So the PPC (Player's Poker Championship) is a small poker tour that was running in Aruba in the void left by UB. I think this was their fourth year at the Aruba destination, but they run small tours at different casinos At each of their stops some portion of their prize pools are paid out in entries and travel expenses to the Aruba event.

The last Aruba main event was held on 11/5-11/7 and it had a 500k prize pool. Here is some information.

• To my knowledge not a single member of the final table (and maybe the entire field) has been paid out.
• To my knowledge not a single person who was supposed to be reimbursed for travel expenses has been reimbursed.
• There are staff members of the PPC (specifically their blogger) that have not been paid or reimbursed for a very long time.
• The owners abruptly left the most recent event held at MD Live, and have been out of the public eye since. This was a week or two ago.

I am not one of the affected players, but I felt the need to get the word out as I do not believe this will resolve itself.

If you are a person who has been experiencing issues with PPC payments or the like, I encourage you to speak up in this thread with the excuses you've been given and the like. If you don't want to do that you can DM me and I will either post it for you anonymously, or simply give you some contact information for someone who is hopefully going to spearhead whatever operation comes from this.

Their website is ppcpokertour.com

My personal opinion is that the players will not be getting any funds.

Edit:

Here's the link to the payouts of the PPC in Aruba this year. Some definitely recognizable names in this field that are likely unpaid. http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/event.php?a=r&n=376423

I just got some more information: the owners were trying to contact the rooms that have used their tour in the past to schedule a December tournament for "free" because they had some extra time.

This is nefarious because the business model is that x% of the prize pool is paid in travel and buy in to the Aruba tournament, which based on what we are seeing won't be happening and would be going straight to their pockets or whomever they decide is worthy of paying.

Here are the results for the PPC Aruba main event: http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/event.php?a=r&n=376423.

How many of these players are 2+2ers? I know Charder is. Perhaps they can shed some light on these allegations. If they're true, I'm surprised we haven't heard anything about this as that would be a pretty damn big deal.

I thought this only happened in China tournaments!!! Looks like they have a strong track record from 2012 tho and they are in season 5 already? How is it possible no players have been complaining thus far?

Each year so far they have done the same thing. Because of a (probably legitimate) complication with the Aruban govt they have always paid out large amounts a week or so after getting back to the states. That's why the players didn't freak out when they didn't get paid at the time.

There were no issues the other years. I believe this is the year that everything caught up to them. They got investors last year and I imagine that took care of their backlog then.

Came in 8th place got my 10k with no issue as far as I know everyone got paid

Jose montes

Can confirm that multiple people have not been paid travel/expense costs as promised. Have been told that the final seven have not received funds from the Main Event. I have alerted parties affected by this, that I personally know, to this thread. I am not at liberty to disclose their names, nor their stories. They wish to tell their own sides, when they feel the time is appropriate. Hopefully all parties are made whole.

It's good to hear at least one member of the final table has been paid.

[ ] op knows what a ponzi scheme is

Well it could be. Pay investors money from prize pool and later pay if not , don't pay the players cashed

I know exactly what a Ponzi scheme is. It's the closest definition of fraud that I could think of in this situation. It wasn't embezzlement. I realize there's no fake ROI being told to investors, but people are playing in tournaments expecting to be paid in Travel Funds/Buy-ins to Aruba and getting nothing in the end.

It's similar because I think they've been sustaining this by growing each year. Each year they take these $5k packages from running satellites or events at each property and get paid by the casinos for the in good faith that they will then correctly escrow the funds and use it for the prize pool in Aruba later in the year.

They must have been using that money as operating expense, fun, blow, hookers, whatever (I have no evidence of any of that just conjecture), but making it back by running more stops. Enough so that they could pay out the prize pools in the past events.

So tournament number 1 they don't do this. #2 they do, and recoup some of what they spent from loans or waiting a few weeks to send out the prize pool and run another event and get a few more 5k packages. #3 this happens again but on a much larger scale, this is the year they looked for and found investors (I have friends that I know they approached looking for funding, I don't know the details however). So with investors money they could pay that year out (and if they did find investors and do this I believe that could be specifically ponzi as well).

#4 (this year) could be the year that everything catches up and there's no further ability to beat around the bush. I believe this is likely the case.

Also I am aware that the owners of the PPC have seen this thread, and still not made any comment publicly, or privately to anyone involved.

Last year's champion, Vincent Fiorenza, was not paid last year in full for a long time. I wish he'd gone public rather than the rumor mill because he may have saved some people this year.

The specific numbers on what he was owed and when he was paid are inconsistent. It seems like it was a minimum of $20k and a minimum of 2 months. The only consistency is that he was not paid, and it was an unreasonable amount of time.

Entrepreneur life?

So, who ARE the owners of the PPC ?

Not entirely sure, but of the two men listed as PPC Commissioners on their site - Bryan Oulton and Sandy Swartzbaugh - the latter says on his LinkedIn profile he is Commissioner | Proprietor PPC Poker Tour January 2010 – Present (7 years)

fwiw I got paid, I have been busy gathering info since I saw this thread. Had no idea anything was up until last night. I have been told the winner and another player in the final 7 have not been paid though (and could be all the top 7? ) Either way that is deeply troubling.

Thanks for sharing. Out of curiosity, how many days did it take to get paid?

http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/Cor...formatType=PDF

Sandy and Bryan are the owners. I don't know that they own 100% of the company because they were looking for investors last year and may have given percentages as part of that deal.

got paid in cash on the spot

Based on 8th place being paid and no other higher places, my guess is that they set a limit of $10k for payouts for either legitimate reasons (Aruba gov't is weird, I know UB had some issues with them when they used to run there), or because it was a number that seemed legitimate enough to stop at.

Did you win or purchase a package? If so have your travel funds been reimbursed?

Here is a quick list of all properties that ran PPC events in 2016 that have patrons probably affected by the reimbursement:

Tampa Bay Downs
Foxwoods
The Isle Pompano Park
Tampa Greyhound Track
Daytona Beach Kennel Club
Ho-Chuck Gaming Wisconsin
Maryland Live
Naples/Ft Myers Greyhound
Horseshoe Tunica
St. Croix Casino Turtle Lake
Magic City Casino Miami
Playground Poker Club
Horseshoe Council Bluffs
Harrah's North Kansas City

OP, how do you know this?