Ive been planning on firing off that email to the gambling commission myself, but its not a huge priority given i dont actually play on the site.

Feel free to do so, their contact details can be found here:
http://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/Client/index.asp

I would guess that they are double licensed and there is some kind of loophole that got them through onto the white list, but i have no idea tbh. I always thought it was super shady that from the UK they show the Alderney licensing group (and not isle of man), but from the US it shows the KGC one.

Phill, just to confirm (although I'm sure youre aware) - the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man are distinct entities - whilst both ultimately fall under UK rule, they are distinct from each other and largely self governing. Both are viewed as offshore banking centres in the UK, and have their own laws and regulations governing these things. I imagine the decision to choose Alderney over the IoM wasn't exactly arbitrary, but there's nothing to suggest that one would be less legitimate than the other when it came to deciding who to be regulated by.

I'm tired and fuzzy headed right now, so if that didn't read too well then my apologies, but hopefully you at least get the sentiment of what I am saying.

Hold on, I missed something here - FTP has the IoM Gaming Commission logo on their site or the Alderney one?


Edit: Nevermind, I got confused by cruzincat's post. They're licensed in Alderney.

Cruzincat: Alderney =/= Isle of Man


Phill - please ignore previous post - I just realised it was totally irrelevant.

I think I can easily imagine FTPDoug and Scotty(?) after they receive serious complaint.
One guy might smoke cigar w/ some liquor, shouting "Who is the F--king DBag made complaint this time?" while other guy becomes really nervous, agonizing "What did we do wrong? We need find the problem ASAP, etc".

If I could have a chance to write a principle of economics, I would refer FTP on how monopoly could suck as hell.

Seif was one of the biggest money losers on the site before the scandal broke. It is fair to be critical of his behavior after the scandal but claiming he ever cheated does not fit in with any of the evidence we have.

I would guess that the UK doesn't know that FTP under KGC has done anything wrong. Allowing the governing body they trust to double check the sites authenticity allows them to have full faith in FTP's fairness. Anything untoward done with KGC complicity would be caught by there own auditers.

Very surprising response from FT. Even with their rakeback and software, I'm gonna have to really consider PS.

Wow, I just read the whole thread and I have to say that I'm probably not going to play at Full Tilt anymore. fwiw as i dont have a roll on there atm

[ ] smokeyj writes informative, well-thought-out posts
[x] smokeyj is a troll
[x] smokeyj = ban

I was trying to refrain from hijacking, but several people have made similar comments.

In every U.S. jurisdiction of which I am aware, the law of defamation distinguishes between factual assertions (e.g., "Joe is a thief"), which are potentially actionable, and assertions of opinion (e.g., "Joe is a no-account good for nothing"), which are broadly viewed as not actionable under defamation law.

Saying that OP made "an unfounded factual assertion," is an accusation by Full Tilt that the OP has uttered a statement that purports to be fact without adequate knowledge or investigation into its truthfulness; doing so (I'm not saying OP did) opens the utterer to civil liability if the statement proves to be false.

Hope this helps, sorry for the hijack.

The thought still holds true. Just got the wrong name. If you substitute the correct name it still asks the same question.

Do you really believe that the tribe would let auditors from Aldernay into their server operation to confirm everything is above board? If so, I will start looking for land in some desolate place to sell to you.

cliff notes?

What is shady about them showing the sign of the Alderney commission to their UK customers and the KGC sign to the rest of the world? Is this shadier than only being licensed by the KGC? What could be the reason for them not showing both signs to all their customers?

Sorry, if the questions are stupid, but I have no idea how this works.

Also: ban smokey please and edit out his posts.

FTP doesn't seem to be a trustworthy site
Stars still seems to rule.
AP/UB still suck.

I think Alderney does not license for the USA. Apparently, they do allow sites which cater to the USA that have an alternative licenser for the USA.

Yeah, im pretty sure that no licenser based in Europe are able to license for US facing sites.

Thinking about it some more, i think the most logical scenario is that the KGC deals with all US customers, and everything relating to the rest of the world is dealt with by Alderney. Either that or Alderney did a secondary examination of the processes of FTP and they licensed it in whole, so effectively the site is licensed and regulated by (and paying money to) both groups.

Fwiw, Full Tilt has a full eGambling License under its name of Filco Ltd
http://www.gamblingcontrol.org/index.php?page=19

So they have been fully examined by Alderney as if they had no connection to the KGC, but why they have not severed the KGC connection i can only speculate is due to accepting US customers.

Details of eGambling License.
http://www.gamblingcontrol.org/index...ge=15speculate.

Btw, i did a quick google on the white paper, figure id include some snippets:

http://www.pokerlistings.com/uk-limi...ertisers-17331

So, the goal of the white list is to limit advertising, but the knock on effect is that a site who is approved to go on the white list has a standard of care for the customers and is able to keep the games fair (amongst other things like underage gaming). Fair enough.

