'Black Friday' and associated fallout megathread

Breaking news:

Subject Poker is shutting down to prevent a conflict of interest with a new venture Noah is getting into. However, Diamond Flush (one of Subject Poker's best reporters) is continuing the work at a new site with the same standards.

http://www.subjectpoker.com/2012/02/goodbye/

http://diamondflushpoker.com/ (new site)

Glad to see someone stepping up to fill the void.

^ this, and there's the fact that Obama is an avid poker player. He loves the game and look how far that has gotten us--somewhere beyond nowhere.

I wonder if this is what prohibition was like...

No. During prohibition you could get all the booze you wanted.

Well I surely haven't stopped playing poker either...

All the booze you wanted....what a perfect world.

More non-news:

Read more: http://www.pokernews.com/news/2012/0...sion-12004.htm

Also rumor has it that AP/UB may be paying players at 15-20 cents on the dollar.

DOJ not giving up on wire act. Just threw a bone to lotteries.

DOJ Stranglehold Still on Elie and Campos

Guess the DOJ didn't see how it could extort money from the states.

______________
DOJ sucks

All the freeroll work I did at minted is now in the toilet...

I'm glad though we still have some solid sites friendly to us Americans...

shucks...

Minted has said all funds segregated, us players will be okay


so i think your 12.45$ is safe

Lotsa links down below; This is the current email I get.


If you no longer wish to receive e-mail from us, please click here.

so how far along are we on this tapie deal? will it not get done until the other FTP players pay back the $15mil they owe?

ugh. w/e. I feel the longer this goes along the less Tapie will want to do the deal as FTP is becoming more and more lost in history.

federal online poker not happening until 2013

looking back, really wish we could have taken the blackout deal

Tapie won't be backing out of the deal they've just been spending time trying to reconstruct it in their best favor and get back those "loans" from some of the FTP Pros or whatever. Once they get to a point where they feel they can't get it any better the deal will be executed. Not to mention they can't even do anything til the whole mess with the DoJ clears up with FTP.

I disagree on that last point - the site has been shut down for almost nine months, and it's still one of the most talked-about brands in poker.

Poker dead for 2012?, quote from PPA.


According to one of the most respected gaming reporters in the business, federal legislation that would regulate and legalize the online poker industry in the United States is more than likely shut down until 2013 at the earliest.

On his Twitter account Friday afternoon, Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Howard Stutz chirped to his readers, “One Wall Street analyst opinion: Internet poker legalization not being attached to the payroll tax bill means the issue is dead for 2012.”

[image: http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/sad/big-smiley-crying.gif] [image: http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/sad/big-smiley-crying.gif] [image: http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/sad/big-smiley-crying.gif] [image: http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/sad/big-smiley-crying.gif] [image: http://www.sherv.net/cm/emo/sad/big-smiley-crying.gif]

BY STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Posted: Feb. 16, 2012 | 3:13 p.m.
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid put a sudden end to speculation and the hopes of card sharks when he declared that major payroll tax legislation unveiled Thursday did not contain legalization for Internet poker.

As details of the tax cut bill were being unfurled, Reid, the Senate majority leader from Nevada, said online poker was not in it. He did not elaborate on a quick comment made to a reporter as he entered a Senate elevator.

Poker players had invested in some hope the payroll tax bill could be the setting to legalize poker-playing on the Internet and establish sets of rules for games to be licensed and overseen by a federal agency and the states.

They plan to continue their vigil.

"While we were hopeful the payroll tax bill would include a bill to license and regulate online poker in the U.S., the Poker Players Alliance supports any other vehicle in which this can happen this year and believe this is a decision best left to the lawmakers," said Rich Muny, vice president of player relations for the organization.

The USA Fked up a great pastime for them and the world.

According to this story on pokerfuse there still may be hopes of deal happening:

http://pokerfuse.com/news/poker-room...-deal-renewed/

I hope a link to this site is allowed.

According to EGR magazine, the deal closes next week and site up and running within 4 weeks.

Well, that would be awesome, but we have heard stories like that for a long time now, so I am skeptical. I kind of have given up hope, if I get my money back it'll be a bonus. I wouldn't think this guy would make a deal though, it just doesn't seem worth it.

I read the article in the link and I for one sure hope to recover some if not all of the funds i had in that account . Also i miss the play and being able to deal at the final table , i just hope when and if the new management take over the same options are used
gate

I would love to see this...

BUT I will believe it when I see it......

More on here.One source predicting settlement by tomorrow.
Believe it when I see money in bank.

http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/full-t...mminent-21389/

I'm now trying to get over $100 I've won off Carbon.Very slow in paying.payment is now pending for over a week

LOl took 7weeks for me lol and you can't order next check till first one has been approved

Yeah you're not going to get anywhere close to a 1 week turnaround from Merge. Best I've ever seen is 2 weeks when Lock paid out through their casino for a short time before they got swamped. This was when Merge was taking 6-8 weeks to pay out, and sometimes longer. It's not Carbon, Lock, BCP, et al, it's the Merge network -- they handle the poker cashier.

