DOJ adds Lederer/Ferguson/Furst to Complaint - Claims defrauded poker players
E
Ernster86
Rock Star
Silver Level
I kinda liked him to be honest. I mean he wasnt my favorite player by any means and never rooted for him,. He definitely wasn't exciting but he came across as a very calm person who over thought everything he said, and he was a little different to the rest I guess, it just will be weird without him, feels like he belongs there.
Not defending the guy but its a bumma he had to be greedy. What an absolute idiot stuffing up a golden opportunity.
Chris Ferguson on the other hand meh. Very shocked he would be involved but I was never a fan of him at all I found him more boring than Howard.
Four Dogs
Legend
Silver Level
where'd you get that stat from. 650/day? since when, Black Friday? The end of the wsop? The month of September? That number is way high. I'd be very surprised if 650 total had left.
vanquish
Legend
Silver Level
hopefully this DOJ case turns him into heisenberg
JusSumguy
Chipmonger
Silver Level
Four Dogs
Legend
Silver Level
Final Table. Good podcast but still doesn't seem right. most American on-line pros hung around 'til after the WSOP so say 650 left the country/day for the last 2 months, that's close to 40,000 players. There weren't that many who broke even, let alone thought it worthwhile to upend their entire lives to move to Vancouver.
cardriverx
Legend
Silver Level
brank
Back in!
Silver Level
Here is a good article by Pokernews. Its an interview with a lawyer about FT and the gaming industry and free of speculation(for a change).
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2011/...ilt-poker-expert-maurice-verstandig-11075.htm
http://www.pokernews.com/news/2011/...ilt-poker-expert-maurice-verstandig-11075.htm
Charade You Are
you can call me Frost
Silver Level
Great article, thanks.
pokerchris
Legend
Silver Level
It’s not justified to pay those co-owners of fulltilt poker hundreds of millions of dollars with player’s money.
It’s also not justified to pay a lot of CEOs billinons in salary and/or bonuses because those money should be paid to the shareholders or buy back shares to increase share value etc. Why didn’t FBI go after those companies/CEOs?
It’s also not justified to pay a lot of CEOs billinons in salary and/or bonuses because those money should be paid to the shareholders or buy back shares to increase share value etc. Why didn’t FBI go after those companies/CEOs?
alaskabill
Legend
Silver Level
Brank, Great find. Thanks a lot for posting this.
I
islandtime2
Enthusiast
Silver Level
"In reality, full tilt poker did not maintain funds sufficient to repay all players, and in addition, the company used player funds to pay board members and other owners more than $440 million since April 2007."
The senior prosecutor, US Attorney Preet Bharara, said the site's top figures, including famed poker champions Howard Lederer and Christopher Ferguson, "lined their own pockets with funds picked from the pockets of their most loyal customers while blithely lying to both players and the public alike about the safety and security of the money deposited with the company".
They did it because they could ... the answer to why? is likely just as simple as that...and human nature probably guaranteed they would. But it is still sickning that they did.
The senior prosecutor, US Attorney Preet Bharara, said the site's top figures, including famed poker champions Howard Lederer and Christopher Ferguson, "lined their own pockets with funds picked from the pockets of their most loyal customers while blithely lying to both players and the public alike about the safety and security of the money deposited with the company".
They did it because they could ... the answer to why? is likely just as simple as that...and human nature probably guaranteed they would. But it is still sickning that they did.
F
fletchdad
Was good while it was good. It no longer is.
Loyaler
Yea. Its like the old question "Why does a dog lick his balls?" I am not so sure about the human nature part, but I am not so NOT sure either. I have never had control of millions of $s (or any other currency for that matter) and maybe it simply corrupts anyone.
Almost 3 years a member and 76 posts? (Not raggin on ya, just noticing) Nice to have you back in any case. I am from Houston. Where are you? Where do you play now in these post BF times? Is there any live poker in Texas other than back room games?
