I have been inundated with calls from all the poker media sites regarding this, so it's easier for me to respond in one place. Obviously, 2+2 has become the main place where people discuss online poker so I'm posting here. It would be nice if everyone who owes money discusses it openly so there is a better chance that they will make good on their debts and the money will end up in the pockets of players with balances on FTP.

My statement to the press and the poker community:

I borrowed $400,000 to play on Full Tilt a few years ago, before PokerStars had high stakes games. I didn’t pay it back, hoping that some people who owed me and had money on Full Tilt would pay me there so I could use that against the debt. (I'm only owed about $150,000 now). I have assumed when this case is resolved, the DOJ will allow methods for dealing with debt to FTP.

Tapie Group contacted me last week and asked if I would pay them directly. Their attorney offered me the opportunity to pay in installments so I could have a chance to use money owed to me. He even offered me the opportunity to discount my debt if the US players don’t get paid in full. I told him that I have never paid less than I owe on any debt and I would rather wait until the DOJ establishes a fund for the US players. I don't believe my debt has any impact on the sale to the Tapie group as they have alleged. I was concerned about taking money due to US players and giving it to the Tapie Group because it is understood that the Tapie Group won't be the one paying the US players. On the other hand, I realize that the total debt counting other players is substantial, especially because I would include in that tally any money taken from FTP once it had become insolvent.

Here is an excerpt from the letter I sent to their attorney:

“The consensus in the poker community is that all money owed to Full Tilt or taken by investors after the company became insolvent should be used to pay back player’s funds. If I were to make a deal with you it would look like I had turned my back on the best interests of the American players.

Even though the terms are easier for me if I deal with you and it will fulfill my legal obligation, I have to see how things work out with the DOJ and try to make good on my moral obligation to the US players. I assume at some time in the future the DOJ will establish a pool of funds from Full Tilt’s assets that will be used to pay off some percentage of the player balances that are owed.”

You can pay me directly, barry. FT owes me money.

lol donkaments

edit: damn thought i might be first post

gl barryg1

well said Mr Greenstein

You say you're still owed $150,000 but how much do you still owe FTP?

He said in the post that it's $400k.

FWIW, I have it listed as $390k.

I know he said $400,00 but then he brought up the fact he is still owed $150,000 implying that he had paid back $250,000.

Don't think that's what he meant. I think he still owes 400k but in turn is owed $150k by others

It's really an strange post from Barry and has nothing little do with with we USA players. If anything, it's a private matter between FTP, people that owe Barry money (not FTP), and the Feds (maybe).

Thats how I read it also. If Barry owes/borrowed money from FTP (and anyone else that does owe to FTP) needs to take care of it with the entity that is FTP. If the other company is buying it out, they become the owners of FTP and Barry needs to work out a deal with them, regardless of who is owed money in the USA. As for paying less on the debt to the parent company by working out a deal, there isn't anything wrong with it in my book. It's called working out a deal that all parties find fair. If Barry is owned $150K from other players, it's up to Barry to collect that money also just like the new company is trying to collect it from Barry for money owned to them. The USA players are owned millions. Accordingly, that needs to be repaired between the new entity and the Feds but has little to do with anyone owing borrowed money to either or from others. I'd of course like to get paid back for money trapped on FTP but I don't see how Barry's efforts benefit any of us. It was really a poor business practice for FTP to give those huge lines of credit to begin with (not that any of the FTP Red pros weren't good for it) but now it has become somewhat of an issue as Barry is pointing out.

With all that said, I"ve never found Barry to be anything but a charitable person prone to give the shirt of his back to those in need.

Why, it's strictly business.

(1) Barry owes FTP $400,000 for many years.

(2) Bunch of degens with FTP accounts owe BG $150,000.

(3) 1 and 2 are, basically, unrelated .

(4) There is no binding DOJ deal of any kind.

(5) Tapie may still bail after one year of "free" publicity.

(6) if 4 or 5, for Barry the whole thing goes away.

NVG Translation = Incredibly Classy Move By Poker Legend

Barry gets a lot of love in these forums, largely I imagine because he bothers to post in them and because of his Robin Hood reputation.

I have no problem with Barry, I probably like him for the same reasons but I can't imagine he was ever planning to (or was ever expected to) pay FTP back the $400k he talks of. If he had I'm sure he would have by now. I'm sure FTP never pursued him for it and never had any intention of doing so.

