lol@name one. How many posts itt have you read? Three or four. I see about 75 posts saying that. And the rest are saying he owes money and to pay up

Have past numbers actually been reported? If they have not, they may have been running the company poorly for many years. They could have easily out-spent the revenue and borrowed from player funds to do so.

FWIW I think he's a thief. This is players money that he has, if you look at realistically that is. Pay it back Barry because you are no better than a bank robber. And yes Im serious

I mean, I haven't seen the numbers, but IIRC from what I've read since BF, they were profitable until sometime in 2009?

I'm not going to lie and say I'm sure about that, but I doubt there are very many who ARE sure about it, so to state definitively that the loan came out of player funds is inflammatory, IMO.

Maybe someone with a firmer grasp of FTPs finances over the past few years can chime in, although without knowing the exact date of the loan it wouldn't prove anything reference BarryG per se.

I just think there's plenty of things to get upset about here without inflating what we know to be true. Barry has admitted to owing the money, and should repay it, IMO. I think the debate about whether or not he should repay it now or after the sale is valid, and certainly to ask why is wasn't paid sometime over the few years it was owed (I know, I know, I don't really get the high stakes world. Still.) To call it theft of player funds as some have suggested is just a step too far, in my opinion.

:bingo


SGT RT knows what's up

Too funny. SGT tilts the crap out of me every time he posts. If I could still play online I'd be busto. Then again, I wouldn't be on here to read his posts. I'm starting to think Black Friday was engineered by 2p2 to increase traffic .

Would you consider it "a step too far" if these figures were never released and Barry kept quiet about the loan and didn't bother to pay it back?

Money is fungible, especially when there apparently wasn't even a pretense of segregation.

When everyone has been paid or illicitly made off with huge sacks of cash, except for the people who deposited money on the site, then its pretty ****ing obvious where all the damn deposits went.

Eagerly anticipating another WSOP where no one will say ****.

No, that would be a mile too far.

I don't think he's handled this well at all - he waited until he was outed (LOL about not being upfront because it would be embarrassing because he was a PS pro) and hasn't repaid his debt for years, which is a problem in my eyes. Had he never been outed and used that as an excuse to never repay his debt, especially if the players don't get refunded at 100%, that would be despicable, IMO.

However, if the loan was given out several years ago, I think it's likely that no player funds were involved, although if someone has better information about the financial aspects then I'm open to correction.

And yes, I understand that if FTP wasn't segregating then the "which are player funds" line is fuzzy. However, if they had enough money to cover all player deposits and operating expenses, then however it was apportioned in various accounts, any dividends or loans or lobster and gold toilet seats purchased weren't done from player funds.

That's my understanding of the situation, anyway. If someone knows close the exact time FTP passed from "all of our money is a pool but there's so much of it we can cover everything" to "all of our money is in a pool and holy **** there's not enough to cover all players and operating expenses but poker is like printing money so we'll keep giving ourselves millions and hope there's no mass withdrawal that will expose us", that would be the point I would say the loan consisted of player money.

Again, IIRC that was sometime in 2009, but if someone with more knowledge of the finances involved here wants to pwn me I'm all for that.

The 400k is really negligible in terms of how much FTP owes U.S. players. I think it's pretty laughable that FTP would consider selling their company without U.S. players getting their funds back being the first f priority.

Tilt factor rising.

I'd escrow the money, for 1% fee :P

I don't know how you differentiate it. The money wasn't segregated so it's plausible some of the money was from players as it was all mixed together. No-one will be able to accurately tell as the finances of the company were in such a mess that not even they understood what was going on.

I don't understand this. Why would FTP not sell to anyone who would buy it? Why would anyone who bought it want to be responsible for paying U.S. players?

I ninja edited while you were responding. This is how I make the distinction.

18 million is not negligible that closer to the total amount the pros owe.

I realised that I really don't see that we'll know either way where the money came from as it was structured in such a way that it was a complete mess. You'd need forensic accountants and other specialists to try piece it together and even then it'd be troublesome. One thing is it's not a safe assumption that loaned money was taken from the profit/expenses pot of FTP rather than out of the player fund pool.

It was all the same to them! It was most likely treated as one giant piggy bank since its inception.

I think if it was all one giant pot then if they were in the black (profit over and above expenses) then it wasn't player money.

I guess I'm just asking people to consider that it's possible the loan occurred when FTP was still rolling in dough and ergo it wasn't player funds that were used.

Do I know for sure that it wasn't player funds? No, since I know neither a) the date of the loan or b) the date FTP passed from black to red on the ledger. But I think if the loan was early 2009 or further back, then there's a decent chance the loan was from profit, and I tend to err on the side of caution with things like this. Maybe it's just semantics - I certainly think he owes the money, should have paid it before this mess, and had damn well better pay it at some point - but I don't necessarily believe that the money was player funds at the time of the lending.

Why FTP was violating their license by loaning players money to play with a completely separate issue, and at this point I doubt anyone is shocked they were behaving in such a ******ed fashion.

Also, if I'm going to tilt you, you should at least know that I'm female.

Its also against Alderney gaming comission rules that well known FTP players like Ivey and Benyamine are still ****ing hookers and living baller lifes with our f money.

I rlly dont care if these 'high rollers' will evantually get an offer they cant refuse.

If it was all mixed together, then a percentage of it came from player funds.

Taking big chunks of cash out of a pot of player money/rake is not a "scraping off the top" type of an operation.

You owe, you pay. Why is this such a difficult concept for people to understand?

It's actually you owe, you should pay. Barry understands that. He wrote it in his book. But he also understands that if you're a piece of crap but can convince enough people you're not while still not paying, it beats the hell out of ponying up 400K. Eh Barry?

Does it really matter where the money came from?

I doubt they told BG one way or another or BG asked to see their books to make sure player money wasn't involved. It's not like he knew then what he knows now.

Bunch of BG's friends that he's played with for years start a poker site, have high stake games. BG comes to play on the site, his friends say we'll give you some money to play, we know you're good for it. Like seems to happen many times with high stakes players. The FTP crew probably don't care too much about a little $400k between friends (mbn) with all the money they're making so they don't press him on it, especially since it seems like he lost it all on their site.

Only thing left to do now is Lederer and crew to start a warning thread on NVG to warn others.

Greenstein is playing to his reputation as the "robinhood of poker". He is also, "playing", to protect his reputation as a recent Hall or Fame inductee.

The reality, is he is a daily gambler. Pure and simple, the money runs dry, the opportunity to borrow and play is too tempting to turn away.

Time to pay the piper, whoops, I don't have it....

Ditto for the others, they are daily players. Enough said / can you spell broke?

Where is the money these guys have been playing every day coming from????????

Its all leverage folks.... Worst case, the debts are called due....

Ditto for Flak

Can you now better understand his "post" ???