Four Dogs
Legend
Silver Level
Happened to me many times. Didn't notice it for a long time until I started getting money withdrawn from my bank account 6 or 8 months after the fact. I contacted FT immediately. They apologized and said they were having problems with their payment processor. Here's a copy of my e-mail to them and their response.
Hello Roy,
Thank you for contacting Full Tilt Poker Support.
Full Tilt Poker use various third parties to process Quick Deposit transactions. In this instance one of the third party processors experienced some issues and as a result the transactions were not sent to your bank account for processing.
We rely on information received from these processors to communicate the details to you.
As you received the funds to your Full Tilt account at the time we must now debit this amount from your bank account.
Rest assured we are taking this matter seriously and are constantly working to resolve these type of issues.
Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.
Regards,
Anthony
Cashier
Full Tilt Poker
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Please remember never to give out your password or enter
account details over the Internet. Full Tilt Poker staff will
never ask you for your password. For your security, always
keep this information a secret.
Learn, Chat, and Play with the Pros at Full Tilt Poker
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Original Message Follows: ------------------------
November? Are you kidding?
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
From: "Full Tilt Poker" <cashier@fulltiltpoker.com>
Date: Wed, 23 Mar 2011 11:42:20 -0400
To: <FourDogs.Poker@gmail.com>
ReplyTo: cashier@fulltiltpoker.com
Subject: Important information regarding your Quick Deposit
Attachments
D
dan abnormal
Legend
Platinum Level
I just hope when all this over someone writes a fully truthful movie about full tilt poker, Its just amazing this story, a company so big, just gone. Hope yall get your money back, lucky for me they banned me last october, but this story is like WOW, WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT
jaymfc
R.I.P DJ & Buck
Loyaler
really ? we going to start that mess with " in reality "
gotta love that writer for the DOJ , didn't he used to work for one of those scandal sheets , love that quote .it makes stupid sound poetic or something
they had that money coming to them IMO , and over 4 years . someone else was screwing up . they just would not be a part of any scam . you don't have to cheat if your company can make 100's of $1000's per day every day , 7 days a week , 365 days a year . it's a billion dollar business . I just refuse to believe either of them would do that until it's proved . I know me and some people will do anything for millions of dollars
it's " gold fever " , but it damn sure isn't human nature . it's just plain old greed . I heard a rumor that Ferguson and Letterer were planing to kill off a few of the other board members and split their share !
anybody else hear that :dontknow: this is my favorite soap opera and I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow
jmo
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Charade You Are
you can call me Frost
Silver Level
They moved it--that link no longer works. Here's the new one: http://www.pokernews.com/news/2011/...ilt-poker-expert-maurice-verstandig-11075.htm
pokerchris
Legend
Silver Level
That story might cost you $1000 a piece to get the money from you another way.
4
4value
Rising Star
Bronze Level
its a pretty gross situation, and honestly i'm sick by the whole thing having my personal money tied up along with the pain i share for others who need that money. Sosickbro posted a convo of durr releasing insider information
"Millionaire, professional poker player and former Full-Tilt Pro Tom “Durr” Dwan broke the silence this week by exposing insider information about Full-Tilt and its operations surrounding the black Friday scandal. Dwan answered numerous questions about the scandal on a widely known online poker forum known as twoplustwo earlier in the week. Below is a transcript of the conversation that took place
Q: I don’t think that durrrr had any big part in orchestrating this scheme although he most likely knew some info that he could have shared with us in regards to the status of Full tilt after black friday, like from a phone convo with Howard or the CEO
Dwan: thats very true that i knew info that i could, and wanted to share- i went back and forth many times about what i thought was in the best interest of players being paid back, and tried to do what was right with that in mind. dunno if i did but doubt any course of action after mid-june would’ve made much diff
Q: I don’t doubt that you have good intentions tom, you’ve put your neck out on the line when many just shelled up because they were scared. But with this case, i would seriously get in contact with the doj, tell them what you knew etc. and go from there. You don’t owe anything to us, you sure as hell don’t owe anything to lederer, bitar, and ferguson, but you do owe it to yourself to do what’s right for yourself, and in my opinion that is devulging information privy to this case with the doj. The moneys gone, we aren’t getting it back, anyone who isn’t delusional understands this, so your best course now for all of us, along with your own integrity and protection, is to talk to the DOJ.
