This time, the fraudster was Marisa McNee, a principal at the public relations firm Middle Coast LLC.

With a decent amount of fanfare, Marisa McNee launched a non-existent legal entity called FairPlay USA, claiming that her organization was a “new coalition of law enforcement officials, consumer protection experts, poker players, companies in the commercial gaming industry and other Americans concerned about Internet gambling.

As it turns out, this description of FairPlay USA, and even the existence of a legal entity, is basically completely false, and is, at best, an absurd exaggeration. I’m a little handicapped by FairPlay USA’s refusal to answer questions I posed to them on this subject, but here is what seems to be the case:

FairPlay USA is not a coalition as it claims. It claims to have law enforcement members, poker players and consumer safety experts among its ranks. Please note the use of the plural on each of these groups. In fact, FairPlay USA has NO MEMBERS AT ALL. It has a board of advisors.

So look at FairPlay USA’s claim to be a coalition. They say they have plural law enforcement officers, poker players and consumer safety experts. What they actually have is one of each of those classes of peope on their board of advisors:

Law Enforcement: Tom Ridge, former director of Homeland security.

Poker players: Greg Raymer

Consumer Safety Expert: Parry Aftab

That’s it. FairPlay USA, meaning specifically Marisa McNee, refused to answer my direct request for evidence that there were more people involved from these categories than these three people. I take this refusal to answer as a tacit admission that my assumption that there is no coalition of people in FairPlay USA is correct. As Marisa McNee said in the thread on 2+2, “we don’t have members, we have supporters.”

Why would a group conducting a self-described “grassroots campaign” not have members? That makes no sense. A truly grassroots campaign would want as many members as it could possibly have.

The simple answer turns out to be that FairPlay USA is not a grassroots organization, movement or campaign. Its executive director, Marisa McNee, is a media consultant at Middle Coast LLC in the employ of Caesars and MGM. There are no members of FairPlay USA who are not employees of Middle Coast LLC.

All of this information was deduced yesterday by a group of 2+2ers working together. Poster Troveur was the first that I saw to recognize that FairPlay USA was an astroturf operation of Caesars and MGM. LetsGambool, SBA9630, me, and a few others piled on with tough questions designed to flesh out the relationship between FairPlay USA and Caesars/MGM. We learned a lot from which questions Marisa McNee chose to answer and which she chose to ignore.

PokerXanadu, a legislation forum moderator, and Florida state director for the Poker Players Alliance, was in the thread yesterday asking similarly tough questions. But, as it turns out, he did not need to be deducing that FairPlay USA was an astroturf operation of Caesars and MGM–He knew it because Marisa McNee had already told him that was the case.

In an explosive revelation in the FairPlay USA thread on 2+2, PokerXanadu admitted that he had been tentatively approached by Greg Raymer on behalf of FairPlay USA to be its spokesman on 2+2, and that in the course of that and subsequent conversations it became clear that the so-called coalition was a sham:

My interactions with FPU began last week, starting with a phone call I received from Greg Raymer. He told me of his involvement as a member of their Advisory Board, and wanted to find out if I’d be interested in doing work for them in a similar manner to what TE does for the PPA. I said I could be interested but had a lot of questions (which would have largely revolved around whether or not FPU would be truly grassroots, i.e. input from players would matter). The next step according to Greg was supposed to be a phone call from David Satz of Ceasars (Vice President of Government Relations and Development), but that call never came.

As I found out later, what actually happened after my discussion with Greg was an e-mail from Greg to Marisa about me, including a suggestion that I receive compensation (pay) for my work (something Greg & I discussed). This, according to Marisa, “sparked an internal conversation about having a paid person from the PPA/2+2″, and it didn’t go any further. (Note: Means “paid person” for FPU, not that I am paid by PPA or 2+2 – I am just a volunteer for both.)

So here is my take on this part of it (speculation): David Satz, a senior lobbyist for Ceasars, came up with the idea of funding a new organization to muster public advocacy support from interests groups that could be aligned with Ceasers federal online poker legislation goals. The money was put up by Ceasars and MGM to start (others have been approached, according to Greg) and Middle Coast LLC was selected to staff it.

So here we have clear evidence of what the 2+2 detectives had deduced: That FairPlay USA is a sham; that it owes its existence solely to the (not very bright) idea of a Caesar’s lobbying executive, and that Caesars hired Marisa McNee and Middle Coast LLC to staff the fictional coalition called FairPlay USA.

A lot of people in the FairPlay USA thread on 2+2 are shrugging their shoulders at this and saying, in essence, “so what? We know FairPlay USA is a sham, but they are a sham that supports legalized online poker, and we are cool with that.”

