Well lets alll hope that it doesnt come to that and that it is stated that all those who wish to get 100% of their money out the site are permitted to do so at any reopening.

You can say absolutely nothing...this is the NVG thread.

News Views adn Gossip

But what you dont seem to be understanding, sir, is that this money is only going to be made available in any amount or at any % or interval(and within a reasonable amount of time, too) BECAUSE Mr. Tapie is taking on an extraordinary risk to himself and his financial empire. He doesn't have to do this, and him backing out serves me no purpose nor does it give me justice if Lederer & Company go to prison and all their assets are seized but that only gives me 5cents on the $1. I want 100% of what i'm owed, like everyone else, but Mr. Tapie is the one setting the rules, and if we want even CLOSE to 100% , we need to play by his rules. He's doing us a favor as far as i'm concerned. If there is anything I can do that will help him in his purchase of FTP, get me paid fully / partially and in fair time, then i'll do anything I can to help his venture succeed,

and if I were a ROW player, that would mean continuing to play on FTP2 - which would mean leaving some of my bankroll behind. Like i've said , too many people would panic-cashout on Day 1, killing the site before it even has a chance to see what it can do on its re-start. Giving everyone the access to 100% of their funds to cash out (as "Right" as that would be) is simply not common sense for someone who wants to see FTP2 succeed. Tapie knows this, and people with a sense of gratitude will express that gratitude for the payment options he's putting forward and hopefully will follow through on in the near future.

Then again, why play more if you still will not be able to cashout your winnings?
To me it seems like the best thing to do is let everyone cashout if they wish, but have big bonuses repeating bonuses for those who don't. Say a 100$ non-deposit bonus every week for the first two months...

I have just over $50, 000 on FTP and I will not panic to get it all back if they get back up and operating as long as I know the $ is there I won't feel the need to cashout on day 1 even as stupid as that sounds and the fact that I feel entitled to get all $50, 000 back on day 1

But we will be able to cash out. Just not 100% at a time. We dont know what the percentage would be. Maybe it is 10% at a time? Maybe 25%?

I for one know I never cashed out 100% of my bankroll - why would I? Then I wouldn't be able to play more. For ROW players, 100% cash out doesn't make sense, unless its a "panic" cash out or a angry "I hate FTP now" cash out.

Now that I think about it, the % I cashed out when I cashed out probably WAS right about 10% at a time, no more.

Should I be able to cash out 100%? Yes, of course, in a perfect world. In that perfect world though, ray bitar & company didn't steal our money. In that perfect world, online poker is legal, etc.

We don't live in a perfect world, and Tapie is providing a reality-based solution to a very "sick" and "unreal" situation. 5% to 10% cashout ability is common sense in his spot to encourage (see: force) ROW people to either play OR at least give themselves the time to see how the new FTP proceeds to develop after re-launch while not having to redeposit (because their funds are still not fully cash-out-able). If ROW players choose not to play, thats fine. They'll get their full balances over time.

Its a really easy game guys. Weigh the pennies on the dollar years from now that we would get without Tapie or other similar investor... compared to the X% per month, or X% of our full balances minus penalty that Tapie is offering us.

Can anyone tell me why folks are complaining, still? Anyone? Ah yes, its because some people would rather focus on the Shoulda's , Woulda's, and Coulda's in life.

The interesting dynamic of this thread and other FTP threads is that, the people with the most money seem to be the most accepting and calm about this situation.

And those without any money on the site seem to be those who complain the most about the deal and make general "demands" of future investors / the DOJ / the players themselves for not "doing something" to get their money back.

As someone with 5 figures on full tilt, i'm in the same boat. As long as the money is there, and I am getting it within a reasonable amount of time, there is nothing to complain about.

Fed's Show Their Hand In Online Poker Case...

"Friday federal prosecutors in Manhattan filed the most detailed defense of their view that Internet poker is just plain illegal."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanva...ne-poker-case/

"The key question is whether or not any of these facts violated U.S. law, like the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and the Illegal Gambling Business Act. In their new filing, the feds claim that Congress did not intend to exclude poker from UIGEA and that if it wanted to do so, lawmakers would have done it in a clearer fashion.

Federal prosecutors point out that lawmakers changed the wording of the bill so that it would apply to games “subject to chance” as opposed to “predominantly subject to chance” for this reason."

Mr Tapie is not doing anyone any favours at all and why should he. He is looking out for himself. As for setting the rules are you saying it would be OK for the US players to get their money back and then for the RoW players to get stiffed or not get all their money back if that was one of Tapie's rules? We dont know what his actual rules are and whetehr or not they are reasonable or not and when we do I am pretty sure that this topic will be revisited.

There is only one rule for any takeover of FTP as far as I am concerned as that is all players getting all their money back but some scenarios are acceptable whilst others are not. I am saying partial payments or withdrawals with penalties are some of the unacceptable ones for RoW players unless they voluntarily agree to them.

The point is that if he doesnt allow all/those players to take out their money on any relaunch then its going to seriously impact on his ability to attract new players and get returning players and have a profitable new FTP2.

But maybe he has some great way of encouraging players to leave their money on the site -I guess we will just ahve to wait and see.

The whole idea is to get players their money back and I still fail to see anyone explaining how players are going to get their money back over a period of time unless any new site is profitable.

If he doesnt allow players to take their money out he isnt likely to get a license and fewer people are going to play than needed as I cant see people voluntarily funding a new site with their money when they cant take it out.

I still do not understand how anyone can be sure of getting their money back if it is by installments only. Either the money is there and available or it is not.

If the money is not availabe then who will guarantee that all the money will be returned to the players? What guarantee is there that the site will be profitable enough to pay back the players?