Dwan: i’ve gone over what to do a ton of different times with a lot of different people, and early on i tried to make sure that my only motivation was getting players repaid (and removing any doubt that it wasn’t by tying my personal finances to that like i think all people involved with ftp should’ve done). I went over my reasons for stuff in the other thread, but i’ll do a few interviews about this, as i think thats the best way to show my reasoning/intentions (and i’ll do them with someone like noah, and ask him to ask as many hard questions as possible- and not have any topics off limits etc… altho there might be some stuff i won’t respond to, i’ll mention publicly that i won’t respond to it not jus to noah obv).
Q: I have a feeling tom’s already been in contact with the DOJ. Sounds like he had no knowlege of the fraud until after black friday, and im almost 100% sure that the doj has talked to many of the big name ftp pros, including tom. Still it’s a good post with good advice if he hasn’t in fact talked with them yet.
Dwan: haven’t talked to them… thought about it many many times- then recently learned they already knew everything i did, which made me disgusted that they hadn’t acted. that combined with the fed nonstop devaluing the use made me really not trust the government. today’s action made me really happy- now if the fed can keep it in their pants for once and not announce qe3 today/tmrw i’ll start having some faith in the gov’t again.
Q: I respect the way Durrr has handled the situation, I genuinely feel he was just naive when black friday started and failed to understand how ****ed the company he worked for was.
Dwan: its just such a joke that they fkd off a business which should’ve been worth 500m right now. so many disgusting areas of mismanagement and lack of oversight.
Q: So if you worked for Enron making $15/hour as a sales rep, you should help pay back the stockholders because management made a stupid move? That is insane. Who cares what his salary was unless he signed an agreement saying his salary is based on what management could scam the players out of. As for the players that played full time, dont get me wrong I feel for many of them, but they made a poor choice. It was still their choice to make, not anyone elses. Just like if you open a business and it fails, you shouldn’t be blaming it on anyone else.
Dwan: idk i don’t think ftp employees making 50k/yr owe anything to the players unless they really should’ve been able to sniff it out. but i do think that players who were getting 200k a year extra for wearing patches and very little work, while still having enough money to live on, should give some % of the money they made back. especially so because they were all some non-zero % to sniff out the shortfall in player funds (maybe only 1-2% but they still knew the right people n couldve asked questions etc). I don’t think they owe it or legally are required to pay, but its the right thing to do imo. and i think i should be penalized for not trying to push that 5% or w/e chance it was i had of sniffing out the hole, and for not having the company audited. In the future any company i’m affiliated with that either is a bank or acts like one, im gonna make damn sure i get audited. Part of the reason is so i dont get freerolled like i was with ftp (working for nothing), and i think other people should be incentivized the same way.
Q:You got me. Weird situation either way. I’m sure he wishes he didn’t say what he said now and is just as hurt by the whole FTP situation as a lot of other people. I think people’s anger should be channeled elsewhere.
Dwan: im happy i was monetarily tied to the situation, because it made it much clearer to all the people around me that i was only trying to do what was i thought in the best interest of the players. also it let me plan for possibly being out a lot of $$ for longer (instead of realizing now that the right thing to do was pay back $$ i made). i don’t think people should be profiting from a situation that involved tons of people being defrauded. I don’t think the people who were paid 50k/yr and needed it to eat should give back much (altho some peanuts would be nice and a good gesture), but i do think the sponsored pros should be giving back as much as they can for what they were paid since the company was insolvent. if i had been with ftp for 5yrs i wouldnt be giving back all i was paid, only for the last yr or so- but since iv only been there 20ish mnths it seemed right and easier to jus give it all back
Q: In all seriousness, how exactly was a business that was run illegally and under indictment by the DOJ going to enforce a non-disclosure agreement? There are also numerous state and federal whistle blower statutes to give you cover. You really need to hire an attorney and stop winging this as you have no concept of the impact your random statements on here will have on you legally.
