Live from Two Plus Two Studios, May 17th 2011 - The Two Plus Two PokerCast crew all eventually made it back to North American to bring you a Black Friday one month follow up show featuring a repeat appearance by poker industry insider Bill Rini. Bill breaks down events transpired over the past month since the DOJ indictments including PokerStars american cash outs and Full Tilts alleged cash flow problems. Mike and Adam then connect with SteveD and BryanS of PokerStars to get some Spring Championship of Online Poker coverage and a PokerStars update. Deuces Cracked coach and friend of the show Bart Hanson provides his first of many strategy segments about 'Calling Pre Flop in Live Games' in this weeks Leggo Poker / Deuces Cracked strategy segment. The guys also provide a Madrid EPT Grand Final trip report and wrap up the tournament coverage. In the final segment it was time for some forum static including the Food Madness finals, tournament coverage and of course give away the password for the May 22nd Poker Stars VIP Club Invitational for PokerCast listeners.


PokerCast Theme - Demitone Productions Inc. © 2007 : Fleet Foxes - Grow Oceans - Helplessness Blues © 2011 : Elbow - Neat Little Rows - Build a Rocket Boys! © 2011 : The Joy Formidable - Whirring - The Big Roar © 2011 :

Edit: Please stop with the no content posts

-Adam

Edit: Please stop with the no content posts

-JD

Edit: Please stop with the no content posts

-JD

Edit: Please stop with the no content posts

-JD

First.

Damn ninja ediors.....

but I did move up one space.....2st

Down load is here: http://pokercast.s3.amazonaws.com/twoplustwo_172.mp3

MP3:

Ep 172 Black Friday One Month Later & SCOOP Coverage

JD: Please stop with the no content posts

8st

I'll allow it.

Adam, did you ask Steve some of the questions proposed in the Sit & Go thread yesterday? I'd appreciate if you could give an estimated timestamp of where this topic is discussed.

What is happening in this thread?

Downloading now. Looking forward to the interview with Bill Rini. Still remember that he was the first to prove that online poker is rigged.

Edit: Please stop with the no content posts

-inthepub5

Steve talks out of his ass for half an hour worst pokercast ever.

Another week, another show.

TY

woot woot... bawlin...

Bitter SNG grinders ITT.

General Question, would take current PS rake to ensure a healthy, secure, financially solid poker business that was able to snap pay out over 100 million dollars to their US player base or pay a slightly lower rake to on a risky, insecure, and non-liquid poker site, where your money/cashouts are eternally at risk. Big picture peeps.

stars had segragated player funds so that has very little if anything to do with rake.

online poker is completely legal and regulated in many places in europe + elsewhere so these costly payment processor issues and flyby night guys shouldnt really be an issue

big picture is that rake bleeds the poker economy dry

please mike never try to justify higher rake.

edit: i dont mean to have a go mike but rake is redic high.

loved the show as always

Did anyone else have a problem listening to the pokercast? I downloaded the episode (51.5MB 1:52:20 in length), but halfway through talking to SteveD it stopped. If its just me, I'll try to download again...

Do you guys talk about online poker on the show?

Cause I find myself very much not giving a **** about the topic.

wow I didnt hate the show at all (just finished it)

but I think the overall response is fairly clear: always have a serious poker guest, or at least a hot chick, or both.

I really like Bill Rini, and I love when Mike starts trying to suggest that the DOJ should or would EVER be looking out for 'the people' lmao

My guess is Pokerstars had access to money other than that seized by DOJ, and they made a business decision to return the funds to the US players. It was a business decision.

I hope no one thinks the DOJ had anything to do with the return of players deposits by Stars. Making that happen was Stars and Stars alone. The DOJ grabbed whatever $$$ they could get their hands on, and they could care less (addressing Adam's comments about 'justifying sums that might need to be returned) whether or not US players are reimbursed or not. Bill Rini said it pretty clearly: from the DOJ standpoint, Stars and FTP would not be in this conundrum had they not out and out violated and circumvented US law to begin with.

