Do You Forgive Lederer and Ferguson?

Hence the idea of donating it to some philanthropic cause. The "giving it back" advice, if it happened, probably took place prior to PokerStars' picking up the tab.

You've really hit a bullseye here on a phenomenon that is totally real, but not talked about that much; the 'lifestyle creep' of the poker world and how it can compromise otherwise upright people, or at least people who started out that way... for the exact reasons you said.

Once you decide to do it for a living, you're on a path where the integrity hazards get bigger, faster. You're around types of people who are very comfortable doing things you wouldn't want your kids doing, you're now immersed in a culture who prioritizes 'values' that are often times against the norms of broader society (or, just not what it takes to live a good, well-satisfied life). The pressures to drift into the poker-adjacent 'hustles' or gray-area 'opportunities' present themselves at every turn and when you're down huge with a depleted bankroll that's making you consider a 9-5, or worse, moving back in with mom, suddenly, that guy who makes you the offer to drive a carload of vape cartridges from Colorado to North Dakota might be on to something. Or the business owner who can't cash his chips at the case because of an IRS lien, but he's willing to give you 10% to do it for him...

I completely 'get' what you're saying, it demonstrates you truly have been in the 'world' and were paying attention.

I don't think the government is dysfunctional in this regard and I don't think it has anything to do with morality. The government operates for its interests, and UIEGA came about because big casino lobbyists wanted it to protect their big business, and the politicians facilitated that for them and got perks in return. They only used moral arguments, as they usually do, to mask their true intentions and motivations. In that sense, the government worked perfectly for the people it serves. You or I are, unfortunately, not one of the people it serves.

As far as Lederer and Ferguson, they're pretty common examples of what happens in pretty much all, but most especially unregulated, environments with no accountability. Smart, powerful ruthless people win at the average, moral, disempowered people's expense. How can you forgive a snake? He just does what he does.

You misspelled "House Speaker Tom DeLay had been hustling tribal casino owners for huge campaign contributions, and needed to do something to demonstrate that their money wasn't being wasted." It was exactly this hustle that got DeLay indicted and convicted of money laundering, costing him his political career (although the conviction was later overturned).

Never forgive, never forget.

Nope

Totally agree. I ultimately received a portion of what I was owed, but the amount was worth much less to me by the time I was paid. The balance on Black Friday was material to me at that point and caused some financial distress. Submitting a "petition for remission" that resulted in getting a portion of what was owed three years later in no way made me whole.

Although one could argue that the source of the funds should not matter if repaid, I would have felt better if it came from those unjustly enriched and Jesus and Howard are at the top of the list. If I recall, Ivey was the only one who spoke up when **** went down and he had not received large payouts via their ponzi scheme like Ferguson and Lederer did.

You guys should check into that, and make sure you didn't miss a step in the process somewhere. Everyone who submitted a valid claim was paid out in full, if they did it right. Granted, it was not an easy process (you even had to keep an eye out for snail mail to get instructions on a postcard for the next step in the remission process), but still.

this was the greatest banner placement at the WSOP I have ever seen...

They robbed all of their customers and refused to do the right thing which would have been giving back their ill gotten profits to repay players. Pokerstars only paid their debts so that they could operate in the USA again. They are scumbags and should never be forgiven in any way.

They were all Royalty back then lol Poker Royalty

It would have looked better if it was facing the wall!

There both solid, not one spec of dirt stuck

This angle explains so much.

I don't think the guys would have stole the money point blank without an ethical system to justify the embezzlement. It's possible that paying money to top players (friends) so that they could gamble it, and make the money effectively flow down (whether in the tables or with at will quid-pro-quo arrangements). All this would have been disguised, to investors and to themselves, as marketing budgets, which would all work out in paper as long as the site was growing, when the site stopped growing, it all went to ****, effectively making it a ponzi scheme, whether intended or not.

I don't think it was as direct and stupid as unlimited credit, that would have no justifiable defense, no one is that dumb.

