oh yea, he's so standup of a guy that he let a 400k loan from a rival company to the one he's sponsored by go completely unattended until it was publicly noted he owed the money. this is a guy who's pretty aware of the complete disaster ftp was in (by greenstein's own admission ivey was screaming at him about how ftp was killing his rep or somethign to that effect before the wsop), but still just decided to turn a blind eye to the money he owed ftp even knowing the players were being completely ****ed over because of (in part, small as it is) **** like this loan

whatever greenstein did before this like say lol donkaments on tv or sign copies of his book when he busts out doesn't really mean **** when u see something like this. i mean, lederer was a pretty big philanthropist too and he can rot in hell for all i care

the apologists are just hilarious. nothing about greenstein publicly covering his own ass once it was revealed he was part of the problem is admirable

Barry realized that he has no choice than to come out with a statement. So he does, props for that. But what is rather alarming is that he hasnt paid it back for such a long time, like over 2 years? I do love Barry, he seems like one of the good guys, but we dont know whether he would have ever pair it back if it didnt come out he owed them $400k. Of course he will now say he has every intention to pay back. What else can he say? And making reasons to why he is not paying now, like immediatelly, is also quite alarming. It's not his problem to think who will get paid back with the money he owes. It's up to GBT and DOJ to come up with a plan to pay back. I dont think Barry should care if that $400k goes to US players or to the rest of the world players, as long as it goes to the players.

**** you BG! Trying to be a good guy, "I am not like others, see I made a public statement".

Where were you since BF? Why you made that public statement after the media got you? Why you even borrow money from FT? You own money which belong to do poker community. Pay back or at least do not post clips on Youtube hiring a privet jet or showing your "rancho"! Do not show us you're balla with our money!!!

Pay us back or go to a desert island with Russ Hamilton!

* U!

yeh they im curious what Ivey et al are going to be saying about this debt. And we know Ivey has a ton of money, he's playing in a million dollar tourney afterall. The man should pay back the 40 million he stole from the players.

My thoughts:

1. Directing your pent-up FTP hate at Barry because he is the only one to come on 2+2 with a statement is ludicrous. You realize that Barry is/was not the problem. He has become the convenient scapegoat for no good reason.

2. Thinking about the 400k (382k) as a typical loan is not correct. Barry did not receive cash and may well have never seen a penny of it. In order to get him to play on their site, Barry was given tournament buy-ins and account balances for cash game play. This does not suggest that he does not owe FTP the money, but ramp down the real-world loan analogies.

3. Barry surely did not realize that these funds would someday be construed as coming out of player funds. This was not known, and could not have been known, at the time FTP was paying out huge dividends to their poker-playing owners and kept their books sealed.

4. Given everything that we know today, I imagine that during most of FTP's existence worrying about money (profits) was never an issue. The size of the payouts and dividends shows that FTP was never run like a regular business concerned about long-term sustainability. So extending Barry credit was no big thing. (The mercurial Layne Flack was extended significantly more credit.) It was only due to the growing problem of phantom deposits/payment processor issues that FTP's financial situation became dire.

5. The US/ROW schism was created by the DOJ, not Barry. In the proposed deal, GBT will take on the responsibility of paying back ROW players in whole. Paying back US players will fall to the DOJ via seized funds and some money from GBT, but it is not clear that US players will be made whole. So it is reasonable that Barry (a US citizen) wants to make sure that his repayment goes towards US players.

6. Barry is hesitant to send a significant amount of money to a disabled company with a history of looting the company coffers. He says that he is committed to repaying the money. The idea of an escrow seems attractive but I think there is no legal way of ensuring the money goes to the proper place in the event of a deal (at least in Barry's mind). He has said that he will repay and hopefully this will be sufficient to not hold up the deal from GBT's point of view.

7. I cannot see that Barry has done anything differently than what I would have done in the same situation. Would I have accepted a line of credit from a poker site to play there with many of my poker friends? Yes. Would I have paid it back after losing all the extended buy-ins? Only if somebody asked me to. Would I have kept quiet about it after Black Friday? Yes. Would I have made a statement about it after it was publicly revealed? Yes. Would I pay back the money today to GBT or the present FTP? No. Would I make a commitment to pay back the money once a deal has been reached (knowing said commitment can increase the chance of a deal)? Yes.

8. Barry deserves some slack here for his past actions and deserved good reputation within the greater poker community and within 2+2. Reserve your bile for others.

Believe me, i have ten times the bile towards Phil Ivey then I do towards BG. But still BG should pay his debts.

Your example is pretty extreme. Say you borred $1mill from a friend who has no heirs or anyone else with an agreement to pay in full in a month. He runs his car into a telephone poll 5 days before repayment is due and is considered brain dead with <10% chance of recovery. Do you wire money into his account when he's still in a coma or do you wait it out and see what happens?

I agree this shouldn't have even been an issue as this should have been paid back WAY BEFORE FTP was shut down, but this is what happens when you borrow from degen friends who are too blind to see what COULD happen. You think Lederer, Ferguson and any of the other owners were hounding him or anyone else for the money owned? No, because they were blinded by the greed and $$$$$.