You previously mentioned it could be held in Escrow. Well if it is anywhere then why should it not be available to the players.

If the money isnt there and available for withdrawal then its going to take an awfully long time to pay people back as there is little or no incentive to play.

The bottom line is to get all players all their money back and if not as much as possible. If a deal goes through US players will be guaranteed their money by the DoJ but I havent seen any similar kind fo reassurance for The RoW players?

The default rules for all this should be that all players get all their money back otherwise no deal should be allowed to go through as that in essence means the asets are being given away cheaply with no assurances that RoW players will get their money but the US players will get theirs via the DoJ).

As I have said before more details are needed and perhaps things will become clearer when those details come to light.

However I strongly suspect that the deal will fall through unless there is some guarantee of the RoW player funds and by that I mean guarantee that those that want them are allowed to take them out in their entirety without penalty.

Hdemet

One assumption you seem to be making in a lot of your posts is that for Tapie to start FTP2 is he will need to have all players old FTP1 balances available and in separate bank accounts to get a license, I would think it will be quite easy for him to get a license with not having to have the actual money of FTP1 balance’s, he will only have to do that with new deposits. (Not saying this will happen, but would have to be a possibility, as he could easily argue that he is not responsible for them and it was all spent on Lobster etc.)

Even if he does have all FTP1 balances available he still may not want to allow 100% withdraws, he is obviously going to do what gives FTP2 the best chance of becoming very profitable (large player base), which may or may not be partial withdraws.

And of course it is not about Tapie giving out favours, he is in it for him self but to be succesfull he is going to have to give ROW players most of their money at some point.

I will ask you again

How do you know the money is there if you cant take it out?

In which case I would take issue with The DoJ for shafting the RoW player balances because they will have been responsible for allowing FTP assets to get sold off because they would have already sorted out US player balances and didnt care about the RoW.

I think the big assumption I am making is that Tapie will not make player balances available without penalty but we will have to wait and see but with al the bits and pieces out there it seems unlikely but I feel pretty sure things will become much clearer in tiem.

As for the licence issue if he could get one on the basis of holding just new deposits in segregation then in effect its like saying that he has no responsibility for the old RoW balances and as such he could indeed get a licence.

However I will bring you back to the DoJ who would have allowed the deal to go through on the basis that US players are getting all their money back and not giving two hoots about the RoW balances.

Say anything you want , this is NVG, the mods decide what's inappropriate not us posters
FWIW I withdrew my pittance before BF, three friends have small rolls on still!
I have been a bit pessimistic but hopefull for players recovery, I think things are looking up finally and it pleases me. As an American it likely doesn't matter much if a new FTP comes, but for ROW why not! So I post a lot on this subject because I am interested in how it comes out. You don't have to own a piece of the team to care how the game turns out. Hope this clears up why this poster has been here a lot to your satisfaction, pal!

To be honest why would the DOJ care about the ROW, the only thing they have to worry about is there image to the ROW and I don't think it would take much of a hit to the wider community if they were only able to negotiate payment of US players and not ROW. But this would bring up the question as to what would be in it for Tapie if he did decide to not hounour FTP1 ROW balances, as next to no old FTP players would deposit again.

These prosecutors don't even know their own laws. UIGEA does not make any internet gambling illegal, it only makes it illegal to process payments to internet gambling that was made illegal by previously existing laws. They still have to prove that there is a previous law that makes running an online poker site illegal.

They also cited the classic Willie Nelson song "The Gambler", so clearly they put a lot of time and effort into making their statement as accurate as possible.

The prosecutors will have made more than 1 argument in the brief. The article is clearly one sided (albeit with the right side), but I'd like to see the full brief. Does anyone know where I can find a copy? PM me if you find a link.

If ftp don't pay out to RoW players should they go after Lederer etc or Tapie in court to recover their funds?

FTP2 could not survie without paying the ROW players. In order for a new FTP2 to be succesfull, they need to attract players to their site. They need to attract as much as possible former players to come back and new players to join. If FTP puts any type of restrictions on withdraws, then how can they attract new /former players to come to their site?

Why would any one play or deposit to FTP2 knowing there are withdraw restrictions. The only option I can see, is a new FTP2 offers a huge bonus for players who chose not to withdraw their balance.

I agree re bonuses, but obviously a new FT could have newly deposited funds available to withdraw but not old FT balances...

Haha, Harry again says that the deal will go through..

What will you say when we get paid?

So, you're saying the only reason ROW players would want to fully cash out is because of panic or spite? It doesn't make sense to you that people might want to spend their money on food, rent, hookrs, etc? Maybe people want to play on other sites? Maybe they want to invest? Donate it to charity?

I could think of a million reasons why ROW players would want to cash out. In fact, I can only think of one reason why they wouldn't; because they plan on continuing to play there.

While the information we have now indicates that Harry was wrong in regards to negotiations with Tapie being a waste of time, the few details we have about the agreement indicate that Harry was right about a lot of things;

Harry said RoW/US player liability would have to be divided for anyone to buy the company, apparently that is exactly what happened.

Most everybody else (including myself) thought Tapie was ready to put up the full $350M for players if he could just get a good discount on the fine and pay it in installments, but Harry said 'never gonna happen', 'never gonna happen' and by all indications he was right.

Now people want to laugh at Harry based on the results of the negotiations, but in terms of putting the investor on a hand Harry was the only one reading Tapie as weak - the fact that the DOJ folded doesn't mean Harry was wrong.

If/when FTP comes back will they have the same rackback and affiliate system or is it possible this will change?

+1. Great post.

I guess no1 on this forum knows that. I guess some things will change for sure since probobly relationship with alot of affilates has been changed.