omg at this thread

We understand that. I was referring to what FTP actually made, not what they should have or could have made. I'm a results merchant.

As for FTP II, they won't have those expenses, but they won't have the US market either. There will be some number of other problems as well. Time will tell if they fare any better.

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TafferBoy's post = POTY

Surprised no announcement today or this week. If they are hiring then something needs to happen soon

TDE and I were talking about claims that FTP made a lot of profit. Seems like everybody who tries to account for missing profit actually comes up with unplanned expenses that were incurred instead of missing profit. Nearly everybody except maybe Bubbleblower now agrees that when you account for their actual expenses, the profit they made for the last four years was in the $100M - $150M range, which is essentially the claim that TDE made to start off this tangent.

I don't think anybody is arguing that a new FTP running only in select parts of the RoW will have all the expenses that the original FTP faced, especially those highly inflated ones related to processing funds in the US. However, the new FTP will not be able to scale down the rest of their expenses to match the reduction in clientel. Supporting the software will not scale with the number of users. A lot of the central office functions will not scale down either. Also, it can be argued than in a few areas, the new FTP will need to spend more than the original FTP, either in total, or at least on a per client basis. It seems evident that they grossly underspent in compliance, accounting and internal audit. Those don't scale. Customer support also seems to have been inadequate. Don't forget that, unlike the orginal Full Tilt, the new company is having to come up with funds to cover the accounts of players it inherited, perhaps as much as $150M. That money has a cost too.

Poker margins at Party/Bwin seem to be less than 10%. There is reason to believe that new Full Tilt's will be lower, at least in the short term. An 8% margin is very nice, but I don't think that I'd call it "printing money". Discussion of margins in the range of 40% to 60% is fantasy stuff.

Expenses. No profit realized.

So how did they manage to pay out 443M, eventhough a total of 72M was stolen, 119M lost in phantom deposits, 159M went to the DOJ and 16.5M was loaned.

And they still had 6M in their main bank account, possibly 50M in an Irish account and at least 15M in Swiss accounts for sure.

That is 880.5M total!

You do the math.

The "loans" to hs pros are essentially phantom deposits too. I'm sure there was also millions in pointless "sponsorship" for the cronies of the site founders too.

Think what you want. I do not understand, and you do not explain, how you arrive at your conclusion.

There's nothing in that thread to suggest that TDE came to consensus with you on that number.

That is a conclusion that PokerXanadu came to. I suppose you concur. I don't; TDE doesn't. I posted a simple test of its accuracy: account for the missing $250M - $500M. I don't think that thread does, so I don't think it is correct.

If the conclusion was that they would have made $100M to $150M per year if it wasn't for thefts, seizures, bad loans and phantom deposits, I might agree. Except that some of those may be traceable to underspending in other areas.

I've already been through it twice. There are too many unknowns for any of us to produce definitive figures. I don't want to waste any more of my time in that swamp.

When you have a balance sheet for the beginning of a period and for the end of that period, and a record of distributions over that perod, you should be able calculate profit for that period. We have numbers close enough to being a balance sheets for rough purposes. They show a profit of a bit over $100M for the last four year period of operations. You claim $400-$600M profit realized over that period. When I ask you where all the missing profit is, don't point me at more expenditures. That was never profit.

I don't think there will be any announcement until the get licenced.

Such a great way to sum up the speculative fest going on in this thread. Very nice post, TafferBoy.

Doesn't matter how many words you use you are flat out wrong.

Why don't you try numbers?

These are all correct and from reliable sources:

Explain in NUMBERS where they got the 880M.
I'll give you the 300M owed to players, you fill the 580M gap with your 100M in profits.

For all you ppl know this thing may have become a matter of pride for GBT. Numbers don't count as much when that happens.

There have been several objections to the application for a Category 2 License with the AGCC by Orinic but I have personally objected to the application on the following grounds which are essentially based on the anonymous ownership behind the company.

Firstly I am surprised that Orinic still has its Category 1 License.

If Orinic is in the same ownership as the other "Full Tilt" companies such as Vantage, Poker Kings and Tiltware then no Cat 2 License should be approved and the Cat 1 License should also be revoked as the owners/principals of those companies are the same ones responsible for the misappropriation of $100's of millions of player funds which to date have yet to be paid.

There can be absolutely no justification whatsoever for any granting of a license if Howard Lederer, Ray Bitar, Chris Ferguson or Rafe Furst are in any way associated with this Orinic application.

Should the ownership of Orinic have passed on to other owners who do not pass due dilligence tests of being fit and proper persons to hold a gambling license then again no Cat 2 license should be granted.