Dwan: ive consulted a bunch of really good lawyers- more for their opinions on what was best to do. whistle blower stuff would only cover going to the southern district, not tweeting etc, and that didn’t seem to serve any purpose while a deal was in the works. when a deal fell through 2weeks ago i was planning on doing that or something along those lines, and then i realized the southern district already knew everything. i sat there scratching my head really sad they weren’t doing anything and confused about why, until i woke up today with some faith restored in the govt.
Dwans official response to the whole situation
“the other threads are (obviously) getting a bit out of control, and i’d like to answer what i can here to give people a clearer picture of the ftp situation.
In late april (25th i think?) i went to ireland because friends of mine were debating buying ftp. I was pretty adamant that i didn’t want to be included in any nda, and that ftp didn’t really have a choice except to trust me. I say that because i had enormous bracelet bets that would’ve more than doubled my net worth (counting equity on the 2 in 3yrs bets), and i got 2nd in a 1500nl. not to imply that the guy who won had bad morals or anything (he seemed nice), but its likely that i could’ve paid him off if i wanted to be a scumbag- and a bunch of those bets were against ftp owners, so they really shouldn’t have had a choice except to trust my judgement. however much to my dismay i was included on my friends nda without being personally liable. normally nda’s aren’t enforceable, but seeing as i was paid a bunch by ftp/ member of team ftp etc. it wasn’t fair for me to risk a huge amount of my friends $$ on this (way more than i could hope to ever cover from poker). obviously if this was just my own $$ i would’ve gambled it up, fought any potential lawsuit (probably won) and felt better about it. but the thought of grinding 1$/2$ for the next 800 years didn’t sound very fun.
For the last 4 months i’ve been constantly bothered by the elephant in the room, and obviously if i addressed some issues while not addressing the most important (pertaining to the elephant) it’d come off pretty scummy and make people question ftp even more/ be bad for players. however now that the doj has outted that elephant, i think theres just about nothing i won’t be able to answer (except stuff in the doj release and thats easy enough to find).
as far as i know there was 1 extremely bad decision made (the right decision would’ve been to stop processing to us players while still allowing them to play on the site), and a slew of terrible decisions made trying to avoid owning up to the 1st bad decision. What should’ve been an annoying problem after a few weeks, turned into a ****ty problem, then a really ****ty problem, and then a gaping hole capable of killing the company. Even after april 15th there were many poor decisions made, but the good news is that as far as i know (and i try to check everything i can from ftp about 18 different ways) for the last 2 weeks its been managed pretty transparently and well. before that it was in talks with an investor for about 2 months so there wasn’t much opportunity for mismanagement, and as far as i can tell (again i tried to vet this a bit), there wasn’t much.
if ftp doesn’t pay i’ll pay back everything i was paid. i dunno the best way to do this but it’ll be a very transparent process.
i currently owe ftp $$ that i’ll be paying back (in addition to the other $$ ill be giving) either to the players or a liquidator (if they go bust) or to any person who’s buying ftp (and paying all the players- if they stiff some this $$ will go to those players). I almost paid ftp this $$ after black friday, and i’m really happy i didn’t because i think the players deserve it. obviously if given good reason (deal which i believe is likely and they need operating costs for an extra week or w/e) i may give this to ftp- basically i’ll do w/ it w/e i think is best for the players- this may not be quite as transparent but i’ll try (only wouldn’t be if i thought it wasn’t in players best interests).
