WCS064 (2012-07-24)

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1) They were indicted/charged with various types of bank fraud. UIGEA was passed in 06, enacted in 08 and made it illegal to process any online gaming transaction. FTP was stationed out of the USA, but the fraud they committed still took place right in the USA. They illegally took money from and paid out customers from every single state in the USA. If they are taking money from and paying US customers, how is that not taking place in the USA? They even talked banks (in the USA) into helping them code the illegal transactions. They did many illegal things in the USA.

WCS064 (2012-07-24)

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They were not able to ban FTP throughout the entire world. FTP did continue operating outside of the USA after Black Friday. They only stopped operating when the Alderney Gaming commission pulled their license. They had no license and had to shut down and haven't been up since.

The DOJ did not, in any way, shut them down throughout the entire world. They had ever right to continue to operate as Stars did. They simply were not able to keep a license to operate.

I thought his question was pertaining to how the DOJ has jurisdiction over the crimes and whether or not they actually occurred in the USA. If he was asking about why they stopped operating, they simply had their license pulled because their regulator found out they didn't have a fraction of the player deposit money on hand.

WCS064 (2012-07-25)

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You thought FTP was richer than Stars because they offered 500/1k games???? I don't understand the logic there at all.

According to the DOJ, FTP had roughly 10% of player funds on hand a month before Black Friday and roughly 1% on hand the month after. There is an email that has been made public of Ray Bitar admitting a $5 M "run on the bank" could put them under. Thats him admitting they didn't have $5M bucks when there was $350M sitting in people's FTP accounts at that time.

Stars, on the other hand, paid out over $100M to US players in under a month. I had my check in the beginning of May.

So when debating the finances of Stars V FTP, you can look at multiple DOJ reports, an email from Ray Bitar himself, the fact that FTP never paid anyone and has no money left, the fact that Stars did pay out over $100M to Americans and kept paying out ROW players efficiently. You can look at all those facts, or you can say FTP had bigger games so they were richer. You can use factual logic directly related to their finances, or use a meter that literally means nothing.

What does running big games mean when the players money isn't even accounted for in real money?


I don't know what you mean about them trying to re buy their license either. Their license was revoked because the company that issued it did an audit of their books and realized they didn't have the player deposits on hand.

WCS064 (2012-07-25)

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Are you joking?

FACTS-

According to the DOJ, FTP had 10% of the player money on hand BEFORE Black Friday, and 1% after.

According to Ray Bitar himself, FTP had less than $5M on hand a month after Black Friday, with $350M in player accounts.

FTP never made one single payment to an American player after Black Friday.

Stars paid out over $100M in less than a month.

FTP had their licensed revoked because the gaming commission discovered they didn't have player funds on hand, something the DOJ already knew.


Who cares how much money was in the player accounts? Those are just numbers. You don't make interest off of money in player accounts. You make interest off of money in real bank accounts. According to all the factual information available, they never had the player account money covered in real money, not even close. It means nothing.

What the hell are you talking about with the billionaire thing??? Furgeson and Ray Bitar are billionaires???REally??? So they could just easily reach into their pockets and take care of this no problem?

Neither of those guys had any money before starting FTP. We know Ray was paid $40M by FTP and Chris almost $80M. If you know they are billionaires you must know something we don't.

This is seriously the weirdest thread I've ever seen. You asked a question. I took the time to respond to the best of my ability with factual information. Then you just say no, I"m wrong, FTP ran big games so they had the most money.

Black Friday seriously impacted my life and I've spend countless hours reading things pertaining to it. I thought maybe I could help. Clearly you know everything though, sorry for wasting your time.

WCS064 (2012-07-25)

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So, your point is that if the company was run in an entirely different way then FTP would possibly be more profitable/have more money than Stars?

Why even say that? It's totally irrelevant. Sure, if it was run perfectly instead of the worst way possible, it might have been a better company. You could say that about any failed company. If thats your only point, I guess I agree, I just don't see why you even feel the need to say it.

Fwiw, the DOJ has made public the amounts that were transferred from the shareholders bank accounts from the FTP accounts. They had to track dozens of bank accounts over years to get this info. You may not believe any of it, but I believe their numbers are accurate. The numbers say Ray got about $40M, Howard about $40M, and Chris about $80M.

They were paying themselves exorbitant amounts of money, but it doesn't seem thats the only reason they were insolvent. They spent as much ad money as Stars despite having half the traffic, they made a huge push after UIGEA when Party Poker left the US market. Instead of using company/investor money to fund their huge ad budget (that includes all the TV shows, etc) they were just using player money. There were threads on 2p2 as far back as 2009 where people w/ inside knowledge were claiming they were using player money for ad buys.

Mike Matusow said on QJ that the plan was always to take the company public. If they were able to do that, they would have been able to inject a ton of public investor money into the company and it wouldn't be insolvent anymore. I highly doubt the plan was just to **** everybody over, but running an insolvent poker site in an illegal market w/ hopes of it going public is a terribly risky move.