Without knowing who the persons responsible for owning and running Orinic are it is difficult to be specific as to why a license should not be granted but for example persons previously involved in running poker sites which subsequently resulted in players losing their deposits or funds should automatically disqualify Orinic from being licensed.

Likewise anyone involved with the criminal fraternity having an involvement or say in the running of the company should also disqualify Orinic from being granted a license as it is an esential pre requisite for all licencees to ensure that the proceeds of crime and the criminal elements of our society are kept out of online gambling.

Finally if an expected takeover of the assets of the Full Tilt Group of companies takes place by Group Bernard Tapie with financial backing from Microgaming the commissioners should satisfy themselves that these new owners are fit to hold a licence to offer online gaming.

Although Laurent Taoie is the director of Group Bernard Tapie the father Bernard Tapie has been criminally convicted in the past for various crimes and it may be that he should be disqualified from having any involvement with Orinic should a license be granted. Both Laurent and Bernard Tapie have also both been involved in online poker companies in the past that have gone into bankruptcy resulting in players losing their deposits/funds whilst at the same time Microgaming have been involved in several scandals where skins on their network have defaulted and cost may online poker players their deposits.

Should this prove to be the case the commission will have to satisfy themselves of the suitability of such persons being involved with a licensed company such as Orinic.

At the very least lodging an objection should enable some background into the secret ownership and management behind Orinic to be assessed as it may well be that substitute token magers and owners are put in place to circumvent any possible denial of the category 2 license.

There are many reasons why others may wish to object, some valid and some spurious but the process must be followed to ensure that any questions objections and fears held by any concerned parties are properly addressed prior to any granting of any license

It doesn't matter how many reliable numbers you have if you don't have all the numbers. I can't possibly explain in numbers where the alleged $880M comes from, because a whole bunch of numbers are missing.

We don't need those missing numbers to calculate the profit from 2007 to 2010, however. We know the current debt and we know the distributions.

You keep ducking the issue of the location of any profits in excess of the difference between the curent debt and the distributions.

Who are you and whose interests do you represent?

It's obvious that the GBT deal is the only way players can see their funds returned and so you're definitely not on our side.

Chris and Howard liked to steal,
Didn't care how others would feel,
Full tilt poker wasn't real,
How I hate the night.

Gave Phil Ivey lots of cash,
Taken from a secret stash,
Full tilt poker had a crash,
How I hate the night.

Big Tom dwan pretends to care,
All his money he will share,
FTP just wasn't fair
How I hate the night.

Poker pros are greedy trash,
At world series make big splash,
Enter tourneys with your cash,
Mother*uckers

Seriously, this is no time for you to pull some judge, jury, and executioner stunt so you can play God and moral grandstand while at the same time potentially robbing thousands of people from their only chance of getting their money back.

I hope the AGCC takes one look at your objection and throws it away.

edit: It's obvious you're more interested in pretending to play God at the expense of thousands of other people (who actually have real problems due to this situation) than actually helping players get their money back. I can't think of a more astonishingly self-centred act. You're not more important than every one who just wants their money back, and you're definitely not important enough to impose your morals on everyone with money stuck on FTP against our will. Sickening.

I hope to god that they completely disregard you if you end up at the hearing.

The big question is - are you Hdemet?

yeah seriously piss off lol.

Maybe I am:

Someone who has had money stolen from him in the past by Tapie/Microgaming

Someone from Party Poker/Pokerstars

Someone who thinks/knows Tapie will not pay back player money without making them suffer for a long time

Someone who believes that the integrity of the owners and managers of a licensed company needs to be investigated thoroughly before a license is granted

Someone who feels "Bitar" about having lost all his money online and wants revenge on the world.

Someone waiting to buy Full Tilt and make players whole if and when the Tapie negotiations end.

Take your pick or make up some alternative and think whatever you like but it is my right which I choose to exercise it for my own personal reasons.

Would you be happy if Orinic is licensed and still owned by Ray Bitar?

This isn't UB. The DOJ has been directly involved with negotiations about the transfer of assets! The mf'ing DOJ!! It's not like Ray Bitar has been walking into the negotiations with a fake nose and moustache all this time with the DOJ none the wiser, letting him sell the damn thing back to himself. Wow. Just wow.

And if you feel bitter about losing all your money online, why are you trying to stop the last chance you'll ever have of seeing it again? Unless you mean you simply went busto (which could've happened on any site), in which case you standing in the way of everyone else getting paid just makes you one of the most selfish, arrogant, petty people in the world.

If you really had players interests and justice at heart you wouldn't need to post anonymously.

Trolls gonna troll. If you really are the person who filed the complaint, why stay anonymous?

Two posts ever on 2+2, 1000 pages in the FTP **** thread? Who is your main account?