gonna have this thread locked and mods move any questions they feel are appropriate that i’ll answer. feel free to put me on the spot/ ask anything u want- just trying to avoid needing to answer the same question 20 times. hopefully some other people from ftp will join me in this thread
also i’ll be doing a few interviews in the next few days about all this (since now the only stuff i can’t say the doj has said) and i’ll link those here or something. "
"Millionaire, professional poker player and former Full-Tilt Pro Tom “Durr” Dwan broke the silence this week by exposing insider information about Full-Tilt and its operations surrounding the black Friday scandal. Dwan answered numerous questions about the scandal on a widely known online poker forum known as twoplustwo earlier in the week. Below is a transcript of the conversation that took place
Q: I don’t think that durrrr had any big part in orchestrating this scheme although he most likely knew some info that he could have shared with us in regards to the status of Full tilt after black friday, like from a phone convo with Howard or the CEO
Dwan: thats very true that i knew info that i could, and wanted to share- i went back and forth many times about what i thought was in the best interest of players being paid back, and tried to do what was right with that in mind. dunno if i did but doubt any course of action after mid-june would’ve made much diff
Q: I don’t doubt that you have good intentions tom, you’ve put your neck out on the line when many just shelled up because they were scared. But with this case, i would seriously get in contact with the doj, tell them what you knew etc. and go from there. You don’t owe anything to us, you sure as hell don’t owe anything to lederer, bitar, and ferguson, but you do owe it to yourself to do what’s right for yourself, and in my opinion that is devulging information privy to this case with the doj. The moneys gone, we aren’t getting it back, anyone who isn’t delusional understands this, so your best course now for all of us, along with your own integrity and protection, is to talk to the DOJ.
Dwan: i’ve gone over what to do a ton of different times with a lot of different people, and early on i tried to make sure that my only motivation was getting players repaid (and removing any doubt that it wasn’t by tying my personal finances to that like i think all people involved with ftp should’ve done). I went over my reasons for stuff in the other thread, but i’ll do a few interviews about this, as i think thats the best way to show my reasoning/intentions (and i’ll do them with someone like noah, and ask him to ask as many hard questions as possible- and not have any topics off limits etc… altho there might be some stuff i won’t respond to, i’ll mention publicly that i won’t respond to it not jus to noah obv).
Q: I have a feeling tom’s already been in contact with the DOJ. Sounds like he had no knowlege of the fraud until after black friday, and im almost 100% sure that the doj has talked to many of the big name ftp pros, including tom. Still it’s a good post with good advice if he hasn’t in fact talked with them yet.
Dwan: haven’t talked to them… thought about it many many times- then recently learned they already knew everything i did, which made me disgusted that they hadn’t acted. that combined with the fed nonstop devaluing the use made me really not trust the government. today’s action made me really happy- now if the fed can keep it in their pants for once and not announce qe3 today/tmrw i’ll start having some faith in the gov’t again.
Q: I respect the way Durrr has handled the situation, I genuinely feel he was just naive when black friday started and failed to understand how ****ed the company he worked for was.
Dwan: its just such a joke that they fkd off a business which should’ve been worth 500m right now. so many disgusting areas of mismanagement and lack of oversight.
Q: So if you worked for Enron making $15/hour as a sales rep, you should help pay back the stockholders because management made a stupid move? That is insane. Who cares what his salary was unless he signed an agreement saying his salary is based on what management could scam the players out of. As for the players that played full time, dont get me wrong I feel for many of them, but they made a poor choice. It was still their choice to make, not anyone elses. Just like if you open a business and it fails, you shouldn’t be blaming it on anyone else.
Dwan: idk i don’t think ftp employees making 50k/yr owe anything to the players unless they really should’ve been able to sniff it out. but i do think that players who were getting 200k a year extra for wearing patches and very little work, while still having enough money to live on, should give some % of the money they made back. especially so because they were all some non-zero % to sniff out the shortfall in player funds (maybe only 1-2% but they still knew the right people n couldve asked questions etc). I don’t think they owe it or legally are required to pay, but its the right thing to do imo. and i think i should be penalized for not trying to push that 5% or w/e chance it was i had of sniffing out the hole, and for not having the company audited. In the future any company i’m affiliated with that either is a bank or acts like one, im gonna make damn sure i get audited. Part of the reason is so i dont get freerolled like i was with ftp (working for nothing), and i think other people should be incentivized the same way.
