Ivey Sues Tiltware

[Skippy]

Everyone still keep processing cash-outs and getting their money? If so what's the panic?

I thought you weren't supposed to comment?

Anyhow, let's get this straight. They haven't paid out a large bunch of their customer base (the U.S.) despite having the ability legally to do so, as illustrated by PokerStars. They haven't given any reason why they haven't paid. There are lots of crazy rumours that they haven't got the money, or their accounting was dodgy. Despite all of this I was still a believer.

Now the biggest name in poker and a man who we  presume was a big cheese in the company sues them, another FT pro (durrrr) pretty much says well done, go for it, and everyone is talking about durrrr and Galfond's promise to repay players as less of a hypothetical situation and more of a practical reality. Durrrr isn't wearing his patch. What do you want us to think?

As for panic, I have about 6 different poker rooms sitting on my computer. They're all pretty much the same. Why am I going to pick the one that may or may not be about to collapse?

[GreekStein]

lol Flushy your comment is almost as much of a joke as the company you wear badges for

[sovietsong]

lol Flushy your comment is almost as much of a joke as the company you wear badges for

can you recommend a site we should play on?

[byronkincaid]

Why am I going to pick the one that may or may not be about to collapse?

for me rush + best software + 82K players right now + cashouts working fine + only got a tiny balance on there so it's not the end of the world if I lose it.

although if stars started offering rush then i guess i might be tempted to move

[byronkincaid]

30+ tables of 6m 1/2 running atm, ok they owe $150mil and have a few legal problems but i think there's a reasonable chance they can ride it out if most people keep playing there. apparently at their peak they were raking $1.5 mil a day, say that's down to half a mil now, lose a few staff and american red pros, howard and co go unpaid for a while and they'll have the money pretty soon?

tikay often says how well sky are doing, they have 3 6m £0.50/1 games running atm.

[Ironside]

anyone think stars might buy out tilt get there players and the rights to rush etc etc

i know they bought the player base for some really small sites that went under before

[TheFallen]

anyone think stars might buy out tilt get there players and the rights to rush etc etc

i know they bought the player base for some really small sites that went under before

doubtful since all FT players would likely migrate to stars anyway should FT fold.

Best view i have read on the situation (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showpost.php?p=26900235&postcount=1492)

also, this may be slightly related to the current situation. im excited to see what it is. hopefully not just some charity tourny. (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29/news-views-gossip/guy-laliberte-announcment-wsop-5pm-1046930/)

[TightEnd]

that Jason Strasser post on 2p2 is interesting

Let me understand this correctly...

A few businessmen and high profile poker pros get together to start FTP. The businessmen and the high profile poker pros all get rich on customers of FTP. The company has trouble debiting customer accounts, but in order to keep the site healthy it gives the players money on credit and wracks up some debt (50MM?). The company pursues a very aggressive rakeback gameplan to get business and also is rumored to fund its marketing budget from its player deposits.

Post black friday the company owes something like $150MM to US players in deposits of which they probably spent a portion of and then lent out $50MM.

They had several options after black friday.

1) Try to raise money via equity or debt to fill the black hole.
2) To use player funds of the non-US customers to pay back all or part of the US player money they owe, and risk shutting down the one legal and working part of their business.
3) To stall and try to earn their way out of the problem with their existing business, while trying to accomplish 1).
4) F*** it, let's just run away dutch boyd style.

Everyone is hating on FTP's handling of this situation. But seriously, what would you do once you found yourself in their black friday predicament? The best thing to do is to keep the site running, keep earning rake, and to find someone who wants to gamble by giving them an equity stake. They clearly need a certain amount of cash on hand to keep the site going, and they would be idiotic to alienate foreign players to try to satisfy the US players who can't help them out of their current problem. Stalling and telling your employees and red pro's to shut the f up is probably not a bad business decision.

This company was very aggressive and took lots of chances. Many people got rich based off of this aggressive model, including Phil Ivey who benefitted immensely from the success of FTP. Specifically, he benefitted from their aggressive marketing plans, of which it is very possible were 'borrowed' from player funds. Now Phil Ivey comes out and protests by suing FTP and by boycotting the WSOP. This CLEARLY does not help FTP's situation and it CLEARLY does not help people like me who have money stuck on FTP.

Ivey confirmed out fears: FTP was an overly aggressive company and does not have our money on hand. This will likely lead to further non-american withdrawals as everyones' worse fears about the state of FTP are confirmed.

There is an argument to be made that Ivey took the easy way out. Now he doesn't have to field ANY questions about FTP because he's one of *us* and because he's not at the WSOP. He is abandoning the company that helped him profit immensely and trying to side with regular FTP players.

Even more shocking are the details of this lawsuit--where the primary goal is to absolve him of any contractual obligations to FTP. And to sue FTP for making him look bad.

If he cared about people's money stuck in FTP, his statement and subsequent actions would go something like this:

"Full tilt poker got caught with its pants down on black friday. We made lots of mistakes and we deserve criticism. I am not trying to hide the fact that I made lots of money from FTP in the past. I want to personally guarantee that FTP will return funds ASAP. At the current level of foreign business on FTP, we will have your funds ready for you in 7-8 months*. I will do my best to market the brand abroad and try to preserve the legitimacy of FTP. Going forward, if we are ever back in the US, we will be diligent about having player deposits on hand and we will never be caught in this situation again. These events have done harm to my personal reputation and I will do my best to help FTP get itself out of this mess. FTP will make good on its debts and we will all learn from this awful situation."

* pure guess by me... but a fair guess that doesnt stall or hide facts

instead of

"I'm suing FTP. It's a scam. Now they're going to spend resources dealing with me in court. For sure I just scared of any potential investors in this POS. They ruined my reputation. I don't want to ever have to work with these people going forward. I'm sitting out the WSOP to protest how badly this company behaved and because people will think I'm a saint for sitting it out--even though this just hurts everyone waiting for their money. I also don't have to be in the spot light and deal with media. Now that I--the most recognizable name in poker--jumped ship, it's going to make earning their way out of their problems almost impossible. I bet the owners just end up running away to Venezuela after this. Good luck getting your money back."

Anyone with a brain understands how and why people like Lederer, Ivey and others would get involve with FTP. No one would fault them for being sponsored by FTP and making money. I do however think it is fair to fault Ivey for abandoning their former personal gravy trains when the going got hard and for making it harder for the average guy to get his money back.

The thousand people on here clapping for Ivey today need to think harder about why they are clapping if you ask me.

Jason Strasser

[outragous76]

what a load of dross!

 FTP couldn't process US transactions so did so on credit racking up $60m of debt which they had no way of funding! There is nothing to suggest that anything would have stopped them or that they had a plan. They are essentially trading insolvently which is illegal. They could never float as this would be found during due diligence!

But yeah, Ivey is a bad person! I'm pretty sure Ivey took advice and his lawyer said, this is v bad strike the first blow and severe all ties. Anyone who says they do different in the situation is a liar!

[Bongo]

Do you think they thought they'd be able to process payments again pretty quickly and to turn people away would cost more long term and it spiralled out of control?

It seems so odd to me that they'd keep honouring deposits without money coming in. Additionally people must have noticed they weren't being charged for their deposits so do you think people could have been taking advantage of that?