It goes on:

So one can assume that to get onto the white list FTP would have to remove itself from licensing by KGC (though nothing is stated on the location of servers).

For lols, this article date Jan 16th of this year:
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2008/0...ke-antigua.htm

So yeah, its a racism thing

FWIW I live in Germany, and I can only see the KGC logo on their site.

And can a site be licensed for the US at all? Are they allowed to offer online poker in the US? I thought not.

I know for sure FTP (or any other poker site for that sake) doesn't have a license for Germany.

guess i'll stay at stars

As Stars is licensed by the Isle of Man regulators then the above is not correct.

More likely the rules for most European licensing authorities are that servers have to be in the same jurisdiction. Looks like Alderney is an exception.

Ferguson Ivey Lederer co ltd

Is that who the company is named after ?

Haha, its likely just a made up name with no real reasoning behind it, but yeah, if there was one its probably a good guess.

Yeah, i might be incorrect about what i said. I distinctly remember reading it but cannot cite a source. However it is worth noting that Alderney and the Isle of Mann arent actually part of Europe.

Note in one of the links i pointed out that countries based in the EU are insta recognised on the white paper but Alderney and IoM were just approved straight away with other places like Antigua and Kahnawake given time to reapply as they wish (the judgement of which was passed Jan 14th, or thereabouts).

Note that both of these islands have their own government (the president of Alderney is here for example) so they are their own seperate country, as far as i understand it, called a Crown Dependency.

Fun pic:


So they are like a funky little loophole of legal recognition

The white paper which this is all about isnt really a British license, but basically permission to advertise in the country. Note that the sites are licensed in their various places (Gibraltar, Alderney, Kahnawake, Isle of Mann etc) and as such are required to follow the laws of that area. Offering online poker to the US market is a very grey area. The US dept of Justice considers it illegal (in essence) but the World Trade Organisation has ruled it to be 100% illegal for the US to make it illegal.

Im not a lawyer and im not all that well versed with US gaming laws, the Wire Act and the UIGEA in particular so i cant really comment beyond that i guess, haha

But what counts in this case is that the British government have investigated the areas of licensing (outside of the EAA, but those are going to be pretty solidly licensed as they fall under EU law) to ensure that they offer fair games and there is active and effective security - pretty much everything you require from a site.

Any site licensed under the KGC is not considered, by the British government, to provide fair games and have active and effective security.

Now FTP is licensed under the KGC, that much is certain, but they are also licensed under the Alderney group. I can only assume everyone who should be aware of this is aware of it, but i think its somewhat dodgy how they insist on staying with the Kahnawake tribe despite all the obvious negatives.

Pokerstars saw what way the wind was blowing and left the reservation entirely, but why has FTP stayed? Is it simply cheaper to keep the servers on the reservation that elsewhere, given they are already paying the costs of licensing elsewhere.

Heres a fun thought ive just had:

Does the Kahnawake tribe have a stake of ownership in Full Tilt?

What other reasons could they have for staying there?

Phil, you're pretty much correct in all that you say, but just to make things a little more confusing - I was born in the Isle of Man and spent the first 3 years of my life there, and yet am fully eligible for a British Passport without going through any special application procedure. While they are not part of the UK, a good proportion of their general framework political affairs (defense, foreign policy etc) are handled by London.

While you're correct that they are not a part of the European Union, there are treaties in place that allow the free exchange of goods and services between the IoM and the European states. I assume the same applies to the Chanel Islands.

I guess a good way to look at it is to think of them as like the Cayman Islands, only with ****tier weather

I skimmed most of this thread first time through, so decided to kill an hour or so re reading it all.

It amazes me how many familiar names show up in these type of threads. ibluffoldladies is a pretty well known anti online poker troll.

Whilst people who generally support the sites can give general examples of quality customer care (at least in the case of pokerstars) people like you who do not support the sites can name no facts nor cite no evidence. Who is really relying on faith and who is using logical deduction?

For the record, before you go calling me a shill, i dont play on any site that accepts US customers (barring the odd MTT on stars and ftp). I support those two sites however and dislike UB and AP for obvious reasons. I foresee me being involved with online poker for a long time and for that purpose i want to see it thrive as much as possible.

This is kind of interesting - i guess it isnt enough for you, but for most people right here and now they should be satisfied that they are not being cheated on Stars by any superuser accounts and im pretty sure the same is true of FTP, though i have reservations seeing as they still have connections to the KGC.

Pokerstars is not unlicensed as most see, and the Isle of Mann group who covers them is no rubberstamping authority, as Cornell has shown.

