NY Times article on Full Tilt...

... https://mobile.nytimes.com/article;jsessionid=6CAA31BF504A1B2BCB2253770175C47E.w5?a=843798&f=19

Not very assuring if u have money w/ them.

I bet they will get a slap on the wrist and can retire rich.

Not this time. DOJ went through this since the "Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006" and some followed the rules, others bent, and some broke the rules, and some broke the rules and plain out cheated! They are making examples with these indictments and it's no joke. They have 5 years of compiling evidence and making a big case. It may take time like big cases due, but they will enforce this strongly especially after the way Full Tilt ripped off players and has the legal system and the public against them... not good. Previously the public was behind sites, but this is different. Phil Ivey was the #1 Poster Boy Player (Howard Lederer & Chris Ferguson were the spokemen) and he said he was boycotting the WSOP because Full Tilt didn't pay their players. I'd say because he was such an integral part and known as the best, he would be bothered and questioned the most at the WSOP under the spotlight! He's very intelligent and pu a nice spin regarding the boycott but you won't see him offer any his pay he received unless he feels they are have legal justification and will get it. At that point I'm sure he will say I'm doing this for the players. No matter what part of business it is, when money is involved, people are always greedy... this excluded no business, even religion (maybe the biggest).

bottom line if you had money in an unregulated poker site in a foreign country you are a FUCKING FOOL AND DESERVE TOO HAVE IT STOLEN

I use to keep a high amount on a few poker sites and Neteller from 2003-2006 and I did a withdrawal of about 95% total online funds the day Pinnacle send me a letter they no longer took U.S. betting. Then a few weeks later PartyPoker did a shutdown in the U.S. as well. Also, early days doing transfers and peer-to-peer transfers was fast and unlimited. People more or less could money launder on sites (and I'm sure they did) but that was slowed in September 2006, then got worse. I remember initially it was easy to get money on WSEX or any sportsbook, then for like 6 years they stopped taking credit/debit bank cards and you had to buy anything from phone card minutes to whatever, pay a flat fee or percentage, and the money would be converted in to funds on the site you selected. Some sites paid the fees for you when you deposited on their sportsbook. Pinnacle had withdrawal resstrictions even though they had the most wager & props at the best rate (lowest juice).

Full Scam, that is a better name for this outfit.  Taking players

If what is found as evidence is true, I feel it is no different then Enron, etc.. white collar crime scandals. Howard use to talk about honesty and integrity, and became the poster boy for it. He never was great at poker, Ferguson is a great tournaments players and good cash game. Regardless, I feel that being such a hypocrite the sentence should be worse. For instance, cops who enforce laws but break them. Anyone in power and displays the image of integrity should get stiffer sentences. Just my opinion.

I remember in 2005 with Howard in NY asking him about when they were going to be able live with real money (if you remember the site was up for a long time before they had real money transactions). He kept it simple and said any day now... & it was about 5 days after they went live. The first year they had just micro limits players. PartyPoker was at the annual Billion mark, while PokerStars was gaining ground at 350 million. The reason PartyPoker was so big is they were the first online site to advertise during the first years the WPT started, so people who weren't avid poker players assumed PartyPoker was the only site around for real money. Once they grew so large, over 50% of their revenue was from limit hold'em cash game from small to mid-stakes. The hands are fast and they rake a decent amount (cheaper than casino's, and no tips either so at the time it was better for players in the overhead department). Games from $2-$4, $3-$6, $5-$10, $10-$20, $15-$30, & $20-$40 were the bread & butter, averaging 40% of the total gross. Although people were fascinated by TV No-limit, the limit games were packed. After time the NLH had become just as popular and then took over, but because the hands take 2 or 3 times as long (and the rake was the same as limit), naturally they made most at fast paced rake games. This is not written anywhere, maybe in a forum or blog, but in 2006 there was a major offer. In 2006, FullTilt was starting to get momentum with adding known poker player faces and PartyPoker feared that with PokerStars 2nd to them (grossing a little over 1/3) and UltimateBet a far back 3rd, that FullTilt might really cut into them and in years shove them back. An offer over 300 million ($340,000,000) was a silent tentative offer, but it appeared FullTilt had no interest in considering. If the offer and that amount was true, that was a big risk for FullTilt to refuse. They were a site open for a year and still had barely and revenue. I don't know FullTilt's costs to that point, but on average good software and servers will run a few million maximum, getting a way to transfer funds was expensive and difficult, having a call center and such to start ranges from 1 million and up, and the biggest costs like most businesses is advertisement (marketing). They used player star power, constant TV and magazine adds, on Fox they bought 1 hour airtime (30 mins was a game, and 30 mins was tips and lessons from the pros) and ran that often. I'm getting the cost figures as I was in charge of getting a poker site, as a U.S. citizen you had to forfeit your citizenship to take part in ownership of any offshore business that wasn't paying taxes although receiving their money from the U.S. Their are tricky ways to go around this but when I told the investors that many sites were opening and advertising would start at 5 million and we would only stand a 15% chance of surviving more than a year without additional funds, and more than likely we would only be successful if we had a top 10 site. In the end I pulled the plug as the risk was to high and chance was low. If I was approached 2-3 years prior, different scenario.
Back to FullTilt: They had an offer that would leave them +300 million on a business that took 2.5 years to build and they refused. I wonder who made that decision... the greed factor!!! It was great for PartyPoker because months later they had to stop U.S. business and would have wasted over a quarter of a billion. I hope the DoJ really gets the evidence, and allows no plea bargains and hammers the guys who praised honesty in poker (They were in it to clean up poker). Also, even lacking evidence on Howard and Ferguson, FullTilt was their baby and they knew the ins-and-outs so it would be a hard sell to think they didn't have some inclination things were not right. When you endorse and handle that much money and peoples trust, even ignorance is not a justified defense. You should know what's going on and if it seems off, time to look into it. Then again getting millions and millions people get blinded.