I've personally handled cutting the check to the PPC at least once while I was a Manager at MDLive (this was 3 years ago-ish, maybe slightly more). It's written to their US llc, so unless that changed they money will be US based.

I was asking about proof that they owned the Aruba room just so that we would have one more piece of the puzzle and one more avenue for going after them.

Fool me once shame on , shame on you. Fool me you can't get fooled again

So it has been confirmed that 6 people who made the FT in Aruba were scammed and about 8 other people are owed money.

Don't for get all of the players that already "won" seats for the 2017 PPC event. They are owed ~$3100 and have already been issued a W2G for 2016 for that amount (this is true for the Md live players at least).

To clear up a few things -

I was being slow payed for an event that I helped put together in the fall. I didn't see any reason why I would not eventually get paid, so I wasn't worried, and had not heard anything about the Aruba problems until a day or two after this thread went up.

The pros who were helping to book events were paid a portion of the income from the events they booked. We operated basically like commissioned sales people. The casinos cut checks after the events and those checks went to the PPC at the address someone listed earlier in the thread, which I do think was just a mail drop.

The checks for the Aruba packages, as well as the event fee, went to Sandy and Bryan, so there is no reason to believe that money ever went to Aruba unless we see evidence of it. The casinos were not sending the money to Aruba, they were sending it to the PPC in Florida.

Given this problem, as well as previous problems with other tours and leagues, I will never be involved in anything that allows the tour or league owner or operator to hold any money from player pools. It never goes well. I was nearly screwed on a $10k main event seat, and the league went under. It was replaced by another league where I fought to get paid on my pro contract. Then this PPC thing happens and I will never see the money I am owed from them.

I love tournament poker and working with poker tours, but if I work with another one it will be after extreme due diligence and a certainty that no money from player prize pools is in the hands of anyone but the casinos and the players.

I operated as an agent for the PPC at a distance and knew very little about how the business worked, but I'm happy to answer any questions. I'm also signed on with Mac Verstandig to do everything I can to help make sure that players are paid.

Not only does Mac possess a ton of relevant experience, but he's licensed in FL. Good choice

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 ?

Probably the same agency that prosecuted Lederer and the rest of the FTP group in other words nobody. And they are back at the poker tables like innocent lambs.

IANAL so this could be worthless info. IMO Sue the individuals and win in civil court, place liens on personal property. If they play in tournaments you can even go after any tournament winnings ala Two Plus Two vs Dutch Boyd.

I've now been able to confirm that the Poker Room Manager of the "Beachside Poker Room" is a high school friend of Sandy's. Lending some more credibility to the idea. That they own the room down there.

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.

Can the corporate veil be pierced in the case of fraud/theft?

I think Florida counsel is needed. Regardless of how relevant his poker experience is, that license, and the essential fact that he is reportedly interested in representing players, speaks well for the choice. No one likely lining up to take this case on a contingency to be honest.

(I had a couple of conversations with Mac a few years back, he is certainly aggressive in his approach, struck me as sometimes clearly wrong, but never in doubt ...)

This is smells like a fraud case, with some potential money-laundering activity thrown in; Mac's reported experience as criminal counsel or corporate counsel may prove more valuable "poker" experience in chasing down assets.

Good luck.

Ahh... Good ole W!

Did they buy in at the cage like a normal tournament in a casino or just hand the money to one of the two guys in charge?

Tourney was in a ballroom and thats where you registered, I believe they just handed it to someone associated with the PPC.

Thanks Rich for smoking this thing out - Mark hoke seemed a little subdued at the Maryland Live event, and now I know why. Is there any chance MD Live (and Foxwoods for that matter) haven't paid the PPC yet, and could still have the money for the 2017 qualifier packages? Gonna be fun explaining to the IRS why my tax form says $8100 ($5k for 5th minus $400 buyin plus $3500 Aruba Package) when I claim only $4600...

poor ppl got the bone .again. they will still linger around like stale piss as Lederer and ferguson and furst and the rest of the scum bubbles do. no one gonna do nothing....the only comments i heard remarked to Ferguson was a guy who was telling him ..."what a great fkn con that was..magnificent,and that these ppl just mad cause they did not think of it"....be careful in the future. there are more poker scammers than legitimate poker operators....

Tip off The IRS (Federal & State of Florida)

The rumor going around is that MD Live might not have paid them, but that hasn't been substantiated yet.

Why would they delete/scrub their Social Media Accounts if that was the case ?

Nark Hoke karma

On November 29th I reached out to @pokernews on twitter informing them that PPC was under capitalized and that this matter should be investigated. I was quickly dismissed. I also reached out to a few famous poker pros in an attempt to get a larger circulation, I even hit up everyones favorite blogger Marty. No response.

It seems like in the attempt to simply survive in this fast evolving industry everyone is too caught up about their own interest and not in the interest of the greater industry.

I uploaded their response.

https://************/image/orq6ufyef/

[IMG]https://************/image/orq6ufyef/[/IMG]

https://postimg. org/image/orq6ufyef/

Ironically when I tweeted on Dec 4th, "...PPC was going under..." @marylandlive "hearted" my tweet.

@hazelbazelhazel

re-hosted the image on imgur...

That would only be a small portion if it's true. Want to reiterate that's a rumor from players up there and not staff directly.