Full Tilt Poker Announcements

[scrawnybob]

hi

no you've read the news wrong or been reading the wrong news

US players will get paid out 100% indirectly by Tapie but via the DoJ paying out from siezed funds

Tapie will then in addition cover all the non US player balances onto the newly launched Full Tilt

(the currently seized funds will act in part as "payment" for the "fine" of the DoJ and Tapie will pay an additional amount to cover the DoJ paying the US players)

the DoJ wont be out of pocket or making a charitable donation to save US players - they are ONLY facilitating getting the funds to US players - Tapie will still have been the one saving all the players

(not the DoJ - who will still be making their wedge for screwing up the online poker world around the world)

he has bought FTP effectively from DoJ for between $40m-$80m afiaks but will be paying all the additional money out for player balances etc ... so effectively investing alot more

The crucial part of the deal is players WILL get ALL of their money

US players will get all their money back - however it will be admin'd by the DoJ so not sure what timescale they will work on and also they will more than likely want to make sure everyone is paying their tax

this is (if it goes through as it looks like it has) the best possible solution for both US and non US Players

cheers SB

ps. I havent blogged on it as I wasnt sure anyone was interested anymore, had given up hope regardless of me still having faith in a resolution, was sick of the news, or felt I was bashing the US govt all the time

[the Styb]

The (two?) articles I read just made it seem as if GBT pays DOJ and DOJ uses that money for repayment. I know they'll be getting a nice fat paycheck out of this. Any word on if this arrangement means dropping the charges against the individuals?

[scrawnybob]

hi

it will mean all the class action stuff will be dismissed out of court or whatever the correct terminology is

whether they will or not I think there still remains scope for the DoJ to pursuit the individual board members (principally Bitar, Lederer & Chris Ferguson) whether that actually happens or not is hard to tell

Bitar is IMVHO the only one that must have definately known what was going on / he was doing

then lederer who / is was closest to bitar

the one I personally still remain unable to entirely blame is Ferguson partly because his contribution to the site was alot to do with the software and not sure how much he really would have be up on or interested in the day to day running of FTP (that and his name is Jesus after all)

it looks like the board have to agree to forfeit FTP so I think it's likely they will be trying to make sure they get off the hook as part of the deal

again while many may have reservations about the way the deal pans out IMHO the key thing is the US players get money back (on DoJ timescale) and non US players get balance credited to their FTP account

(however I expect probably sensibly there will some withdrawal restrictions on the new FTP to stabilise things - like monthly maximums / % of reinstated bankrolls)

this may help ... http://www.subjectpoker.com/2011/11/doj-gbt-ink/

cheers SB