I think Mike's 95% belief that FTP moneys will be returned is sadly way above the real line at present. I would say its more like 3:1 against, and at that price I would still bet the under. What no one really wants to admit, veen though FTPs silence may in fact be saying this:it may not be about 'doing what's right, etc' at this point; the money could just be GONE you know? Ask Bernie Madoff.....he'll tell you.

Personally I see Eric Seidel and Mike Matusow as independent contractors and had no problem with their playing the tournament. Had Howard, Chris Ferguson, Phil Gordon, Phil Ivey, or even Andy Bloch been present, that would have been different in my eyes. I dont' worry so much about Jen Harman, e-Dog, Gus Hansen, Antonius or even Durr either. I don't see any of those players really being involved in high-level business decisions, or holding major stakes in the company. Truth be told Durr and Patrick may be getting big annual endorsement deals, but have NO percentage ownership.

Didn't mean to get long and rant-y...apologies....cheers

Like I said on the podcast and have since posted on my blog, I was able to speak with someone who would certainly be in the know and he told me about how the IOM and PokerStars handle player funds which was the reason they could pay so quickly.

Basically, let's say you deposit $500 to a poker site with Moneybookers. Moneybookers transfers that money to the poker site's Moneybookers account. There's no point immediately cashing out that balance because you've got players who will likely cash out today too so you leave it there and in your books you credit the player $500.

But IOM gaming regulations say that you have to actually put the money in segregated funds. So Stars, for instance, would probably still leave the $500 on Moneybookers but they would dip into their own operating capital and fund a bank account in the IOM with the $500. The $500 in the Moneybookers account then becomes part of their operating capital.

Alderney and Kahnawake don't require that you always hold the money in the segregated accounts. You can (not saying they did, but you can) keep float money like that on Moneybookers as long as it's all player funds and you're not mixing it with your operating funds.

Actually, that last sentence is only partially true. Depending on how you agree to segregate funds you can commingle funds as long as you notify Alderney of the type of accounting you're employing. More of a technicality but I wanted to make it correct.

Okay, so the DOJ comes along and grabs the Moneybookers account. Bam. The money is gone.

If you were Stars the DOJ seized your operating capital because your player funds were sitting in a segregated IOM bank account. Thus PS has no problem paying out players. It hurt. Even if it was only $100 million or so that's gotta hurt but the player's funds are not at risk.

If you're with another poker room who wasn't using that type of accounting the DOJ just seized your player funds and now the poker room has to use their operating capital to make your account good. Depending on how much they seized that may be more than you have liquid.

I think its good that you reiterated that. THE IOM required this segregation, a very real physical one, not just one of accounting. Because of that requirement, Stars had (some) player funds truly segregated and out of the reach of the DOJ.

This next bit is of course speculation, but I would imagine that, like a bank or an insurance company, a poker site holds funds until they are requested, and business prudence would expect them not to necessarily hold ALL the funds, but a percentage, a reserve against withdrawls. Now, without regulation, the companies would be subject to their own judgement (or lack thereof) as to what % of players funds to hold in reserve. My guess is that FTP (#2 in the market wanting badly to build market-share, splashy image, high-profile and extensive/expensive marketing) would follow a very aggressive business model and taking $$$ that might have been held in reserve by a more conservative company and firing it off into the "business".

So if these assumptions are correct, FTP would be strangled by both a minimal reserve and the physical exposure (DOJ seizure) of much or maybe all of the reserves they did hold. A higher % of players in the US v rest-of-world would also tighten the noose. Their outside of US operations would have to work even harder to generate money needed to replenish US depositors.

Thanks Bill also for verbalizing the example as to FTP pros/partners and the likelihood of them 'putting their own funds back into the pot'. Of course that's not going to happen. Recent business events here in the US have given us literally thousands of examples of executives with 8-figure payouts 'managing' companies that became insolvent under their stewardship. Certainly none of these dudes went into their pockets to make good.

Maybe FullTilt can sell their software/marketshare and return .50/$1 in a timely manner? My guess is whatever players get in the first (partial) payment will be what they get in total. I dont see FTP going into future earnings in the rest of the world to make good on US players accts, as would most certainly be the honorable thing, but maybe not the best business decision.

Ultimately we'll see whether its greed or honor that prevails I guess.

PS Black Helicopters at work .....

No problems here