However Lock has now somehow gotten approval to manage their own payouts now and things should be better there. For instance they now offer bank wires. Not sure what the other Merge skins will be doing.

Yeah, took from Jan 24 until March 14 to get my check approved by carbon. Still waiting on it to arrive.

Daniel Tzvetkoff, the one-time high-flying Queensland internet whiz who brought down America's multibillion-dollar online poker industry, will come out of hiding next month.
The 29-year-old faced a sentence of 75 years in a US federal prison but in 2010, while languishing in a New York jail, he struck a secret deal with prosecutors and has become a star informant for the US government in its bid to prosecute the kingpins of three of the world's largest online gambling companies: PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker.
AAP can reveal that Tzvetkoff, whose Queensland-based company Intabill allegedly processed more than $US1 billion ($957 million) worth of illegal transactions between US gamblers and internet gaming websites based offshore, has handed more than 90,000 documents over to prosecutors.
Campos, a 57-year-old executive at Utah's SunFirst Bank who allegedly agreed to process gambling transactions, is charged with six offences and could be jailed for 35 years.
This week, Elie's lawyers complained to the judge handling the case that, on the eve of the trial, prosecutors dumped a "mountain of documents" on them, including Tzvetkoff's emails.
"For example, although the government had previously produced emails for Daniel Tzvetkoff, one of the government's main witnesses in this case, the material we recently received revealed that Mr Tzvetkoff had deleted his emails from the Intabill server, which had previously been made available to the defence, and that the Tzvetkoff emails that were included in prior productions were therefore ones that Mr Tzvetkoff had cherry-picked for the government," Monday's filing from Elie's lawyers, Barry Berke and Dani James, stated.
The inside information includes confidential emails.
Tzvetkoff's first public test as a prosecution witness will come on April 9 in a New York courtroom when a former Las Vegas-based business partner, Chad Elie, and a Utah banker, John Campos, go on trial.
Elie, 31, is charged with nine offences including conspiring to commit bank fraud and money laundering and faces a maximum jail sentence of 85 years if convicted.
"Only after we pointed this out to the government did we receive a full set of Mr Tzvetkoff's materials, which included more than 90,000 documents and which we were able to access for the first time only yesterday."
Tzvetkoff was once a media darling in Australia, flaunting his wealth - estimated at $82 million just a few years ago - with a $27 million home on the Gold Coast, a garage filled with Lamborghinis and Ferraris, and as a sponsor of V8 Supercar racing team, Team IntaRacing.
His world came crashing down in 2009 when the internet poker companies, for which he allegedly helped launder $US1 billion, accused him of stealing about $US100 million.
Tzvetkoff was arrested at Las Vegas's upmarket Encore casino in April 2010 and charged with money laundering, bank fraud and other charges.
US federal prosecutors vigorously fought to keep Tzvetkoff in jail after his arrest, including successfully overturning a Las Vegas judge's decision to grant Tzvetkoff bail.
Tzvetkoff was transferred to a New York jail and sat there until June 2010 but, in secret dealings, sealed by judges, Tzvetkoff disappeared.
"He's turned the corner, seen the light and is co-operating," former FBI agent Harold Copus, after reviewing the details of the case, told AAP.
On April 15, 2011, Tzvetkoff's inside knowledge led to what has been dubbed in the US as "Black Friday", the day tens of thousands of US poker players logged on to their computers and discovered three top gambling sites - PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker and Absolute Poker - had been shut down in the US by authorities.
The FBI and prosecutors also announced that day internet gambling kingpins Isai Scheinberg and Paul Tate of PokerStars, Raymond Bitar and Nelson Burtnick of Full Tilt Poker, and Scott Tom and Brent Beckley of Absolute Poker, were charged with bank fraud, money laundering and illegal gambling offences.
Elie and Campos were also charged in the sweep.
Prosecutors alleged Elie, as Tzvetkoff's Intabill was crumbling in 2009, fleeced $US4 million from PokerStars.
"Intabill's founder, Daniel Tzvetkoff, who processed over $US1 billion for the poker companies, ended up owing tens of millions to PokerStars," prosecutor Arlo Deviln-Brown wrote in a recent court filing.
"While Tzvetkoff's lifestyle is squarely responsible for much of the missing money ($US25 million on a house, for example), the fact is that 'sub-processors' that Tzvetkoff relied on - including Elie - also failed to remit and indeed simply made off with the money PokerStars was missing."


