has lowered the valuation (relative to pre-BF) then FTP most likely would never have been for sale at a reduced price.

Then there are the small probability but high payoff scenarios e.g synergies with land based casinos, ISPT and other ventures, sportsbetting and casinos, US legalisation and as I oft mention given Macau outpacing of LV, teh opening up of the huge Pacific Rim markets.

So I would say the investors actively embrace some of the risks - "buy on the cannons, sell on the trumpets" as Nathan Rothschild famously said.

Update cliffs daily pls.

Ive said that a few times. I think its highly likely

Its actually not ridiculous at all and will be a determining factor in whether people return to FT or not.

If you are a potential RoW player returning to FT to grind again and they just told you that your ftp balance was reset to zero and you lose every benefit you accumulated, would you still play at FT?

I can't imagine the majority of people coming back to FT if all the levels/points they achieved just got wiped out(assuming people care about Iron Man or ftp stuff).

If GBT decides that ftp's need to be honored for RoW to keep their players from going elsewhere, then its likely to assume they'll be honored for USA as well.

NoahSD, as usual, pwns.

Noah.

Thanks, I think
In the end, it really doesn't matter who was right or wrong..the important thing is that ppl get paid, everything else is secondary.
From the beginning, I have tried really hard to be objective unless I see proof of otherwise. I even sort of gave AGCC a pass until such time that there is/was proof that that they were either negligent or complicit. While the jury is still out there, I was totally on board for outing them for lying to cover their asses.
I have said, and still say, that this is not a normal company acquisition obv. These negotiations are very delicate and can change on an hourly basis, and probably do.
There is plenty of speculation going on here, which is fine, as long as you realize that's all it is. The real story will be when everyone has signed on the dotted line and we are told payments are immenent.

Sorry, I don't post much anymore because I fear that anything I say will appear to have come from S:P, possibly giving it more weight than it deserves, instead of it being my own thoughts. But I promise, we will report as soon as facts are verified.

Obviously my mantra is "Patience is hard"

Is it possible that in the case of a safety deposit box, a bailment does exists, because you expect to get back exactly that cash or gold bar, or bearer bond that you put into the safety deposit box?

Yeah. I am not to happy with the state of what is claimed by the DJ to be settled law in the US.

Another example is the question of whether a foreign-hosted and foreign-owned website is doing business in the location of the customer. Why does it make more sense that the website moves to the cusomer, than it does to say that the custmer moved to where the website is? I am reasonably certain that some other countries' laws take a different view.

I woudl like to hear more of your reasoning as to why the DoJ argument denying a constructive trust is weak. Also, I don't think it fails to apply to funds still in the posession of the companies. The core argument seemed to be similar to the one that denied a bailment - an inability to trace a particular asset. I have to say that I thought the argument felt weak, but I am unable to develop a good counterargument for lack of knowledge of the legal intricacies.

I think the players' loss of ownership upon deposit is the most solid point in law. The principles applied are obvious. The argument against a constructive trust seems the weakest to me. It seems to be an argument of technicalities rather than principles.

YVW

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/wo...u-Pick-_53373/

I don't know how the IRS works, but here in Canada something that can get the taxman interested is when they become aware of assets that are inconsistent with your reported income. Sure, the remission payment is payment of what is yours, but how did it come to be yours?

In the case of FTP, it is quite likely that one branch of the government is going to have access not only to your account baance but your complete transaction hstory. From that, caluclating net winning is trivially easy. All of this is going to be in a database, so the number of records isn't going to be a big deterrent to looking for people who are net winners. Now if that database is keyed with SSN, or if it can be merged with a database that conects SSN to player accounts, then it will not be difficlt for the IRS to flag winners and check their past tax returns to see if the winning have been reported.

The only questions are is the IRS going to bother, and is there some sort of privacy protection that would bar the IRS from examining these records?

A few points I see that have not been mentioned in any compilations of FTP's value are as follows,

1. At some point it was mentioned that FTP had purchased/invested in 1-10 banks in Utah I believe for about $10 million (each?). These were probably where the DOJ seized some money as it was on US soil.

2. There was also some talk of an Australian offshore processor charging FTP up to 35% of US deposits to complete the transactions.

Both of these costs (whatever they are) were both taken off the top of any profits and affect the overall value of the ROW player base to Tapie.

I don't want to go on a tangent with this tax stuff, but just because you are a net winner on FT does not mean that is your full tax obligation. You could have easily had net losses on other sites during those given years. The only thing that will prove your overall tax obligation is your official record of your sessions for each reporting year compared against the tax returns you filed. There is also the possibility that you had other gambling losses to offset against your gains (I make my wife save every damned waisted lottery ticket that she insists on buying since we file jointly).

My point, once again, is you should only be worried if you have not been reporting your taxes honestly. And even if you haven't, the average middling bankroll probably has nothing to worry about.

Maybe Subject Poker guys should each get one of those non-patented RPMshill type accounts and post some of your own speculation.

If they believe that players are owed money (and they say they do), why can't the DoJ want US players to be paid? If the DoJ was really interested in maximizing their $ take, as opposed to maximizing the number of completed victories over high-profile criminals, why would they settle for pennies on the dollar regarding the $1B fine? Why would they allow any money at all to go to players rather than make payment of the full fine be their priority?

If the payments to US players come as remission, the DoJ has a duty to notify all victims. However, when the number of victims is large, they can fulfill this duty by publishing a notice, rather than sending the notice to each victm individually. If they go this route, is likely that some US players will never find out that they could apply to get their money back.

who is this really?

I believe that the DOJ almost has no choice but to turn a blind eye to to the net winner issue, because if they calculate winning they would be somewhat obligated as members of the court to also vet immediate issues such as legal debt, whether payment of remission is appropriate to someone who benefited from the activity which provoked the forfeiture, customers getting more out of a fraudulent scheme than they put in, etc.

If the DOJ investigates winnings, I feel that it's not the IRS we should be worried about, but rather whether or not US players are going to get paid at all.

I don't think the DOJ wants to open that Pandora box, as they seem to have structured the agreement specifically in a way to avoid addressing those issues.

Everything you say is correct. However, if you have not been reporting any gambling income at all, and the IRS discovers that you have a record of winning money at FTP, they could audit, and the onus will be on you to show that you were a net loser over all sites.

Again, generally correct. However, being audited, even when you really owe nothing, can still be a pain and, depending on the scope of your income, may cost you money in the form of accountant's fees or lost time from work. However, I should stress that I think that, even in the unlikley event that the IRS does take an interest in the FTP account information, only larger-scale tax cheaters should have any significant worries.

Thank you for this very detailed history.

I think if If the AGCC allows FullTiltPoker again, we can get our bankroll.

we've been over this.

1) they could have invested/lost a lot of the money in the stock market/other ventures

2) they could have bought a house, cars/ paid for schooling of their kids. Just because they received that money doesn't mean they have it all liquid just sitting around. Many probably wouldn't have wanted to uproot their family lives by selling their house and a lot of their possessions.

3) If they think there is a possibility of someone from the outside injecting capital, they would obviously be inclined to see how that plays out first.

4) For all we know, maybe they will give some back. time will tell.

Lol @ everyone speculating about the IRS. If u pay your taxes your fine. If not then I hope u get screwed if they get ahold of your stuff.

99.9 % the IRS won't see this stuff though. I'll be right on this just like my contact was right about FTP 93% value 2 weeks ago.