My $.03 on the Amended Complaint and its aftermath on poker in the U.S.
Join Date: Apr 2005
Posts: 26
Just scanned over the Amended Complaint. In my view, the gov't action and the demise of FT/AB/UB, at least in the U.S., are a necessity for the evolution of poker in the U.S. Although Stars is certainly as culpable as the rest in the defrauding of the banks and such to process deposits/wds, no online poker exists for a company in the U.S. without doing so when the ACH/banks started using a code for online gambling. The fact that the Feds obviously knew what was going on, and chose to wait for as long as they did, can be construed as they don't really give a **** about us playing poker online. That said, right now it's illegal, but eventually the U.S. will pull its head out and give us some legislation geared specifically towards poker.
The Amended Complaint more or less picks out the weeds so that we can start with a cleaner slate. The winners may well be Harrahs, MGM, etc.. and perhaps Party. I think Starts has a decent chance of coming out of it ok. FT had the same opportunity as Party/Stars w respect to the decisions that were made for their companies. Party's decision to pull out in 2006 with the UIEGA may turn out to be a smart one, in hindsight. At least Stars actually did what they said they were doing with the segregated accounts, and they have the worldwide market to keep them thriving even without the US.
Looks as though Full Tilt is done and done, and their own greed led to FT's demise. The **** of it is, it was done at the expense of the players. From what I've seen, the Feds typically don't file complaints/indictments and such until they have a mountain of evidence. The Complaint is pretty damn specific. I reckon that Ray, Howard, HeyZeus, and the rest of the FT crew (those that the Feds can prove knew, or should have known, what was going on) are wondering which stories of federal prisons they should believe. It's a civil complaint, which is only about dollars, but the filing of a civil complaint doesn't prevent the gov't from filing criminal indictments. I see 18 year olds sit in county jails on city court charges for months on **** as petty as driving w a suspended license or alcohol possession charges. FT appears to have knowingly stole how many millions of poker players money, and gave a **** ton of it to the owners. For seriously, how many millions is enough?
The gov'ts demand is interesting: They request seizures not less than $1.5B from Stars, $1B from FT, 500M from AB/UB. Then moving on to the govt.'s demand against the FT Four of HeyZeaus, Lederer, Bitar, and Furst, requesting seizures not less than $25M, $41.8M, 40.9M, and 11.7M respectively. Thought it was interesting that Ferguson had a 2:1 ownership ratio over Lederer and Bitar. Given that Ferguson got way more money than Lederer and Bitar, I'd guess that Ferguson's lawyers are doing whatever they can to try to keep him out the pokey. It will be interesting to see what plays out for rest of the FT crew. ~15 of them were getting distributions from FT, and one apparently taking out sizable loans.
In any event, the **** has hit the fan...again. Lodden thinks: how many of the FT guys actually do time behind bars? I'm not necessarily advocating for it, but the facts are the facts. Does Stars survive a potential 1.5B hit? Will the weeding out of AB/UB/FT strengthen the PPA argument for legalization? Will Party be given a chance to re-enter? Plot thickens.
Join Date: Jun 2008
Posts: 1,091
Just could not fit this in any of the other 4-5 threads on FT?
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 8,410
Is that better than two cents?
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 58
I don't think any online poker site currently in business will be allowed to enter/re-enter the U.S. market after it gets regulated. I may be wrong, but I think it's just going to be new U.S. owned sites are allowed to operate. Therefore, I think Stars and Party are in tough positions as ROW players are going to flock to U.S. sites when it gets regulated, making those sites insignificant. And that is a huge reason why buying FTP is such a terrible idea.