Subject:Poker is reporting that the US Department of Justice and Groupe Bernard Tapie have reached an agreement regarding the sale and fate of Full Tilt Poker. According to an email from Ray Bitar, the indicted CEO says that upon a payment by the Tapie group and a commitment to assume responsibility to repay non-US players, the DOJ will reimburse US players and settle litigation with FTP-associated companies. The Tapie group will then work on becoming licensed once again by a gaming authority and eventually resume business.

Any deal still needs to be approved by 2/3 of Full Tilt ownership, expected to be a formality.

More perspective can be found at Wicked Chops Poker.

Full Tilt laid off some 200 people on the Pocket Kings staff in Dublin last week — leaving pretty much just the head honchos, who apparently believe that ole Chris Ferguson bit about “a chip and a chair” too much and somehow still think they can salvage the company something.

Sucks for the Dubliners, but for the rest of us, that means 200 or more employees with insight into FTP operations over in Ireland, no real reason to necessarily protect certain information anymore, and access to 2+2.

Sure enough, at least two former employees from two different departments are posting away and answering questions. Check it out … worth the skim.

Nothing earth-shattering (yet … gotta figure anyone with the uber-goody dirt probably would go to the DOJ requesting immunity before turning informant) but the virtual deposition one former employee goes through provides plenty of color to paint a decent picture of what life was like in the middle of a corporate collapse … not to mention how the nouvea-poker-riche behave without the cash (and TV shows) that previously formed the foundation of their power.

For example, I learned:

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I gotta think representing himself pro se against the DOJ was not part of the original plan. But that’s the real story (imho) yet to be noted in Ray Bitar’s claims that he wants some of his property back (including two bank accounts in Pokerati’s old Dallas stomping grounds).

Have a look at the document. He filed the motion himself — “Verified Claim of Raymond Bitar, Pursuant to Rule G of the Supplemental Rules for Admiralty and Maritime Claims” — with an Irish notary public to make it official.

I certainly don’t know the nuances of Rule G of the Supplemental Rules for Admiralty and Maritime Claims, but it seems complex enough that an attorney might-should usually be filing this kinda thing. And the lack of legal counsel’s involvement in this civil matter raises plenty of questions about the financial status of Bitar … and maybe even the motivations of various comments by Full Tilt attorneys who may or may not be still be getting paid.

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Ed. Note:  Shortly after Tom wrote this piece, the AGCC revealed that some $330 million had been seized pre-Black Friday. I sent an email asking if this changed the math, to which Tom replied, “That’s almost all that they owed to players, just short $60 million which is purportedly what they had in the bank.  Makes my case even stronger.”

Just yesterday, I heard the news that the Department of Justice accused Full Tilt Poker of running a Ponzi scheme.  A Ponzi scheme is defined as a pyramid investment swindle in which supposed profits are paid to early investors from money actually invested by later participants.

I object your honor.  Taking money I deposit and distributing it to owners is no Ponzi scheme.  But wait, let’s look at some facts/guesses.

Had our politicians not passed a law that restricted financial institutions from transferring money to and from poker sites, all players would still have their money. 

In reviewing the DOJ complaint and other sources, the following information jumped out at me:

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Not sure yet what exactly this all means … but the case of Clonie Gowen vs. Team Full Tilt (that strangely never got to trial) is still alive in some capacity. A federal Appeals court ruled yesterday that the lower federal court — Nevada District — did indeed make errors in dismissing her claim against Ray Bitar, Howard Lederer, and various companies connected to Full Tilt.

Clonie Gowen’s lawsuit of course, was the first of what would prove to be many against various Full Tilt entities — at the time dismissed not just by a Las Vegas judge, but by the “poker world” and industy as a whole. Since then the belief that Full Tilt could do no wrong has definitely reversed itself … in American courts as well as the court of public opinion.

Clonie was seeking $40 million as a part-owner of Full Tilt. But my how times have changed … If she does finally get her day in court, certainly the valuation would have to be reassessed … and these days, were an American court to way declare that yes indeed you are an owner of Full Tilt, would that be a win?

Read below for a summary of the decision by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, based in San Francisco:

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The arrest warrant in rem in the parallel civil forfeiture case (11 Civ. 2564) involving PokerStars, FullTilt, and UB is out. This is the instrumentality through which the domain names were redirected by the FBI to the notices up on the sites. The only sites affected by this are: www.pokerstars.com, www.fulltiltpoker.com, www.ub.com, www.ultimatebet.com, and www.absolutepoker.com.

The warrant directs the .com registrar (VeriSign) to direct the name servers to the addresses specified in the warrant or such other name servers or IP addresses as directed by the FBI.

These domains have been locked by the registry (and by the registrar in the case of www.ultimatebet.com – this domain remains with GoDaddy pending a final disposition of the domain seizure case in Kentucky) and now cannot be moved without a court order or the consent of the Department of Justice. I understand that the rest of the domains (save and except for www.ultimatebet.com) are registered with foreign registrars.

Here’s the actual indictment, in the case of DOJ vs. Scheinberg et al.

UPDATE: Sorry for the bad link … have put it in a more easily accessible place via Scribd:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/53107543/Indictment-DOJ-vs-Scheinberg-Bitar-Tom-et-al

UPDATE: Going live on Donkdown Radio to try to help online poker degens make sense of it all. http://donkdown.com/radio

Boycotting may be too strong a word … “avoiding” could work, as could “snubbing”, as could “pissing off its own players by telling them they can’t go.”

