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Originally Posted by PTLou
Assuming everything said is true, and these guys will obviously be shunned out of Poker business , and they cant be shamed into paying players back....
What is recourse for players and what law agency would help victims of this fraud ?
If the money initially went into a US bank account (sounds like it did), there is a small chance because the initial records of deposits will make it easy to arrive at a starting amount of funds that disappeared - this is a big enough fraud to get the attention of both federal and local law enforcement. But think of the legwork a prosecutor would have to do to do this right. It's not just the few final table players that a competent prosecutor would want/need to question. A competent prosecutor would be looking to everyone who won prizes to find out about their promised reimbursements and whether there was any substantial misleading with people who are not now complaining. That's a ton of work.
Couple that with the reality that many poker players are not of a mind to return phone calls from law enforcement (uh oh, will they want to know what my earnings are - do I have a tax issue?) and it might be a tougher investigation than one might imagine.
Further, given the lack of a geographically concentrated set of victims, it is really more of a federal investigation if one wants to do it right. Someone has already said that the feds want bigger numbers than this, which is generally true, and the potatoes might not be big enough here. That is not to say that the feds would never be interested, but size matters.
As far as criminal charges are concerned, there is a huge distinction between failing to pay employees and contractors (civil claim for breach of contract - zero chance of a prosecution) and taking money from a prize pool (which never belonged to the owners of the tour). But even in the latter case, a prosecutor would have to prove an intent to defraud, and it's possible to defend against that in a number of ways. It is tempting to analogize a case like this to a lawyer using a client's escrow funds (easily prosecuted) or a stock fraud case (I told you I bought you some stock but I really didn't - easily prosecuted), but a more appropriate analysis might be an employer failing to remit withholding taxes already taken from a paycheck (less likely to be prosecuted and more of a civil matter).
As a civil case, players are going to be suing a bankrupt corporation (ugh) and getting behind the corporate veil is possible, but not the easiest of errands. A judgment against the corporation would, guessing here, be worthless.
Sorry for the wall of text but I hope this helps.