FullTiilt Poker Fraud - Oh Noes!

[casinobonus24]

Just my 2 cents:

Seriously I cannot understand how all this smartass motherfuckers making hundreds of thousands or even millions playing poker enjoyed keeping 90% of their networth on online poker accounts which were run by nothing but a limited. Not traded by any stock exchange, no security, no nothing, a limited.

Same happened already in the betting industry when a simple limited company called PointBet operated huge credit bettors and suddenly disappeared including funds of depositing customers.

Again, don't wonder if you go broke keeping money on a bank account controlled (in the end) by a handful or private persons... seriously, in my opinion, the golden banana goes to anybody having bigger amounts of cash on this poker accounts.

 

[casinobonus24]

I get A9 which is a pretty solid hand so raise, one dude (the cheat) calls.

THIS rofl...

 

[Fatbat]

The problem is they fucked up their accounting and now they are fucked.

The problem is the DoJ shut them down in the US and Alderny pulled their license. Otherwise they would have continued running their business without any problems whatsoever for years to come. Maybe in that time they would have got their accounting shit together, maybe not. As it is, they got caught with their pants around their ankles, and yes, they got fucked.

 

[taktikz]

Glad the fuckers got caught...

 

[(O_o)]

Why doesnt the US gov legalize and regulate online gaming?

This would
1) Your $/depots/funds would be protected and insured by the .gov
2) Put shady/scammy online poker sites out of biz
3) Allow existing casinos in the US to open their casinos online

 

[potentialeight]

Why doesnt the US gov legalize and regulate online gaming?

This would
1) Your $/depots/funds would be protected and insured by the .gov
2) Put shady/scammy online poker sites out of biz
3) Allow existing casinos in the US to open their casinos online

Here's a brief description of the legal situation right now.

There aren't any laws making online gambling illegal on a federal level, but there are laws in some states making it illegal. For example, in my state of North Carolina, gambling is legal as long as it's the state-run lottery or it's on a game primarily of skill (which is also what makes chess tournaments legal here). The UIGEA that was passed [in a really fucked up way] in '06 made it illegal for banks to process the deposits for any online gambling that was already illegal. The UIGEA in very clear terms states that it does not make any gambling illegal and that banks were allowed to process cash outs, even if it was from illegal online gambling.

The problem the UIGEA created is that many banks were virtually forced to block all gambling transactions because they couldn't try to pick and choose which transactions were legal and which weren't because of the costs involved in doing so. This is what led to sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt using shell companies to process cash outs so that the banks wouldn't block legal transactions. Unfortunately, they likely committed bank fraud in the process, which is what led to them getting buttfucked by the DOJ in what has become known as Black Friday.

These bank fraud charges are unrelated to Full Tilt Poker's current situation in which they didn't have the money to cover players cashing out their money. Where they were licensed (before it got yanked when this was found out), a part of the licensing agreement was that all player funds would be kept in separate individual bank accounts for each player. PokerStars has the same restriction, but they've actually stuck to it and not had any problems.

 

[suave]

Here's a brief description of the legal situation right now.

There aren't any laws making online gambling illegal on a federal level, but there are laws in some states making it illegal. For example, in my state of North Carolina, gambling is legal as long as it's the state-run lottery or it's on a game primarily of skill (which is also what makes chess tournaments legal here). The UIGEA that was passed [in a really fucked up way] in '06 made it illegal for banks to process the deposits for any online gambling that was already illegal. The UIGEA in very clear terms states that it does not make any gambling illegal and that banks were allowed to process cash outs, even if it was from illegal online gambling.

The problem the UIGEA created is that many banks were virtually forced to block all gambling transactions because they couldn't try to pick and choose which transactions were legal and which weren't because of the costs involved in doing so. This is what led to sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt using shell companies to process cash outs so that the banks wouldn't block legal transactions. Unfortunately, they likely committed bank fraud in the process, which is what led to them getting buttfucked by the DOJ in what has become known as Black Friday.

These bank fraud charges are unrelated to Full Tilt Poker's current situation in which they didn't have the money to cover players cashing out their money. Where they were licensed (before it got yanked when this was found out), a part of the licensing agreement was that all player funds would be kept in separate individual bank accounts for each player. PokerStars has the same restriction, but they've actually stuck to it and not had any problems.

you summed the whole situation up about as well as anyone could, excellent post

 

[Fatbat]

Here's a brief description of the legal situation right now.

There aren't any laws making online gambling illegal on a federal level, but there are laws in some states making it illegal. For example, in my state of North Carolina, gambling is legal as long as it's the state-run lottery or it's on a game primarily of skill (which is also what makes chess tournaments legal here). The UIGEA that was passed [in a really fucked up way] in '06 made it illegal for banks to process the deposits for any online gambling that was already illegal. The UIGEA in very clear terms states that it does not make any gambling illegal and that banks were allowed to process cash outs, even if it was from illegal online gambling.

The problem the UIGEA created is that many banks were virtually forced to block all gambling transactions because they couldn't try to pick and choose which transactions were legal and which weren't because of the costs involved in doing so. This is what led to sites like PokerStars and Full Tilt using shell companies to process cash outs so that the banks wouldn't block legal transactions. Unfortunately, they likely committed bank fraud in the process, which is what led to them getting buttfucked by the DOJ in what has become known as Black Friday.

These bank fraud charges are unrelated to Full Tilt Poker's current situation in which they didn't have the money to cover players cashing out their money. Where they were licensed (before it got yanked when this was found out), a part of the licensing agreement was that all player funds would be kept in separate individual bank accounts for each player. PokerStars has the same restriction, but they've actually stuck to it and not had any problems.

Yes, excellent summary!

 

[amateursurgeon]

the government just calls this type of activity "monetary policy", what's the big deal?

From the article:

"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 complaint read.

If you replace "player" with "depositor", you could be describing pretty much any major bank.