Supposedly, highly reliable sources are saying, Full Tilt brass in Ireland are telling Full Tilt-branded American (and non-American) pros that they are not allowed to play in the Venetian Deep Stacks main event … as it is part of the newly launched NAPT, presented by PokerStars.net. What, are you guys not buying their claim that Stars-dot-net is different than Stars-dot-com? Interesting …

We hinted that something was coming on The Poker Beat a couple weeks ago. Kudos to ESPN’s @GaryWise1 for digging up the confirmation on the above. Listen below to a 5-minute excerpt of the bubbling under.
TPB2510-excerpt

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Apparently, Howard Lederer really has stepped away from calling the operational shots at Tilt, and it’s totally news to Bitar & Co. that Full Tilt pros were ever stepping foot in non-Tilt branded events, such as the PCA (PokerStars) and Aruba (UB). Sure enough, the Hollywood snub at the Sharon Osborne Trash Talk Championship of the World (at the Hard Rock) charity tournament was a sign of more serious fissures in the poker world to come.

Kinda funny … because these sites have been so worried how a new Harrah’s-branded online gaming presence would negatively affect other online sites branding opportunities at the World Series of Poker, and now their reaction to the threat seems on track to becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy.

UPDATE: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/blog/index?entryID=4921898&name=poker

A cover story in the latest issue of Forbes magazine (the main story asking if Al Qaeda is bankrupt) features an article discussing the US government’s possible crackdown on online poker with the impending June 1 deadline for the UIGEA to be enforced. The article can be found on their website here and includes a slide show of the big names behind online poker.

The Full Tilt Poker legal team is busy. On the heels of the presumably still-unresolved Clonie Gowen $40 million lawsuit, another case was filed in the Nevada court system on September 11, 2009. This is the only information available thus far:

Jason Newitt
v.
Tiltware; Full Tilt Poker; Pocket Kings Ltd.; Pocket Kings Consulting Ltd.; Raymond Bitar; Howard Lederer
9/11/2009

Contract action. Plaintiff says he was unfairly fired, and that his distribution payments were unfairly ceased. Defendants then took control of his ownership.

Newitt was the former Tilt employee responsible for inadvertently forwarding Howard Lederer e-mail about Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke (the “freak and very weird dude”) — an “oops” that revealed a little something about Lederer and Bitar’s positions and powers within the Full Tilt money machine. Whether or not this had anything to do with Newitt’s dismissal and the subsequent lawsuit remains to be seen until we get our sneaky little hands on the court documents.

2+2 is speculating that “Clonie Gowan’s suit against Full Tilt dismissed” [sic].

PokerNewsDaily followed suit:

With the majority of the case being dismissed with prejudice and only Tiltware, Bitar and Lederer eligible for any further action, Gowen’s lawsuit appears to be dead at this time.

And then PokerNews reported “Gowen Lawsuit Against Full Tilt Dismissed”.

These hedlines are for the most part inaccurate, and at a minimum misleading. Clonie’s lawsuit is still alive … the courts have simply stripped out some irrelevant defendants while considering motions for expedited discovery, and her team has 30 days to amend their complaints around the still relevant defendants, i.e. Tiltware, Howard Lederer, and Ray Bitar. These recent rulings may be considered setbacks, but it’s not like she has to start from scratch to “refile”.

Read the court documents for yourself:

Gowen Motions Denied
Gowen Hearing Vacated

Now granted, these are a little confusing, so Pokerati has made half-hearted attempts to contact attorneys on both sides of the case, and have received no response from either. We’ve also contacted insiders on both sides of the case, whom literally say the exact same thing: “It’s definitely not over”. To be sure, on both sides, no one’s celebrating nor stomping about wildly screaming “Appeal!” bemoaning these most recent decisions.

In the meantime, to help us understand, Pokerati has brought in an independent, poker-savvy legal expert from a neighboring state to help translate:

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Chewed up, spit out? Clonie Gowen is challenging the most fearsome of Full Tilt avatars in Clark County Court.

We all knew something fishy was going on with Clonie and Full Tilt, right? And we’ve always wondered how exactly Full Tilt operates — seriously it’s kinda a mystery, even to people who work for them — and now, with Clonie Gowen suing four different companies connected to the game so many play with the pros, we should find out quite a bit of interesting info.

As far as I know, this is the first time any online poker biz that operates in the grayish world of processing money from American players (really really light gray, but still … ) will have to show its stuff publicly. Even Ultimate Bet/Absolute, with all the audits and investigations hasn’t really had to show anything it doesn’t want to to anyone outside its own semi-corporate family.

Um, hole-card cameras in the courtroom?

Official court docs here.

Gowen v. Tiltware LLC, et al.,
Plaintiff: Cycalona Gowen
Defendant: Full Tilt Poker, Tiltware LLC, Pocket Kings Ltd., Kolyma Corporation, A.V.V., Raymond J. Bitar, Howard Lederer, Andrew Bloch, Phillip Ivey, Christopher Ferguson, John Juanda, Phillip Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman-Traniello, Michael Matusow, Allen Cunningham, Gus Hansen and Patrick Antonious

Case Number: 2:2008cv01581
Filed: November 14, 2008

Court: Nevada District Court
Office: Las Vegas Office [ Court Info ]
County: Clark
Presiding Judge: Judge Robert C. Jones
Referring Judge: Magistrate Judge Robert J. Johnston

Nature of Suit: Contract – Other Contract
Cause: 28:1332 Diversity-Other Contract
Jurisdiction: Diversity
Jury Demanded By: Plaintiff

They’re talking about it on 2+2, and the summary of her allegations below comes from the Hendon Mob:

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