I think this thinking is a mistake. As I have said in the thread:

Now, this may seem to be making a big deal out of a trivial issue, but it’s not. When you lie to someone, it is disrespectful. When it is bought and paid for representatives of Caesar’s that are doing the lying, it becomes a big deal because it is Caesar’s. Caesar’s has a long history (of which I am sure you are unaware) of treating poker players like something brown and stinky stuck to the bottom of Loveman’s shoe.

So basically, Caesar’s came into this forum under false pretenses and tried to put a con job on 2+2 posters. It is indicative of the more things change, the more they stay the same. Even now that caesar’s is putatively on our side, all we can expect from it is lies, deception and to be treated disrespectfully, as is standard for Caesar’s.

And that is the bottom line. While we will need Caesars to do the heavy lifting on getting legalized online poker, we should recognize that Caesars is our enemy. It consistently treats players with contempt, and its use of a PR shill to talk to players is just another bit of evidence that this is true.

If Caesars respected players, it would have come to 2+2 to deal with us face to face. If it does so in the future, that will go a long way toward building respect and trust for a brand that players should have neither for right now.

In the meantime, mad props to Troveur, LetsGambool, SBA9630, DonkeyQuixote, and everybody else who had a hand in exposing FairPlay USA as a sham astroturf operation of Caesars and MGM.

If WC is right, this is very good news for us, and means the investor deal to recapitalize Full Tilt is going forward.

The players who filed this lawsuit fucked up pretty badly. There is no way this lawsuit can be anything other than counterproductive, given the news reported by the Los Angeles Times (and now independently reported by the Wall Street Journal) that a group of European investors have purchased control of Full Tilt.

Fortunately, it is unlikely this lawsuit will have any effect on the situation. If we do have investors, payouts are likely to get underway long before this lawsuit can be moved beyond the preliminary complaint, service on defendants and answer stage. It will very likely become a moot point.

The players who have filed the lawsuit are:

Steve Segal (probably not the actor, lol), Nick Hammer, Todd terry and Robin Hougdahl. If any of you know any of these morons, or happen to run into them at the mall or the WSOP, tell them for me that they are a bunch of blithering idiots.

I’m not sure I believe that, but if it is true, it is a good news bad news situation for players.

It is good news in that BWin is a big, publicly traded corporation that has (or can easily acquire) the assets and liquidity to pay US players pretty effortlessly.

It is bad news because, as a publicly traded corporation, BWin will probably have to jump through some time consuming hoops to get the deal approved. So we could be in for a long wait if it is actually BWin to whom Full Tilt Poker sold control.

Now I’m just going to brag a bit. In the QuadJacks thread saying Binion had invested in Full Tilt, this is what I wrote 10 minutes before the LA Times story broke:

The far better option for an investor is to discuss the acquisition with the DOJ. DOJ is likely to settle for a lesser amount of money if it results in players being made whole and the current owners of FT being kicked out of the company.

In fact, such a sale would probably be structured as

Investor: “I, white knight, agree to pay X for ownership of FT, sale price to be paid to the United States in settlement of its case against FT’s owners.”

FT: “We relinquish to white knight all right, title and interest in everything relating to FT in settlement of the case against us.”

US: “We agree to dismissals of some combination of the criminal and civil cases, and maybe we will speak kindly of the white knight to future US poker regulators considering his license application.”

Obviously bare bones silliness above, lots of other things the parties would be negotiating. Main point being that under the circumstances, an investor is pretty likely to be paying the sale price to the US, not the FT owners. If i were investing, that’s what I’d be shooting for.

I don’t usually just brag, but I am pretty pleased that I more or less nailed the structure of a deal being secretly negotiated. The LA Times article says pretty much what i said the deal would look like:

Attorneys associated with Full Tilt said the company signed an agreement Thursday with a group of investors who would put up enough money to pay back players and in doing so attain a majority stake in Full Tilt’s Irish parent company, Pocket Kings. The attorneys spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of ongoing negotiations with the federal prosecutors in Manhattan who brought the charges.

The money is also intended to allow the company to settle a civil lawsuit brought against it by the U.S. attorney’s office at the same time as the criminal indictment, the attorneys said.

As I said would happen, the investors made sure that the DOJ was involved in the talks. refunding players seems to have been an explicit condition of the deal, and it looks like the deal is being negotiated within the framework of the civil and criminal cases against the Full Tilt owners.

If anybody is wondering who the LA Times’ source is, it is pretty clear that the ultimate source is Howard Lederer. Here is why I think that:

1. It was the LA Times that broke the story;

2. Tiltware is based in California.

3. Howard is probably the only one in Tiltware with the authority to cause the story to be leaked.

4. The actual source were “lawyers associated with Full Tilt.”

5. An attorney told to leak a story will leak it to a local reporter he knows.

All of this adds up to Lederer telling his attorneys in LA to leak the story to the press, and the attorneys calling the LA Times.

Obviously the report is excellent news for all US players.

