Posts Tagged ‘Howard Lederer’

Full Tilt Poker seeking US Online Poker License

Monday, November 21st, 2011

Proving that anything is possible, Full Tilt Poker reportedly has a very good chance to get a US online poker license if the game is ever legalized and regulated in America.

Full Tilt’s lawyer Jeff Ifrah came out with this news after his dealings with Groupe Bernard Tapie and the US Department of Justice. He said that, in addition to the $80 million deal between GBT and the US DOJ, there is also a very good chance for Full Tilt Poker to be accepted for a US online poker license if America does pass favorable legislation within the next year or so.

Right now, Groupe Bernard Tapie and Full Tilt Poker are in the process of finalizing the aforementioned $80 million deal. As part of the deal, GBT will pay back the $300 million-plus that non-US online poker players are owed from Full Tilt, while the US DOJ will pay the estimated $160 million that Americans have wrapped up in the site.

For the time being, there’s no word on what will become of the current Full Tilt board members such as Chris Ferguson, Ray Bitar and Howard Lederer. This trio, along with other higher-ups at FTP, are blamed for players not being able to cash out money after the US DOJ came down on Full Tilt; they took too money from the player deposits for themselves, and didn’t leave nearly enough to cover cashouts.

This being said, it’s interesting that Full Tilt Poker would still be considered for licensing within the US. After all, many online poker players were inconvenienced by this dilemma because some of them had thousands or even millions stuck on FTP. Hopefully though, the Groupe Bernard Tapie deal can bring an end to this whole mess.

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Full Tilt Poker the Ponzi Scheme

Tuesday, September 20th, 2011

Those of you who thought that Full Tilt Poker had even the slimmest chance of surviving the loss of their gaming license and the US DoJ actions may want to rethink your position. Major news outlets throughout the world have been reporting that Full Tilt Poker is being labeled a Ponzi scheme by the New York US Attorney’s Office.

Having any involvement at all with a Ponzi scheme definitely doesn’t bode well for the poker site when looking back through history. The best case of a Ponzi scheme architect having the book thrown at him is Bernie Madoff, who is serving 150 years in prison for his role in what is believed to be the largest Ponzi scheme ever.

As for Full Tilt Poker, the implications of their case may not deal with the tens of billions that Madoff’s situation did, but it’s still bad nonetheless. After all, top personnel at Full Tilt like Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson are said to have taken a combined $440 million from Full Tilt Poker accounts. And this money wasn’t profits either, but rather cash coming directly from players’ accounts.

Now Full Tilt has already made the argument that they’re not a Ponzi scheme because this would imply that they lied to investors (players) about amazing returns that they’d be receiving; in reality, Full Tilt Poker only advertises and markets their site to encourage people to sign up and deposit. But on the other hand, you can’t exactly say that Full Tilt is free and clear of the Ponzi scheme label since they never disclosed to players that their deposits weren’t entirely backed.

All in all, this is merely shaping up to be a civil suit brought on by the US Attorney’s Office to recover lost players’ funds. However, it’s very likely that in the future, we could be seeing some major legal action against the top people at Full Tilt Poker.

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Poker Prop Bets Abound in 2010

Wednesday, May 12th, 2010

Prop bets have always been big in poker, with professional players making all sorts of ridiculous personal bets. Vegetarians have gone carnivore, players have golfed for a whopping $18,000 per hole, moved to Israel, gotten tattoos and more. The most recent prop bet in the world of professional poker is between players Phil Ivey and Howard Lederer.

Lederer has bet $5 million against Ivey winning WSOP bracelets in the 2010 and 2011 tournaments. Ivey has won a total of seven bracelets since the 2000 World Series of Poker, two of which he won last year. He also managed to make it to the Main Event final table in last year’s tournament. However, will he win two bracelets this year and the next? Apparently he’s willing to bet $5 million that he will!

On a crazier note, player Ted Forrest has a $2 million prop bet going with Mike Matusow. Matusow has bet Forrest that he can’t get his weight down to 139 pounds by July 15. He currently weights 188. If he manages to take of the 49 pounds, Forrest will get $2 million. If he doesn’t, he’ll pay Matusow $150,000. On a previous prop bet, Forrest ran a full marathon in Las Vegas summer heat for $7000 and went immediately to the hospital for severe foot injuries when he finished. Hopefully this new prop bet won’t land him in the hospital again! Matusow has also agreed to run through the Vegas Strip totally naked if three women take home bracelets in the WSOP.

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