Likewise, I'm sure he would never have come out and mentioned the $400k if this hadn't all become public as it just has.

What this means I don't really know but I think if Barry is keeping secrets like this and only revealing them when he gets caught out god knows what the rest of them are hiding.

Barry G is the man

If only Ivey and co would do the same, we could start putting this mess behind us. Where are you, Ivey?

He's at the dice table with his Aussie Millions score that he funded with your money.

Ivey and co are doing the same a Barry. Which is refusing to their debt to FT.

lol they are doing the same......theyre all not paying that is teh problem

MnhX GHzHhgghDu

He's saying that FTP players owe him 150K.

I'm drunk but I don't think that is what he said at all.

[] correct

More like 8% when you factor in what GBT would be expected to put aside for ROW repayment.

Reading between the lines....

$18 million is not an insignificant amount of money but when you factor in the other amounts it does seem pretty small.

Ferguson's debt allegedly owed from FTP is $14 mil so this almost washes out the debt reported recently and reports indicated that GBT tried to acknowledge Ferguson's debt by trying to include repayment via passive shares in the new company which the DOJ was against according to what we've heard.

Reports are that FTP shareholders only want a deal that will get players paid. If that is true then this deal we're hearing about will have a provision for those funds. We've heard that the DOJ will handle US players and GBT will handle ROW players.

Somewhere along the chain of deals there has to be a provision for that $150 mil to be accounted for ROW player funds stuck on FTP. I would hope that the AGCC would also not even consider relicensing FTP if those funds were not accounted for.

So I would expect that GBT needs to pony up $80 mil to buy FTP from DOJ and somehow prove they set aside $150 mil to represent ROW players for a total of $230 mil. That's only about 8% of what GBT would be expected to pony up not 25%

If the deal goes through GBT would still be able to go after the $18 mil in loans. They aren't just going to vanish but GBT is eager to get these resolved before the deal goes through and indicated that this might negatively impact whether the deal goes through.

It sounds like there might be some merit to the rumors that GBT might not have the money necessary to complete the deal (or doesn't want to fork it all over themselves.)

Hopefully for people that have money on FTP I'm reading too much into this.

Somewhere in one of the FTP threads today I posted my analysis that it will actually cost GBT only about $95M to buy the assets, relaunch the site, pay the refunds and cover the remaining relevant account balances. $18M is almost 20% of that cost.

If Tapie actually has to pay $230M, I think the expected ROI will be too low to go ahead with the deal.

I saw that and you're making a lot of assumptions. One of the biggest was that GBT would only be honouring (I put a u cause it's mostly europe )half of the money owed to ROW players and I don't think that would be the case. At least I hope that wouldn't.

That $40 mil european bank account is also something reported that they would get after the purchase. They will still need to come up with that $40 mil before the purchase even if it ultimately turns out to come back to them.

By the way... you said you saw the books for Pocket Kings. How did you manage that?

Of course I had to make assumptions but not the one you seem to think I made. Perhaps I didn't explain it well. I assumed that when FTP2 opened it would serve 80% of FTP's ROW clients, at first, and that 50% of those clients' balances would be withdrawn almost immediately. The remaining money was assumed to be left on deposit with FTP2, covered by cash deposits in the bank as required by AGCC license terms. That's quite a lot more than "honouring half the money owed to ROW".

Which of those assumptions do you disagree with? What do you think would be a more reasonable set of assumptions?

Actually, I may have expressed an assumption that, upon frther reflection, I might not agree with myself. Borrowing money to cover the player deposits may not be possible under one of the required prudential ratios specified by the AGCC. However, the financing could be arranged through issuance of retractable preferred shares, rather than through a loan.

To cover the bridging, they can use 2/3 of the $60M I assume they will need to provide for cashouts. They won't be cashing anybody out until they are up and running, which won't be until after they get the $40M account. Even if they need a bridging loan, its cost is covered in the generous amount I allowed for financing costs.

There was a link (in the containment thread?) to one year's annual financial report, as filed with Irish authorities.

You seems like a shill or something, dont know wtf ure trying to do here. nobody would like to pay for ftp pros debt.

Even diamond flush said ure a ignorant douche... could you please stop being so useless to ftp players situation ?

I'm curious... who exactly does it seem I'm shilling for?