Posts Tagged ‘full tilt poker’

Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme

An on line poker business which was a obstructed from operating in the U.S. in the spring as part of an internet gambling crackdown was “on no account a reputable poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme,” federal prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Full Tilt Poker website unlawfully raided player accounts

The famous Full Tilt Poker website unlawfully raided player accounts to invest in operations and make luxurious transfers to its owners, Justice Department lawyers said in a revised civil lawsuit filed in the Big apple. Over four years, the company used $444 million in player money to cover board members, including prominent professional poker players Christopher Ferguson and Howard Lederer, investigators said. The poker site had assured players that their accounts were protected and wouldn’t be touched.

Full Tilt also cheated and abused its own players to the tune of hundreds of countless dollars

But authorities admit that, since March, the corporation had only $60 million left in its bank accounts to light up the $390 million it owed to players. It routinely mingled player money with its own finances, and took cash from some to clients pay out winnings resulting from others, prosecutors said.”Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company, however a global Ponzi scheme,” U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement. “Not only did the firm orchestrate a massive fraud against the U.S. banking system, as previously alleged, Full Tilt also cheated and abused its own players to the tune of hundreds of countless dollars.”An attorney of the site, Barry Boss, was traveling Tuesday and not just immediately intended for comment.

The Associated Press could not immediately locate Ferguson, Lederer or their representatives for comment.Federal authorities initially sued Full Tilt Poker in April as part of a broad crackdown on your hottest online poker sites inside the U.S. Additionally they filed criminal charges the actual company’s two top executives, Nelson Burtnick and Raymond Bitar.Those charges are pending, along with the men are still being sought by authorities. Previously, these women have issued statements via a publicist condemning the fees as unfounded.Executives at two other web sites, PokerStars and Absolute Poker, also face charges and civil suits seeking millions of dollars in gambling proceeds.U.S. lawmakers got there a crime to accept money in connection with unlawful gambling in 2006, but some big card-playing sites continued to use anyway, saying their off-shore status or ways of processing payments put your lights away from the law’s reach.

Lots of the companies did business by storing gamblers deposit money in special online accounts. Those accounts were then utilized to pay losses and receive winnings.Within the revised lawsuit against Full Tilt, Justice Department lawyers asserted even if the firm had assured players that those accounts “are segregated and held separately from our operating accounts,” they were actually drained regularly for other purposes, including paying the company’s owners and board members. Bitar got $41 million and Lederer got $42 million, the lawsuit said. Ferguson was purported to get $87.5 million, although he could possibly have only received $25 million of the amount until now, federal prosecutors claimed.

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The World Series of Poker Appears It’s Thriving, But Look Below The Surface.

The World Series Of Poker had yet another record breaking year and stays the industry standard, In 2011, there were a record 75,672 entries when compared to last year’s record of 72,966. This year was up 3.7 percent of last year. Also, the prize pool set a record in 2011 with a whooping $191,999,010 dollars compared to last year’s previous high of $187,109,850. This was also a boost of 2.6 percent. These numbers cause you to think everything is great within the poker world.

If you take a look a little deeper you can see most predictions of the turn out for this years tournament were deeply understated. The truth is they broke records as mentioned above. So Black Friday did not have the impact some thought it might. Despite thousands of players angry after three of the four sites failed to reimburse them even after the government cleared the way to do so. Many thought players might not be able to afford WSOP buy-ins because of the online poker crackdown. We believe the predictions were a year early. With sponsorship down and much less fish playing online poker these days the sharks will not make much cash for buy ins. It could just have not been long enough for the losses to kick in.

The tv portion of the tournament has definitely taken a commercial hit. It’s no real shock because the owners of these sites were huge sponsors specifically Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker. If you have been watching the tournament on television you will see their logos are not on the players either. Even the UFC events don’t have these sponsors anymore. If ratings are down this year they can lose even more sponsors. One good thing is Godaddy has signed on this year to be a sponsor and perhaps that is a good sign.

The bottom line is next year will be the year to worry about. If poker players cant find online poker sites that accept players from the US, then they could lose interest and take up different hobbies. Even if their desire is to play, but there’s no place online, they may get frustrated. In either case the lack of US poker Sites is a concern and the fact these players haven’t had there funds returned to them is another. The environment over the next year can really get bad.

So how should we fix it and keep the best tournament in the world? That will not be an easy one. Here are several thoughts. First, if the government is prosecuting the operators of these poker websites criminally, then they should also pursue the funds being returned to the players just as vigorously. The poker players were not breaking any laws and their funds should be returned. Second, there needs to be a law that legalizes online poker at the minimum if not all of gambling. The law makers should not play politics with this situation. It’s about time to get past the Indian gaming lobby and help the players. Until we get US poker sites again the game is in trouble and so is the WSOP.

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Breaking News: Full Tilt Poker License Suspended Effective Immediately

Full Tilt Poker License Suspended

Early Wednesday morning, the poker world learned that the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) suspended the license of Full Tilt Poker and ordered the site to suspend all operations.

According to preliminary reports, games on Full Tilt worldwide came to a sudden halt.

Effective immediately Full Tilt Poker has ceased operations with visitors to their greeted with a note stating

“Maintenance In Progress – We apologise but the system is currently down. Please check back later.”

Furthermore Full Tilt Poker has been forced to stop

Registering new customers;

Accepting deposits from existing customers;

Allowing existing customers to withdraw funds that are held in their accounts; and

Permitting customers to participate in any form of poker game play or gambling transaction.

With Full Tilt out of the equation for now, you can find a full list of reccommended poker rooms and their promotions here >>> poker rooms and promotions