FTP Players: The DOJ has Your Money and that’s Why You Have Not Been Paid
I just posted this in the zoo FTP 5/5 Answers Thread:
Consider the following data:
1. Pre-Black Friday, FTP was having problems processing deposits that resulted in a substantial number of players playing on what amounted to credit.
2. The superseding indictment lists 25 accounts that are readily identifiable as Full Tilt accounts that were frozen (those in the name of Pocket Kings and Raymond Bitar, for example). 20 of these are accounts in Ireland in the name of Bitar or Pocket Kings.
3. The DOJ press release says, “no INDIVIDUAL PLAYER accounts were seized or restrained.”
4. FTP issued a press release saying player funds were seized and that the DOJ was refusing to release them.
5. Stars promptly announced that player funds were kept segregated, and that all player funds were safe.
6. Full Tilt has not announced that player funds were kept segregated.
7. Stars has already paid Americans.
8. Full Tilt has limited cash-outs by non-Americans by limiting the available means of cashing out and by limiting the amount non-Americans can cash out.
9. Full Tilt has not made any demonstrable progress toward paying American customers.
______
Based on all of the above, it seems clear that:
Full Tilt kept customer money:
a. commingled with operational expenses; OR
b. kept player money in accounts titled to Pocket Kings or Raymond Bitar, but kept it segregated from operational expenses.
Thus, it is virtually certain that the DOJ has seized a huge chunk of player money, both the money of Americans and the money of non-Americans as well.
Importantly, the DOJ is refusing to release this money to Full Tilt. This is a HUGE deal, because in either case above, the players’ ownership of the money in the seized accounts is not obvious to the DOJ, and for Full Tilt to have any hope at all of having that money released for return to players, it will have to prove to the DOJ’s satisfaction that the money seized was, in fact, player money, and not Raymond Bitar’s personal wealth, or Pocket King’s profits from running the web site.
As unpleasant as this scenario is to contemplate, it is very likely true. It explains all of the following:
1. Why Stars was able to pay out so much faster than FT has been
2. Why FT has not publicly announced that player funds were kept segregated.
3. Why FT is currently stalling (it doesn’t have the cash to pay us, and admitting this could cause its remaining player base to collapse).
4. Why DOJ could honestly say, “no individual player accounts were seized,” and FT could respond by saying, “DOJ seized player money and is refusing to release it).
5. Why so many of the seized bank accounts were titled in Bitar’s name.
6. Why those accounts were in banks in Ireland rather than in traditionally secretive banking countries (they were player funds being held above-board).
7. Why non-Americans are having serious difficulties cashing out.
Basically, the scenario that: DOJ seized at east a huge chunk of player funds not in transit from FT, but didn’t seize nearly as much from Stars–explains everything about this situation.
If this is the case, the DOJ has our money, and the American player base has to raise way more of a **** storm toward getting DOJ to release our funds than it has so far.
DOJ snowed almost everybody with its initial press release saying “no individual player accounts were seized.” Looked at in the light of subsequent events, it seems clear that “no individual player accounts were seized,” means, “but we grabbed a ton of POOLED player money.”
If you want to have any hope of getting your money back (I have $35k on FTP, so I am in it with you), you need to acknowledge that DOJ has your money seized and take political action to get them to release it to FT for return to us.