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Originally Posted by PokerIsFrustrating
I'm honestly not trolling or trying to be deliberately annoying.
Really want to know - if the DOJ stuff is true.
Your guess is as good as mine. I'm not saying the DOJ is right, or it's wrong. I'm saying that I'm not going to take a press release from a horribly biased source as gospel truth.
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Originally Posted by PokerIsFrustrating
If they paid their board members hundreds of millions, while shorting player funds, losing millions to payment processing etc, do you acknowledge there's a major problem?
I think there's a major problem with Full Tilt whether or not they paid their board members hundreds of millions or not.
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Originally Posted by PokerIsFrustrating
If Lederer and Ferguson KNEW the company was borderline insolvent and took money anyway, what do you consider that?
Being a dick.
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Originally Posted by PokerIsFrustrating
Finally, if this was such a horrible situation and DOJ freezing funds makes repayment impossible, how did Stars manage to pay US players back in a few weeks with no problems?
I explained this above, but here it is again. Both PS and FT kept accounts which were "segregated" according to the definition of their respective jurisdictions, but the definitions were different. Isle of Man's definition meant what the general public thinks of as "segregated" - a separate account with no operational funds comingled with player funds. Alderney's definition meant that there just had to be a way to track which portion of the funds were player funds, and used the term "protected" to indicate that the accounts were separated.
Using Alderney's definitions, it's almost certain that Pokerstars' funds were segregated and protected, while Full Tilt's funds were segregated and unprotected. Using Isle of Man's definitions, Pokerstars' funds were segregated, while Full Tilt's funds were unsegregated.
When Full Tilt says its funds were "segregated," they are not lying (intentionally saying something false) - by the definition of their license, their funds WERE segregated. Obviously, Full Tilt is playing with semantics here (just like when Bill Clinton claimed he did not have "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky), but the point is that they're not evil people who were out to steal your money from Day 1.
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Originally Posted by Do it Right
if you're implying that the DoJ is blatantly lying on factual issues for whatever reason ... then you should slowly remove the tin foil hat and just stop posting.
I don't think the DOJ is blatantly lying. I think they are wording their press releases to make them look as good as possible. Just like I think Full Tilt is wording their press releases to make them look as good as possible.
Take, for instance, the notion of "bank accounts." I have no doubt that on March 31st, Full Tilt did factually have $60 million in their bank accounts. But is that all the money Full Tilt had? We know that a lot of the money was held in trust in third party payment processors. Did the DOJ count that money as part of Full Tilt's assets? I suspect not. We also know that Full Tilt lent a bunch of money to FT Pros. Are those loans legally enforceable? If so, that's also money not in the bank but should count as assets.
I think the DOJ is being straight up when it says that Full Tilt had $60 million IN THEIR BANK ACCOUNT(S). I don't think that's the whole story, though.
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Originally Posted by DoItRight
presumably because you think they don't 'like' Full Tilt?
I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone who doesn't think the DOJ dislikes Full Tilt ... or Pokerstars for that matter. I don't think it's a big secret that the DOJ is out for blood.
But the bigger question of bias should be answered. Yes, I played on Full Tilt, and I have money stuck on Full Tilt. 99.7% of my money was on Pokerstars, and I got it back, so I have very little monetary concern. I don't work for the DOJ nor know anyone who does, I think cops planting evidence is real but rare, and I have nothing against the government in general.
I'm criticizing people because there's a huge bandwagon effect where poker players will seemingly do anything to avoid taking some responsibility for their own actions. "DOJ is lying and stealing my money!" has now become "FT is lying and stealing my money!" Truth is that nobody's stealing our money; FT, as it turns out, was a very poorly run company and that's it. It's like if Fidelity or Schwab (places you'd keep money that FDIC doesn't cover) went under - sucks, but we knowingly took that risk (or should have) going in.
Keep in mind that it's very likely Pokerstars was equally mismanaged but escaped by virtue of Isle of Man having stricter restrictions.