Q:You got me. Weird situation either way. I’m sure he wishes he didn’t say what he said now and is just as hurt by the whole FTP situation as a lot of other people. I think people’s anger should be channeled elsewhere.
Dwan: im happy i was monetarily tied to the situation, because it made it much clearer to all the people around me that i was only trying to do what was i thought in the best interest of the players. also it let me plan for possibly being out a lot of $$ for longer (instead of realizing now that the right thing to do was pay back $$ i made). i don’t think people should be profiting from a situation that involved tons of people being defrauded. I don’t think the people who were paid 50k/yr and needed it to eat should give back much (altho some peanuts would be nice and a good gesture), but i do think the sponsored pros should be giving back as much as they can for what they were paid since the company was insolvent. if i had been with ftp for 5yrs i wouldnt be giving back all i was paid, only for the last yr or so- but since iv only been there 20ish mnths it seemed right and easier to jus give it all back
Q: In all seriousness, how exactly was a business that was run illegally and under indictment by the DOJ going to enforce a non-disclosure agreement? There are also numerous state and federal whistle blower statutes to give you cover. You really need to hire an attorney and stop winging this as you have no concept of the impact your random statements on here will have on you legally.
Dwan: ive consulted a bunch of really good lawyers- more for their opinions on what was best to do. whistle blower stuff would only cover going to the southern district, not tweeting etc, and that didn’t seem to serve any purpose while a deal was in the works. when a deal fell through 2weeks ago i was planning on doing that or something along those lines, and then i realized the southern district already knew everything. i sat there scratching my head really sad they weren’t doing anything and confused about why, until i woke up today with some faith restored in the govt.
Dwans official response to the whole situation
“the other threads are (obviously) getting a bit out of control, and i’d like to answer what i can here to give people a clearer picture of the ftp situation.
In late april (25th i think?) i went to ireland because friends of mine were debating buying ftp. I was pretty adamant that i didn’t want to be included in any nda, and that ftp didn’t really have a choice except to trust me. I say that because i had enormous bracelet bets that would’ve more than doubled my net worth (counting equity on the 2 in 3yrs bets), and i got 2nd in a 1500nl. not to imply that the guy who won had bad morals or anything (he seemed nice), but its likely that i could’ve paid him off if i wanted to be a scumbag- and a bunch of those bets were against ftp owners, so they really shouldn’t have had a choice except to trust my judgement. however much to my dismay i was included on my friends nda without being personally liable. normally nda’s aren’t enforceable, but seeing as i was paid a bunch by ftp/ member of team ftp etc. it wasn’t fair for me to risk a huge amount of my friends $$ on this (way more than i could hope to ever cover from poker). obviously if this was just my own $$ i would’ve gambled it up, fought any potential lawsuit (probably won) and felt better about it. but the thought of grinding 1$/2$ for the next 800 years didn’t sound very fun.
For the last 4 months i’ve been constantly bothered by the elephant in the room, and obviously if i addressed some issues while not addressing the most important (pertaining to the elephant) it’d come off pretty scummy and make people question ftp even more/ be bad for players. however now that the doj has outted that elephant, i think theres just about nothing i won’t be able to answer (except stuff in the doj release and thats easy enough to find).
as far as i know there was 1 extremely bad decision made (the right decision would’ve been to stop processing to us players while still allowing them to play on the site), and a slew of terrible decisions made trying to avoid owning up to the 1st bad decision. What should’ve been an annoying problem after a few weeks, turned into a ****ty problem, then a really ****ty problem, and then a gaping hole capable of killing the company. Even after april 15th there were many poor decisions made, but the good news is that as far as i know (and i try to check everything i can from ftp about 18 different ways) for the last 2 weeks its been managed pretty transparently and well. before that it was in talks with an investor for about 2 months so there wasn’t much opportunity for mismanagement, and as far as i can tell (again i tried to vet this a bit), there wasn’t much.
