I don't think words are watered down, they just mean different things to different people. This is in addition to the language simply evolving over time. Though I am the same age as Keith and know lots of big gamblers, I'd use vouch completely differently to him. That is probably because until very recently our circles never really crossed. Vouch has always meant the same as reference to me. I don't think anybody is wrong, and both uses are just as valid.
Good luck on getting the money back.
It is the specific use of the word "vouch". To me it has always been far stronger than a reference or even a commendation.
To vouch for someone you are guaranteeing that person. Exactly the way Tom describes it.
Arb said "why on earth would I do that?".
Well, in the situation I found myself in a player was looking for backing in a specific, one off tournament. The semi famous player who vouched for him had a share, but also was owed significant amount of money. It was in his interests that the player entered the tournament.
I bought a share in the guy I hardly knew because I thought that if he grimmed me the guy who vouched for him would see me right for the money.
But when he did the dirty the famous player refused to accept the debt and I was left being grimmed.
My understanding of the word "vouch" is why I have given plenty of references but virtually never vouched for someone. I accept now though that "vouch" has changed it's meaning and it does mean what I understood it to mean.
Looking at that chat log it must be really uncomfortable reading for arbboy. It does look like he's encouraging Pleno to buy a share for whatever reason. Whether he's doing Stu a favour or whether he thinks with a bigger bankroll Stu is more likely to be successful and arbs investment is worth more.It is not uncomfortable reading for me in the slightest. Let me get a few things straight about the whole affair and go back to the start. Stuart approached me late last year with a spreadsheet and business plan he had written without any input from myself (or anyone else as far as i am aware - Stuart is more than capable of writing a decent detailed business plan from his previous PLC director level appointments in business) for a 6 month staking plan with a view to extending it if it was successful. His comments were 'people do this in poker why can't it be used for sports betting although no one has ever done it'. My answer was it can be done if run correctly and i had a look at the numbers and projections were totally reasonable on the basis of sufficient legwork being put in to get the bet volumes on and finding sufficient positive ev bets to invest in. That wouldn't be a problem as TFT has proven over the years.
It was going to be sports betting only based. It was a detailed 6 month business plan with cash flow forecasts and bet volumes which all stacked up on paper to being achievable. If anything i thought the projects were conservative if he was willing to put the leg work into the project getting round the shops to make it work. His project was based on a £30k investment and to last 6 months then would be reviewed. He had been struggling over the past few months financially with life expenses and the logic of him having extra investment to do what he was currently doing on a smaller bank roll made sense to provide an increased return for everyone involved.
I said i would take a percentage (it was early January and i had a huge % of my roll tied up in ante post stuff across numerous sports) otherwise i would have invested substantially more. I knew he would have no trouble shifting the £30k relatively quickly so i said to two profession poker playing/staking friends that i was investing in an opportunity with Stuart. They both knew of Stuart via myself, BE etc and asked me if the margins were achievable and i said 'yes if the work was put in to get on'. They both agreed to take decent percentages. I know Stuart sold other % himself to people who he knew and had financial dealings with including Mrs Bandit and Joe. Within a couple of days he was pretty much sold out then i got the skype from pads asking about Stu etc out of the blue. Therefore to imply that i encouraged Pads to invest is not true. He approached me via skype for my opinion when i have literally one skype convo with pads previously. I can't even remember how he has my skype previous to this because i have never had any financial or personal dealings with him. The second point about getting additional investment on board to help boost the return on my % is also nonsense as the business plan was fixed at £30k investment and was never going to go higher so me 'selling' it to pads was irrelevant. If pads hadn't have taken his % one of my other two guys who were involved would have simply took it. The bigger of those two investors just said to me 'i will take whatever is left over'. This was a relatively small staking investment for him. He stakes numerous poker players for years both live and online so this was totally just another day at the office for him.
The reason the fund failed was from the start Stuart never put in the leg work. It really is as simple as that. It is debatable whether he ever intended to put in the leg work looking back. The betting turnover for weeks was at a tenth of the projected business plan and there is no actual proof received that the bets he said he placed were actually placed. As far as i am aware Stuart hasn't provided any audit trail for where any of the £30k capital has gone to any of the investors since the end of March.
He wasn't even betting in races/events where there were huge obvious mathematical edges (think 16 runner hcaps in racing for instance). He came out with excuse after excuse about moving to Dublin for his new job, family issues etc and he got a bit of time to sort that out. After a couple of months it became more and more obvious that this just wasn't going to happen due to his lack of effort/change in circumstances or just the fact that this money was never raised for this reason and the fund stood at £26k per his daily results sheet. My two investors alongside myself decided enough was enough and we wanted to end the agreement as Stuart hadn't got anywhere near producing what he had suggested. We asked for the £26k of the £30k fund to be distributed back to the investors and we would take the £4k loss as a bad bet and move on. If I hadn't decided to ask questions at this stage and put an end to the stake there would never have been any mention of the £12k being stolen. This only came to light once I asked for our %'s to be refunded out of the remaining fund. Stuart has been completely dishonest about this stake since he received the cash.
This was when the bullshit started about £12k being 'stolen' from a friend of a friend , £3k being owed by a poker player who was putting on for him and no mention of where the other £11k was which should literally have been sitting in his bank to repay instantly. It was pretty obvious when no monies were received in the forthcoming weeks that this had effectively been a £30k interest free loan to Stuart which was needed for whatever reason, maybe we will never know. He was in no position to repay money even though after all the excuses of £12k being stolen etc etc there still should have been circa £11k sitting in his bank doing nothing now the stake had finished.
