

Full Tilt Poker Payments Arrive for U.S. Players - whbk
http://www.pokerupdate.com/news/the-full-tilt-saga/full-tilt-payments-arrive-for-u-s-players/

======
Sambdala
I'd like to make the point that PokerStars paid for these payments and offered
to pay the players directly and immediately.

However, this offer was rejected, and instead PokerStars paid the amount of
the balances (I'm not sure about any fees, etc), and then the players needed
to wait until now to receive payment.

Rest of world customers of Full Tilt were able to receive payment from
PokerStars long before now.

Edit: For transparency's sake, I do work for PokerStars, I don't speak for
them, and I wasn't directly involved with any of the US/DOJ stuff.

~~~
whbk
Please share the thanks of a grateful nation (or at least the poker playing
portion :)) with your coworkers. Mentioned this in a Twitter rant about this
whole ordeal, but to this day PokerStars is the best company I've ever dealt
with regardless of industry. I wish I could continue to give you guys my
business. Thanks for protecting us from our disgraceful government.

------
whbk
Got mine this morning, 1048 days later. Nice, but hardly makes up for this
whole ordeal, yet another reminder of just how free the "Land of the Free" we
live in is.

~~~
Crito
I don't suppose there is any chance that they at least gave you some interest
for your troubles?

~~~
whbk
Oh of course not, and I'll likely be treated to an audit to boot. People were
selling their FTP balances for extremely low amounts (.20 on the dollar at one
point?) though, so while ridiculous I'm still on cloud nine. Someone stole
thousands of dollars from me and I got it back..not everyday that happens :)

~~~
function_seven
FYI, for some reason your reply to at-fates-hands (sibling comment to this
one) is hellbanned. I have no idea why.

~~~
whbk
Huh, weird. Thanks for the heads up, though I also have no clue what the
reasoning behind that is.

------
ngokevin
After filing for my claim in November, I got mine back yesterday
([http://ngokevin.com/blog/poker11/](http://ngokevin.com/blog/poker11/)). It
shows up in my bank account as "Doj Poker Stars".

------
mathattack
Wow - I'm surprised that there would be any money left after all the legal
wrangling.

~~~
iSloth
There wasn't any money - PokerStars agreed to buy the shutdown Full Tilt
Company, Infrastructure and Assets in full, then re-pay all the customers of
Full Tilt our of their own pocket, mainly to stop the DOJ chasing after
Pokerstars as well.

~~~
Phlarp
Part of me wonders if the same type of strong arming will start to happen with
bitcoin.

~~~
dmix
Oh it will.

MtGox already had assets seized by DHS/ICE:

[http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/16/mt-gox-dwolla-account-
money...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/16/mt-gox-dwolla-account-money-
seizure/)

------
llamataboot
I haven't heard anything about my claim yet aside from getting the "claim
approved" email back in the fall. Should I be worried?

~~~
mbrameld
I hadn't heard anything since that email until the 24th of this month when
they sent an email saying my claim would be deposited in the next week. It was
deposited today.

------
downandout
Well that only took ~3 years. Thank you US Attorney Preet Bharara. I
appreciate you protecting me from....me.

~~~
tzs
Do you like anything he does? He seems to have a pretty good record [1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_Bharara](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preet_Bharara)

~~~
downandout
Define "good". Obtaining oppressively long sentences for non-violent crimes
isn't "good" for anyone imo. His brother made $500 million selling diapers.
The world would be a better place if Preet were a diaper salesman like his
brother instead of doing things like ensuring that poker players have to play
illegally. The worst part is that he does all of this for one thing: camera
time. He is angling for elected office on the backs of those whose lives he
has destroyed while pursuing prosecutions that increasingly stretch the
boundaries of criminal law.

~~~
tzs
• Got a settlement for $7.2 billion from the Picower estate to go toward
victims of Madoff.

• Got a $1.7 billion settlement from JPMorgan (Madoff's primary banker) to go
toward victims of Madoff.

• Prosecution of several corrupt politicians.

• Galleon Group insider trading case.

• Prosecution of dozens of members of the Gambino crime family, and of New
York gangs such as the Bloods.

• Created the Complex Frauds Unit that prosecuted massive disability benefits
fraud, and a $57 million fraud against a program that aids survivors of Nazi
persecution.

• Prosecution of the Times Square Bomber. Prosecution o Ahmed Ghailani for the
attacks on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

• Prosecuted Deutsche Bank and Allied Home Mortgage for fraudulent lending
practices.

• Massive suit against Bank of America for mortgage fraud.

~~~
downandout
OK, and do you call shutting down the entire online poker industry, and
ensuring that people didn't receive their money for 3 years, "good"? His
actions prior to Black Friday actually created the primary problems at Full
Tilt. They were trying to honor customer withdrawal requests, even after Preet
et al shut down their ability to collect deposits, thinking that the ability
would eventually be restored. So they wound up with a huge hole in their
books. Their good customer service combined with Preet's lust for another
headline is what caused millions of American players to be without their money
for 3 years.

Oh, and how about his anti-Bitcoin efforts? Are those "good"? Your list also
conspicuously leaves off the countless drug mules that his office has obtained
might-as-well-be-life sentences for. He has done _nothing_ in the way of
diversion programs that other federal districts have adopted. Why? Because,
despite their effectiveness, those don't create headlines that he can show in
campaign commercials in a few years.

~~~
tzs
> Oh, and how about his anti-Bitcoin efforts?

What anti-Bitcoin efforts? I'm aware of two things he was involved in that
were tangentially related to Bitcoin, and one that is more directly related to
Bitcoin.

1\. The Silk Road case. This is only tangentially related to Bitcoin. The Silk
Road defendants are in trouble for their alleged dealing in illegal substances
and alleged involvement in murder-for-hire schemes. They would be in the same
amount of legal trouble if they had been using any foreign currency for their
transactions instead of Bitcoin.

2\. The Charlie Shrem case. Also only tangentially related to Bitcoin. He is
in trouble for allegedly purposefully participating in money laundering. He
would be in the same trouble if he had been money laundering by exchange US
dollars for Euros, instead of for Bitcoins.

3\. The subpoena of Mt. Gox. We don't know what action the prosecutors are
considering, if any, since this is just a subpoena (basically, it means they
want more information to figure out what, if anything, Mt. Gox might have done
wrong). If Mt. Gox is eventually charged, it will almost certainly be for
something like fraud or theft, although since the fraud or theft involved
Bitcoins themselves, one could make a somewhat passable argument that at least
this case is more than tangentially related to Bitcoin.

It's pretty hard to make a rational argument that any of these are anti-
Bitcoin, unless you think that the point of Bitcoin is to be able to money
launder, commit fraud, and steal Bitcoin from other Bitcoin users who trust
you to hold their coins for them.

------
whbk
A bit more background for the uninitiated:
[http://t.co/GT8YsOZlrT](http://t.co/GT8YsOZlrT)

~~~
1ris
Link goes to [http://espn.go.com/blog/poker/post/_/id/1528/green-friday-
ft...](http://espn.go.com/blog/poker/post/_/id/1528/green-friday-ftp-money-
returned)