I have faith there was no mass stealing like on UB at Pokerstars, you have doubts, but both of us should be able to see that there is no chance it is currently happening at that site and that should be about as good as you can ask for. Unless all previous evidence is auditable to the nth degree - which im sure it is but i have no doubt you will disagree.

The industry is regulated very closely thanks to the forward liberal thinking UK Government and the licensing organisations based in Europe.

If i were him i would be pretty offended by such a question. But at the heart of it, it really goes to show how out of touch with reality you seem to be.

I have been lurking around here for months, reading various posts, being thoroughly entertained by most, and disturbed by some. This is by far the most disturbing.

It's one thing for a company to show contempt for their customers. It's quite another for a company to be this openly hostile to the people that pay their bills. And that's ignoring the disgusting fact that longtime FTP'ers, like myself, are left out in the cold with rakeback (or lack thereof.)

I make no bones about it...I am a weekend amateur, but have been playing poker for the better part of 15 years. I had weekend poker games before poker was popular.

Anyway, I digress. In reading the posts on 2+2, I think we can boil down the FTP v PS debate to the following major points:

FTP's interface rocks, PS sucks

PS server rocks, FTP's is shaky

FTP, as proven in this post, shows open and outright contempt for their players. PS is happy to take care of their players at (relatively) any cost.

FTP is a nightmare if you want to withdraw, PS is a breeze (again, in a relative sense)

PS is proactive in addressing issues such as affiliations with questionable gaming commissions, FTP is sitting back raking in the cash and couldn't care less.

Both sites were smart enough to see the danger of "superusers" and avoid them.

By way of disclosure, I play on FTP. Why? I just cannot stand the interface of Pokerstars. However, with the recent addition of an affordable $1/$2 PLO table at my local casino, I'm VERY tempted to say F*&K it to online poker altogether and play live exclusively. Also, I am a US based player, so I don't have all the options of our friends in the Great White North, or across the pond.

How does this get fixed? One of two simple ways:

1. OK option: PS puts some serious effort into an interface redesign to specifically attract FTP players. If they do this, I think they'll dominate, hands down. You can even have an option of which interface to use. For those that are completely comfortable with PS now, they can use the "PokerStars Classic" interface. For those of us who cut our teeth on FTP, we can choose the "Nuevo PokerStars" interface. No roster of pros could overcome that by FTP. This is the biggest failure in the PS world. I can't imagine it being close if they had an interface that didn't make me want to rip my face off using a rusty pair of pliers and a bent butterknife.

2. Best option: For the US players, we HAVE to band together and fight to get online poker legalized and regulated within the US. Too sweeten the pot, PS and FTP could license their US operations to casinos, get a nice big chunk of change to have "Pokerstars powered by Bellagio" and "Ceasars presents Full Tilt Poker", et al, and have the sites regulated by the same gaming commissions that regulate the casinos.

C'mon, these companies would gouge each other's eyes out to sponsor the online poker sites if they were legal. Not to mention the obvious VIP/points tie ins for vacations, rooms, tourneys, etc that would result. Even better to me, they could have secondary affiliations with local casinos so that our VIP/points could be used to get additional chips in brick and mortar tourneys, you could have satellites to local casino tourneys, etc, etc, etc. Oh, that's right, I was born with common sense.

I know players like Doyle and Greenstein are trying to lobby the Presidential candidates in our upcoming election here in the US. My question to them is, what do we, the rank and file players, need to do to help their cause?

If we can get poker legalized in the US, and really open up competition, a site like Pokerstars would HAVE to develop a better interface to compete. FTP would HAVE to improve their customer service to compete. The sponsoring casinos would provide additional oversight/leverage to make sure everything was totally above board for their respective online operations. Companies like AP/UB would be run out of business. Sites like Party, Titan and others would be able to enter the market. We'd have dozens of deposit and withdrawl options available to us, we wouldn't need to transfer our balances to a f#&*ing prepaid phone card program to be able to get cash before the year 2015.

We can all bitch about PS arcane interface, or FTP's "service with a sneer" standards, but what can WE do to fix it?

Wow. This thread was very enlightening and tbh a bit frightening. Thanks to OP for sharing and Fiji for his detailed posts. I'm glad FTPDoug finally showed up but what he said really didn't resolve any of the issues, and if anything validated that OP's email chain actually took place.

Although I should be more concerned about the KGC issue, my jaw is still on the floor regarding that customer service response.

This market has low transition costs and very little in terms of how to differentiate ones product - I simply don't understand how companies with huge market share are willing to risk losing business by neglecting such vital areas and ones that seem rather easy to fix.

At this point it almost feels like pokerstars has a monopoly on any customer who does their due diligence on keeping their account balances safe and with someone who is willing to recognize the value of quickly and competently answer concerns to that end. I cross my fingers that the lack of another reliably safe competitor doesn't end up costing us in the long run.