Folks on 2+2 are incorrectly crediting the Alderney Gambling Control Commission with forcing this deal by suspending Full Tilt’s e-gambling license yesterday. This is wrong. There is simply no way that this deal got put together in the 30 or so hours between the suspension and the news report today.

A better theory that credits AGCC more or less equally is that AGCC gave Full Tilt a June 29 deadline to have a plan in place to pay back players, and FT blew the deadline by a little bit. The suspension probably caused news of the deal to leak more quickly than FT intended, but it didn’t cause the deal to happen. This deal was necessarily in the works for a long time–at most the suspension affected the timing of the leak we see in the LA Times story.

The reason FT and Stars never offered bad beat jackpots or casino games played against the house are because those were more clearly a violation of US gambling laws than poker, because they don’t have the skill game argument.

In other words, offering poker only was a strategy to maintain the maximum chance of being recognized as legal in the US (even after UIGEA passed).

It’s less of a concern for Stars, which has already repaid its players, but branching out into games of chance could help Full Tilt prop up its sagging customer base (down about 40% since Black Friday).

If they are thinking over there in Ireland, I expect they are looking into this possibility as a means of generating additional revenue.  Here’s hoping, anyway.

I’ll analyze it in a later post.

We can help that process along. TheEngineer has posted an action plan on 2+2 for bombing the Facebook pages of the members of the committee, asking them to support the bill. 2+2er Sajeffe compiled a list of all the committee members’ Facebook pages.

Bombing the Facebook pages really works. Barton himself said that the support he received on his Facebook page for his proposed bill lit a fire under him.

Talking points for Facebook comments:

• Support freedom
• The bill provides safeguards against underage play
• The bill provides safeguards against play by people with a gambling problem
• The bill will create tens of thousands of American jobs
• The bill will generate much-needed state and federal tax revenue.
• Poker is a skill game that should not be considered gambling.

A variety of factors inform my reluctant reappraisal of our chances of seeing our money again. They are:

1. DOJ knows with certainty that it has seized player funds, and is refusing to release them.

DOJ’s initial statement says that “no individual player accounts” were seized on Black Friday. Read carefully, this is a tacit admission by DOJ that it knows that it has seized player funds in accounts other than players’ individual bank accounts.

Moreover, in its first response to Black Friday, Full Tilt told us that it had told DOJ that player funds had been seized, and that DOJ had not agreed to release them.

DOJ might be refusing to release the funds as a pressure tactic. By refusing the release the funds, DOJ is forcing Full Tilt to either stiff players or reimburse players out of pocket. Either course of action would necessarily harm Full Tilt financially. DOJ has evidently decided to sacrifice the little guy by using our money as leverage against Full Tilt. The fact that this is probably of dubious legality, and is clearly unethical, seems not to bother Preet Bharara at all.

An alternative explanation of DOJ’s refusal to release the funds that is more favorable to the DOJ is that FT has not yet demonstrated to DOJ’s satisfaction that any specific seized account contains player funds. This would also be bad news, as it would suggest the possibility that FT was commingling player funds with operational funds before Black Friday, and/or that FT was so badly managed that it cannot produce sufficient documentation to prove to DOJ which accounts held player funds.

In either of these scenarios, though, it does not appear likely that the seized funds will be available to reimburse players.

2. New Depositors on Full Tilt Were Playing on Credit.

This has been so widely reported on 2+2 that I won’t bother to source it. The figure being bandied about is that FT basically extended $60 million in credit to players who attempted a deposit and were allowed to play on the deposit, even though the funds were never debited from the players’ accounts.

This is $60 million worth of money that, even in the Absence of Black Friday, should have been, but was not, available to offset the liabilities to players.

3. Phil Ivey’s Lawsuit Against tiltware.

Ivey’s lawsuit is bad news for two reasons, one major, and one minor. The major reason it is bad news is because Ivey appears to be the first rat to jump the sinking ship. The minor reason is because Ivey is suing for a huge amount of money, and any recovery he achieves by way of trial or settlement is money that becomes unavailable to pay players.

4. Slow Pace of European Player Withdrawals.

This fact, again, widely reported in the 2+2 zoo and elsewhere, indicates that FT is forced to ration its pay outs.

5. Declining Traffic on Full Tilt.

Traffic on FT is down about 30% since Black Friday. Ominously, traffic has declined every week since then. Fewer players means less rake which means less profit from which to reimburse players.

6. Full Tilt’s Admission that it is Seeking to Raise Capital.

This is basically an admission that Full Tilt can’t afford to pay US players, and that to do so without the seized funds, it will have to borrow the money or sell a piece of the business.

This list of indicators probably is not complete. But it is sufficient to seriously call into question my original appraisal of our chances of being refunded our money as 9 chances in 10. I don’t know to what extent fear is informing my current appraisal of the situation, but, right now, our chances of being repaid our money seem no better than a coin flip to me.

I hope to hell I’m wrong.

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.