Full Tilt Poker = Ponzi

[bucksfan2]

The more I think about this I just don't know what to consider it. Full Tilt almost acted like a bank, taking in players money (deposits) and using it to fund their employees and marketing (loans). I wonder how much they actually were leveraged? And it would make sense that when the DOJ shut down the site they didn't have the funds in order to pay out all their players.

It almost seems like a mix of a ponzi scheme and a bank all wrapped into one.

[nmculbreth]

Originally Posted by oneupper

Thanks for all the info. I'd have to agree with your assessment above.

If I'm reading correctly, the site was shut down in April, didn't return the money people had in their accounts but then it wasn't until September when it was determined that it was a fraud?

Not exactly. The DOJ indictments caused the sites in question to block US customers from playing in real money games, but they continued to operate as usual for non-US players.

The details of the alleged fraud on the part of FTP took some time to unravel because of the way that the company was structured. Initially the speculation was that FTP was having trouble cashing out American players because of the way that they structured their bank accounts, rather than insolvency.

Since Pokerstars kept their player bankrolls segregated from their corporate accounts, they were able to make a deal with the DOJ fairly quickly which allowed them to return funds to their American customers. It was assumed that FTP may have intermingled their players' bankrolls with their corporate accounts and the delay was being caused by the fact that they were having problems getting the DOJ to unfreeze those accounts to allow them to pay their customers.

It wasn't until later that the extent of the company's financial difficulties / improprieties began to surface.

[ervinsm84]

Originally Posted by nmculbreth

Not exactly. The DOJ indictments caused the sites in question to block US customers from playing in real money games, but they continued to operate as usual for non-US players.

The details of the alleged fraud on the part of FTP took some time to unravel because of the way that the company was structured. Initially the speculation was that FTP was having trouble cashing out American players because of the way that they structured their bank accounts, rather than insolvency.

Since Pokerstars kept their player bankrolls segregated from their corporate accounts, they were able to make a deal with the DOJ fairly quickly which allowed them to return funds to their American customers. It was assumed that FTP may have intermingled their players' bankrolls with their corporate accounts and the delay was being caused by the fact that they were having problems getting the DOJ to unfreeze those accounts to allow them to pay their customers.

It wasn't until later that the extent of the company's financial difficulties / improprieties began to surface.

100% correct

[ervinsm84]

I guess i made good use by saving up my "one tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiime" for this

Spiked a 1 outer woooooooooooohoooo

First bit of optimistic news in quite some time :-) :-) :-)

http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/wo...reement_52195/

cliffs: FTP sold and players to be paid back. Still dont get why anyone would buy that company at this point but ill take it.

[ervinsm84]

well, it's only taken forever, but now the DOJ finally has set up a claims company to pay out the money to Full Tilt Pokers players. Really happy to get a nice bonus coming sometime because I had chalked that money up as gone. If anyone here had $ on there, the link is below on how to begin the process for remission and so is the press release

http://www.fulltiltpokerclaims.com/index.php

http://www.fulltiltpokerclaims.com/d...ss_Release.pdf