How was there no trial on this? I mean not even a civil trial for like theft or embezzlement, but just a commercial trial for breach of contract or fraud or something. They should have released information to the public, explained what happened.

I think the expectation that the owners were just criminals who were out there to steal money was misplaced, it was in their best interests for the website to keep running for 10 years and to keep their reputation clean, their mismanagement even hurt them, the incentives were not there for this to be premeditated.

Isn't selling all the assets to pokerstars under the condition that they would pay back users the right thing?

The solution you propose would have had no actual benefit to the users, it seems more about removing the wealth from those that were benefitted.

The issue with your solution is that Full Tilt itself paid the profits to different parties in exchange for services, sure it may have been something as ridiculous as paying 1M/mo to a poker player for playing poker, but it may also be something reasonable like paying for advertising on traditional media or servers, or salaries for software development. Even if you made some of the expenses be returned, (at the expense of the provider who was not necessarily guilty) you would not expect ALL the money to be returned, mostly because there's a chain of costs in the case of providers, and because poker players probably gambled or lost fees to casino rake. Somebody would have to be in the hole for that money, and that somebody was PokerStars.

Not seeing the issue if everybody got paid.

Weren't all debts settled once they sold to PokerStars? What other amends would you expect?

Exactly. Interesting parallel with the .com boom.

Not against this, it's possible that at some point they took money with some sort of moral guilt, but they may have had debts to pay, it can start as a very reasonable thing as start spiralling out of control. But regardless of what ethical guilt might or might not been present, here's an important fact that's more important than whether they felt wrong or right:

It was their money, it was not illegal.

If someone deposits money to your company, you now hold their assets and have a liability to them, the company can shove their money up the butthole if they want to, that's not illegal because it's their money, what they still do have is the liability to return that money though, but these are 2 separate positions.

Banks, of course, do this all the time, and it was surely a point that might have been brought up when justifying this during executive meetings:

"Hey banks do this all the time"

A very basic setup would have been to have 2 separate accounts, one for player deposits and the other with rake profits. It's possible though that they didn't even have this basic accounting setup, but even if they did, if their growth operations and salaries went overboard as income and growth slowed down, and they were out of money would you have:

A) Asked for a loan.
B) Taken money from that huge bank account with player deposits.

That's when the "Banks do it all the time" excuse would be brought up, maybe even the "it's our money" excuse, BOTH true and legal! Of course, they weren't a bank, had no banking experience, were not subject to banking regulations, etc...

But I'm definitely in the band that considers the case mismanagement rather than fraud, something that is settled with a chapter 7, an asset liquidation to creditors, and that's it.

In a sense when one plays poker one assumes risk, they aren't playing poker in a vacuum, you don't have an inalienable right to play poker and the poker rules are not the ones that govern the world, poker is a subset of business rules, and you are allowed to play poker always because a business allows you too (unless you are playing home poker), when that business fails, you really don't have legal rights to your deposits in excess of the assets available to the business.

I'm not familiar with bankruptcy procedures though, I know that it's a crime to embezzle funds before a bankruptcy, but as long as you liquidate existing assets, the business dissolves, business as usual.

If you are going to cite your freedom to play poker, then be prepared to deal with the consequences of that freedom.

This is the nature of any business, and Poker out of any industry is not going to be exempt or especially prosecuted beyond the corporate veil to ensure the assets of degen gamblers are respected, not anymore than the assets of actual banks or real businesses. What do you think happens if your business signed a yearly contract and you are behind on payments and your business goes bankrupt? Do you think I would chase you down personally so that you pay the debts of your business? No you would file for bankruptcy and I would take it as a loss of doing business.

Business as usual, if you can't handle risk don't play poker.

Forgiveness is good to give, but for forgiveness to happen people have to repent.

If they just hid out a while, then re-emerged without admitting what they did, you don't forgive yet.

Like Ivey? He got forgiven.

I wouldn't.

I'll entertain the thought once they pay at least 100% of their ill-gotten gains back, inflation adjusted of course

**** no. /End thread.