I have no doubt if Stuart had done what he had originally planned he would have made the returns his business plan stated. The bottom line this is all on Stuart to explain why it never happened both from a workload angle on the actual plan itself as he just didn't put the leg work in having easily raised the investment and secondly where the actual money went to. Every investor was investing their money to get a decent return not to provide an interest free loan to Stuart for 7 months and counting for £30k which is effectively what has happened. There is no one here, including me, who needs any bad press about this. Stuart is 1000% in the wrong on every level of this project and should take all the flak. I actually think we will get our money back over time however the investors are not in business to lend people £30k interest free until it suits them to pay it back. Sorry to sound harsh but this is the reality of the situation. The irony of the situation is if he had come to me and said 'I am skint Mark, i can't get a loan from the bank and really need £30k quickly but i can't tell you the reason' i could have gone to the same two investors and they would have happily lent him £30k at commerical interest rates if a legal contract was drawn up to ensure repayment. We have effectively done the same thing in my eyes but it could have been a lot more civilised for everyone involved.
As Trigg said i don't see why i shouldn't have said what i said having known him well for over 10 years professionally.
I don't have anything else to say on the matter now the above is all out in the open for all the investors to see.
I thought it was uncomfortable reading because it looks like you are encouraging Patrick to make the investment.
Apart from that, an excellent post.
Stu knows he has fucked up and I am pretty confident/hopeful that he makes good.
But you agree now that given he cold called approached me as someone he has never met IRL or had any financial dealings with and that his investment made no difference to my return or the stake going ahead itself that your claims are untrue that i wasn't in any shape or form trying to induce Pads to invest in this?
I never claimed you vouched for him.
Just checked back through the thread and Mantis brought up the topic of vouching, which has been talked to death on several threads in the past.
I don't think you're on the hook for any of the money Patrick lost,
but I do think your endorsement of the venture was a bit over enthusiastic.
Why do i owe anything to a random guy who approaches me out of nowhere who i have never met IRL, had any financial dealings with etc who wishes to use my more detailed knowledge of the situation than his for free to make a better informed investment decision in order for him to selfishly, quite rightly, make a quick buck for himself? I am pretty fucked off the chat log was posted without pads consulting myself beforehand just like 2 of the other investors are quite fucked off he decided to start the thread on blonde without discussing the issue with the other investors beforehand as they quite rightly said it has the potential to impact their repayments which are substantial bigger than Pads.
This isn't a pop at Pads. More a pop at the people on here who think i should be on the hook for my comments to a total stranger.
I wrote to you on 6 April
[06/04/2015 20:44:37] Patrick Leonard: we should make a group on Skype with him
[06/04/2015 20:44:43] Patrick Leonard: i don’t care about calling him out to blonde etc
I sent this on 28 April
[28/04/2015 08:23:03] Patrick Leonard: Hey let's make a skype group with stu and any other guys who want to join
You didn't reply.
I wrote to you again.
Wrote to you again on May 8
[08/05/2015 17:48:15] Patrick Leonard: Heard from stu???
[08/05/2015 17:48:22] Patrick Leonard: No contact in so long. You've handled this terribly. You were going to go weekends ago to fix this and still haven't.
I would like this to be fixed within 24 hours or will have no option but to make this public.
[08/05/2015 17:48:26] Patrick Leonard: I sent him this
[08/05/2015 17:48:30] Patrick Leonard: I'm posting on blonde tomorrow
[08/05/2015 17:48:34] Mark Wilson: no havent heard anything
[08/05/2015 17:48:39] Patrick Leonard: He asked me not to because he will lose his job
[08/05/2015 17:48:40] Mark Wilson: really started to piss me off tbh
[08/05/2015 17:48:51] Patrick Leonard: He said he was going to her house on April 22
[08/05/2015 17:49:01] Patrick Leonard: Now May 10th and he hasn't even emailed me back lnce
[08/05/2015 17:49:02] Patrick Leonard: Once
[08/05/2015 17:50:16] Mark Wilson: he only seems to react when he is pushed to the limit
[08/05/2015 17:50:22] Mark Wilson: he should be chasing us up constantly with updates
[08/05/2015 17:50:25] Mark Wilson: not the other way around
[08/05/2015 17:54:51] Patrick Leonard: exactly!!!!!!!
[08/05/2015 17:54:55] Patrick Leonard: u don't mind me posting on blodne right?
[08/05/2015 17:55:09] Mark Wilson: i couldnt care less
[08/05/2015 17:55:11] Mark Wilson: tbh
[08/05/2015 17:55:16] Mark Wilson: i just want my cash back
[08/05/2015 17:55:25] Mark Wilson: i would give him over the weekend to get back to you
[08/05/2015 17:55:32] Mark Wilson: as he might be busy work wise over weekend
[08/05/2015 17:55:35] Mark Wilson: but if nothing done by monday
[08/05/2015 17:55:39] Mark Wilson: then def
[08/05/2015 17:55:42] Mark Wilson: u have every right
I then wrote Stu an email and sent it to you immediately
Hi Stuart
I've tried to give this a week to boil over, but I'm really pissed about the whole situation. I want this to be something that gets resolves quickly. I don't want this to go 1 day past the end of the month, i.e. when the end of the month comes I want all money to be returned, not talked about being returned. I think the best way for this to happen is to make a Skype group with all investors to keep everything transparent
I then like I said wrote to you on 16 June, you didn't reply. A member then wrote to me knowing I was involved really pissed off.
I tried many, many times to try and get a Skype group up with investors, you were the only one who knew who was involved except for Stu, I had no idea. You were the guy who helped round the troops up initially. No idea how anybody could be remotely pissed off at me for making this thread. I tried time after time after time to try and resolve this in a good way.
If anybody is pissed off then feel free to post how you would have preferred I handled this better.
Author