if ftp doesn’t pay i’ll pay back everything i was paid. i dunno the best way to do this but it’ll be a very transparent process.
i currently owe ftp $$ that i’ll be paying back (in addition to the other $$ ill be giving) either to the players or a liquidator (if they go bust) or to any person who’s buying ftp (and paying all the players- if they stiff some this $$ will go to those players). I almost paid ftp this $$ after black friday, and i’m really happy i didn’t because i think the players deserve it. obviously if given good reason (deal which i believe is likely and they need operating costs for an extra week or w/e) i may give this to ftp- basically i’ll do w/ it w/e i think is best for the players- this may not be quite as transparent but i’ll try (only wouldn’t be if i thought it wasn’t in players best interests).
gonna have this thread locked and mods move any questions they feel are appropriate that i’ll answer. feel free to put me on the spot/ ask anything u want- just trying to avoid needing to answer the same question 20 times. hopefully some other people from ftp will join me in this thread
also i’ll be doing a few interviews in the next few days about all this (since now the only stuff i can’t say the doj has said) and i’ll link those here or something. "
Last edited by a moderator:
coolnout
Legend
Silver Level
Another FTP statement 9/26:
""Full Tilt Poker is not a Ponzi Scheme
On September 19, 2011, the Department of Justice issued a release stating that Full Tilt Poker was “A Global Ponzi Scheme.” While the government has taken issue with the underlying activities of FTP, under any reasonable interpretation, there is no way to characterize the operation of Full Tilt Poker’s virtual online card room as a global Ponzi scheme.
A “Ponzi” scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi schemes do not involve any legitimate investment, but rather use the new investor funds to pay “dividends” to the initial investors.
Despite recent events, FTP remains committed to identifying a suitable investor and paying back its players in full."
""Full Tilt Poker is not a Ponzi Scheme
On September 19, 2011, the Department of Justice issued a release stating that Full Tilt Poker was “A Global Ponzi Scheme.” While the government has taken issue with the underlying activities of FTP, under any reasonable interpretation, there is no way to characterize the operation of Full Tilt Poker’s virtual online card room as a global Ponzi scheme.
A “Ponzi” scheme is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors. Ponzi schemes do not involve any legitimate investment, but rather use the new investor funds to pay “dividends” to the initial investors.
Despite recent events, FTP remains committed to identifying a suitable investor and paying back its players in full."
Pothole
Legend
Silver Level
The United States District Attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York has filed awarrant for accounts belonging to the four Full Tilt Poker (FTP) board members named in the amended civil complaint against the operator.
The warrant in question commands FBI officers to seize certain funds and property belonging to Ray Bitar, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and the Telamonian Ajax Trust (the latter tied to Rafe Furst in Tuesday’s amendment).
Following the unsealing of the original Black Friday indictments in April, US authorities moved to seize property belonging to Bitar, as well as a house owned by the wife of fellow indictee Chad Elie.
With the exception of the Swiss bank account registered with the Telamonian Ajax Trust, the remaining four named accounts have attached to them a warrant to seize “All funds and property on deposit”.
Of the remaining four accounts, one is tied to Bitar, one to Ferguson, one to Lederer and the fourth to “HH Lederer Consulting LLC.”
The account in the name of Lederer is registered with Lloyds TSB International on the Isle of Mann (sic.), while no country is specified with regards to the remaining accounts.
Lawyer Jeff Ifrah previously revealed to eGaming Review that any takeover of FTP would likely see the current management replaced. It is unclear what impact the new warrant could have on future investment in the company.
The operator is believed to have received a letter of intent from an investor, while the Alderney gambling Control Commission is yet to publish a verdict following its hearing into the suspension of the operator’s licences on the Channel Island. The London hearing is ongoing and is due to be concluded later this week.