Congrats to BG who once again proves he is a class act.

KGC poker regulations
GAMING OFENCES:
Similar rule is in the Alderney regulations.

This reasoning is iffy; if the DoJ were asking for the $400k, which would presumably go to paying back US deposits, you could use the same line and say you can't play ball because you'd be turning your back on RoW players. Assuming player deposits owed are roughly 50% US and 50% RoW, how about paying half to Tapie now, and putting the other half in escrow for US players as has been suggested?

The morality of these borrowers' actions comes down to what they knew and when, which I doubt we'll ever know. Yes, FTP was probably solvent when Barry got his 400k, but between then and last March FTP transitioned to insolvency. Along the way, it's possible that the big pros were blissfully ignorant about this transition, but it's also possible they had some inkling that times were tough, and were encouraged by cash-strapped FTP management to settle up. If Barry and the other pros did have this info and made no effort to settle their debts before Black Friday, or, worse, knew FTP might go broke and saw this as a chance to freeroll by borrowing more from FTP (looks like Barry didn't do this but the other pros, who knows), well that's pretty awful.

I didnt know stars pros were allowed on other sites while representing stars? If so, is barry still a PS pro?Also the fact barry is owed $$ shouldnt affect the money HE borrowed... he still owes the full 400k he borrowed imo. Its not their fault he hasta wait for others to pay him.

I only qouted a part of your craptastic opinion although I give you 5 stars for the shilling factor.

Barry deserves the crticisms and bile. He isnt someone that just happened to take a loan out. He is very close to the main players here. He knew how much ftp was under water. He knows how much this affects players. His actions are scummy and whats even scummier is he knows much more about thos and will never say a word to save his friends....until he risks his own reputation.

He could just segregate the funds, even if the account is his.

1. Open a new account now.
2. Move money into it. If near busto, make regular deposits.
3. Make a public statement.
4. When the FTP/DOJ/GBT deal is reached, pay the debt.

Maybe Barry slow rolled paying the 400k debt for years because he anticipated FTP's demise. He figured he could eventually use the 400k debt to leverage some power on behalf of the players. He is only using the debt as a means to help the players get their money back. Just goes to show he truly is the Robin Hood of Poker.

He played at Fulltilt before he signed his huge deal at Pokerstars. He played as barryg1 and lost his ass fast in a handful of high stakes mixed game sessions.

There's been so much absolute drool in this thread, logical and reasoned pieces of clarity such as this and those from Baluga and a select few others really stand out.

Excellent post sir!!

Respect Barry!

I never knew Layne Flack's credit rating made him eligible for a 2 million dollar loan. Someone should have used freecreditscore site before they authorized this loan.

400k would pay a lot of wankers in this community so they stop their bitching about less than 100 bucks. Hope it all works out Barry and get these yappers to stfu!

Barry never does anything wrong. I am sure if he had another 4-5 years he would have eventually paid his debt. He lost this money quickly yet has taken years to not pay it. He brings up other people who have money at Fulltilt who owe him to imply an excuse for not paying his debts in a timely manner.

Why do people idolize this guy for making millions off of rich guys who couldn't beat micro stakes. Then giving tax deductible money to charities, which bought him an invaluable, marketable image as the Robin Hood of poker. Meanwhile he is slow rolling his debts, and has shown no propensity to beat on line mid to high stakes. He took a deal with Stars after taking the moral high road and claiming he would never take a deal from a gambling site. I have never seen a man make soo much from taking the high road in his words, but traveling the low road soo often through his actions.

LOL, people are comparing Barry to Russ Hamilton now? He took out a loan (which he can cover) that had no set date of repayment. He's not paying back right now because he's unsure about GBT. Enough with the baseless accusations trying to make this more than it is. The amount of self-righteous indignation and acrimony over this is laughable.
That said, they're asking for the money back now, so Barry, please just pay GBT and get this over with.

Hm, I read about rumours that CrazyZachary was one of the accounts he played on. The account lost close to 600k in early 2007 and he was never seen again after that. Just wondering, when did Barry sign with Pokerstars? Should be pretty close to that date, no? Fakelove 888 in reverse, imo.

http://www.highstakesdb.com/profiles/CrazyZachary.aspx

Assuming the rumours are true, BarryG has owed 400k for 5 ****ing years. And now he comes here and tries to make us believe him not paying has ANYTHING to do with the uncertainties of the Tapie takeover?

Wait .... whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

I guess NVG´s hero is scum after all, just like basically every major old school pro.

Not sure if it's been posted, Barry gave an interview about all of this on pokernews and gave some interesting opinions: http://www.pokernews.com/news/2012/0...oney-11943.htm

Barry, you could have have made 113k off of interests on bonds with 5% return in the 5 years you owed this money. You da man, macking interests free loans from casinos and poker sites.

Were you in breach of your PS contract Barry?