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/technology/tec...#ixzz1pjtru5M0

have you seen the many many millions made by anyone even associated with this . it's a license to print money

if or when the deal goes down , we Americans will not be allowed to play and the only way we're getting any money back is fighting with the DOJ sorry to burst your bubble .


anyone seen the show " a 1000 ways to die " ? none of them are to good for him

Corporate-backed legislation warps US democracy

Paul Krugman

March 28, 2012
Opinion


Florida's now-infamous Stand Your Ground law, which lets you shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution, sounds crazy - and it is. And it's tempting to dismiss this law as the work of ignorant yahoos. But similar laws have been pushed across the United States, not by ignorant yahoos, but by big corporations.

Specifically, language virtually identical to Florida's law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed organisation that has managed to keep a low profile even as it exerts vast influence (only recently, thanks to yeoman work by the Center for Media and Democracy, has a clear picture of ALEC's activities emerged). And if there is any silver lining to Trayvon Martin's killing, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what ALEC is doing to American society - and American democracy.

What is ALEC? Despite claims that it's nonpartisan, it's very much a movement-conservative organisation, funded by the usual suspects: the Kochs, Exxon Mobil, and so on. Unlike other such groups, however, it doesn't just influence laws, it literally writes them, supplying fully drafted bills to state legislators. In Virginia, for example, more than 50 ALEC-written bills have been introduced, many almost word for word. And these bills often become law.

Many ALEC-drafted bills pursue standard conservative goals: union-busting, undermining environmental protection, tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. ALEC seems, however, to have a special interest in privatisation - that is, on turning the provision of public services, from schools to prisons, over to for-profit corporations. And some of the most prominent beneficiaries of privatisation, such as the online education company K12 Inc. and the prison operator Corrections Corporation of America, are, not surprisingly, very much involved with the organisation.

What this tells us, in turn, is that ALEC's claim to stand for limited government and free markets is deeply misleading. To a large extent the organisation seeks not limited government but privatised government, in which corporations get their profits from taxpayer dollars, dollars steered their way by friendly politicians. In short, ALEC isn't so much about promoting free markets as it is about expanding crony capitalism.

And in case you were wondering, no, the kind of privatisation ALEC promotes isn't in the public interest; instead of success stories, what we're getting are a series of scandals. Private charter schools, for example, appear to deliver a lot of profits but little in the way of educational achievement.

But where does the encouragement of vigilante (in)justice fit into this picture? In part it's the same old story - the long-standing exploitation of public fears, especially those associated with racial tension, to promote a pro-corporate, pro-wealthy agenda. It's neither an accident nor a surprise that the National Rifle Association and ALEC have been close allies all along.

And ALEC, even more than other movement-conservative organisations, is clearly playing a long game. Its legislative templates aren't just about generating immediate benefits to the organisation's corporate sponsors; they're about creating a political climate that will favour even more corporation-friendly legislation in the future. Did I mention that ALEC has played a key role in promoting bills that make it hard for the poor and ethnic minorities to vote?

Yet that's not all; you have to think about the interests of the penal-industrial complex - prison operators, bail-bond companies and more. (The American Bail Coalition has publicly described ALEC as its ''life preserver''.) This complex has a financial stake in anything that sends more people into the courts and the prisons, whether it's exaggerated fear of racial minorities or Arizona's Draconian immigration law, a law that followed an ALEC template almost verbatim.

Think about that: the US seems to be turning into a country where crony capitalism doesn't just waste taxpayer money but warps criminal justice, in which growing incarceration reflects not the need to protect law-abiding citizens but the profits corporations can reap from a larger prison population.

ALEC isn't single-handedly responsible for the corporatisation of our political life; its influence is as much a symptom as a cause. But shining a light on ALEC and its supporters - a roster that includes many companies, from AT&T to Coca-Cola, that have so far managed to avoid being publicly associated with the hard-right agenda - is one good way to highlight what's going on. And that kind of knowledge is what we need to start taking our country back.
New York Times

If only the Poker Players Alliance could get ALEC to draft a few online poker laws, after all they ARE for hard right business' such as casino's.


Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/opin...OwK59fcConline

Paul Krugman is a douche.

Pocket Kings (the shell company that was actually in Dublin running FT) is hiring.

http://www.worky.com/company/pocket-kings-ltd/jobs

Also, if you check a certain other forum's containment thread for Full Tilt, there appears to be a lot of indications that it is moving in the direction of restarting in the somewhat near future.

I think some cautious optimism might be in order. Good luck.

Is it alright if I stay away from the boxing matches and let you continue to filter the din for me?

Is why I cherish CC. I can't take noisy places.

I liked FT. Liked their client a lot. But the others are getting the job done. Sooooo... I'm not letting my dress get blown up till I feel a substantial wind.


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