I don't think suggesting that people should stick to complaining about the legitimate issues rather than inflate them with needless rhetoric is a bad thing.

I think EVERY pro who owes FTP money should pay it (although I don't pretend to know the best way they should go about doing it), but exaggerating or mislabeling what any pro generally (or BarryG specifically did) isn't all that helpful, IMO, and basically stirs up a lot of screaming and yelling.

Not that there's not a place for that as well; a lot of people have been royally screwed and are angry about it, and rightfully so. I just think it serves everyone better if they focus their anger appropriately, and mislabeling BarryG's loan as "theft of player funds" when it's at least possible he borrowed the money while FTP was solvent seems reactionary.

He owes money and refuses to pay, simple as that. I don't care how good your rep is barry, do the right thing.

escrow ainic

that's actually a good idea.

This is such a fallacy of converse accident.

one size doesn't fit all, but this post definitely made me lol. nice work.

from pokernews interview:

"I still think, the advice I'd give to anyone else in this situation, including Phil, is, be ready to pay when this whole case is resolved. Which hopefully will happen in the next six months. Obviously not everybody has the money to pay."

So seems like Barry thinks some of the mentioned plauers, maybe even a few of them are too broke to pay their debts. So these people we look up to are in reality broke, and owing huge amounts of money? Flack maybe? What about Lindgren and Benyamine? Sickening how these people were balling away for years with FTP money, and when the **** hits the fan they are all broke as fuc*. I honestly thought these people are smarter than this. Maybe that was my mistake.. seems like they really are just degenerate gamblers

if the deal falls through they will use this as scape coat.. anyone thinking that this would really be any obstacle to the deal is a moron. 20 million here or there.. if you don't have the money to make the deal and have a long term plan they're gonna crash and burn fast.

Flack, Mikey and Benyamine almost certainly don't have the money to pay back - given their personalities.

10 percent of their gross tournament winnings going forward should be put towards paying their debt off, IMO.

No one really cares how things get mislabeled or if anger is appropriate.

Who really cares when he was loaned money or if FTP was solvent at the time? It makes no difference if Ivey was loaned x amount 5 yrs ago, or Layne Flack was given a loan way back when. Does it make it any better that they may have been given a loan pre insolvency vs 12 months ago if they didn't pay any of it back at all?

BarryG didnt know how solvent FTP was or wasnt when he got a loan, nor should it matter.

Anyone who owes FTP money, and that includes the players who took advantage of the phantom deposits, should just pay what they owe.

I can say proudly that im an honest gambler and have always paid up my debts and value my integrity to the utmost. Probly the reason im stuck at low stakes breakeven grinding

I would much rather be a bankroll nit, small/middle stakes grinder than a highstakes wanna-be baller with huge amounts in debt.

Oh wait, I am a bankroll nit small/middle stakes grinder. But I'm happy with that. I'm never going to be playing in noseblees, and I'm OK with it. Thank god I dont have the gambler gene as most of the highstakes gamblers seem to have. Eventually you will go broke.. well, not necessarily, but there is a great chance.

Just look at Sam Trickett. It's only February and he is probably down over a million. Maybe way over a million.. He is playing with disaster.

lol...yes the Tapie Group is in this to lose money! Add all the monies ftp dullards and Barry owe and its quite substantial...a lot of delusional people here when it comes to the value of money.

I think there are some people who are sitting on credible and solid information about those who owe a significant amount of money to FTP are and they need to start publicizing them. Had it not been for the Tapie lawyer, we may have never ever heard about Barry's debt.

The saddest part is what I've said many times. If the deal does collapse all these high stakes scumbags will be walking around the wsop without a word said to them. I watched last year as guys like lingren, benyamine, Gus Hansen, and others wore FTP patches and laughed And played like nothing happened. Lol at the people saying how they will attack them. Nothing happened then and probably the same will continue.

Put the money in escrow and the new FTP gets the money when players are paid.

I'm pretty upset that loans were being given out for millions diluting my money.

I can't understand how these players thought it was okay to let FTP float them millions of dollars.

Had I known FTP was loaning players tens of millions of dollars I would never have trusted them with my money.

Barry seems like a nice enough guy, but he had to have known that if they loaned him 400k and never seemed to care about it that there were probably millions in loans floating around.

When a rich friend gives you a no-interest indefinite term loan, is it immoral to avoid paying it until you are asked to? I supect that posters in this thread would have a wide range of answers to this question. Many people with half a brain would consider it stupid to pay off a no-interest loan before it was due. When is an on-demand loan due? When the creditor asks for payment. There is no evidence that FTP asked Barry for payment before BF. Anyone with more than half a brain might have decided to wait until the dust settled.

After the amended complaint, anybody with more than half a brain would have decided to hold off on paying until the legal ownersip of assets was resolved.

Why would he pay GBT now? GBT isn't the owner of the debt, yet. If he pays GBT before the deal goes through, legally he'll still owe the full amount to FTP. Once the DoJ gets forfeiture of FTP's assets, he'll owe that money to the government. In the unlikely event that the government loses their case, he won't owe it to the government or GBT.

Interchange rich friend with company stealing money from its players.

Come on, these guys are pretty smart.

If Barry or anyone else had told me that FTP was loaning millions to players they had relationships with I'd have been concerned.

Yet people much smarter than me saw no problem with the situation?

I understand how hard moving large sums of money around can be, but that is no excuse for players to accept loans in this manner.

If all of this was on the up and up why wasn't this disclosed by anyone?

I apologize if this has been posted before, but the thread is too long for me to read the whole thing today. A passage from Barry's book "Ace on the River" (text found online.)

"If you owe money, which will probably happen sometime, make sure no one ever has to chase you down. Be dependable. You may need to borrow from one source to pay another. If there is a time that you don't want to pay your debts because it will leave you with a short bankroll, pay the debts anyway. You reliability in these matters will result in you having a virtual bankroll far greater than the actual money you have.

"It is the responsibility of the person who owes money to mention the amount owed and his plan for making payment whenever he meets his lender. This may alleviate the hard feelings and misunderstandings that can accompany indebtedness.''

DoTheMath;

Why not escrow the money? It gets paid to GBT when the sale is finalized, it gets put into the US-player refund pool if the sale falls apart.

Andrew

It's so simple and yet no one on the 'inside' is even mentioning this. Something very shady is going on. Paging Noah?

Become the CEO of any major corporation. Happens a lot lot lot. Become a large bettor at a casino. Become a well known high stakes poker player. Ask for a large line of credit. They will give it to you hoping you lose your poker profits in the pits.

Sorry to word it like this, but you want the US players take all the money where half of it is owed to the ROW players?

Do as I say, not as I do.

Barry when exactly were you planning on repaying the money given that it was 'years ago' that it was loaned to you? I find this almost as outrageous as your current refusal to repay your debt. It was behaviour and attitudes like this that lead to FTP getting into trouble in the first place...