Of course now that we can see everything about the remission process will be “by the book,” we know it will all be handled, er … by the book … which, frankly, may or may not lead to negative results for many of you (not me).
But we’ll see. Surely the DOJ understands how good it would be (for soooo many people!) if everyone could get paid back in time for the 2013 WSOP.
It was a fine weekend for a couple of young poker veterans at tour stops swapping locations. The World Poker Tour not-televised event was playing a small room in Florida while the televised Heartland Poker Tour made it’s return to the Palms in Las Vegas. James Carroll shortstacked his way to the final table and worked his way up the board until he was the last player at the table. The HPT had a nice uptick since their last Vegas event, even after professional nit-monster Allen Kessler tweaked the structure.
Noah Schwartz began the WPT final table in Jacksonville in a different position than Carroll, holding more than half the chips in play at the 6-handed final table. He was playing his 4th World Poker Tour final table, the most recent being a 4th place finish at the LAPC, but nothing stopped him from picking up the elusive title to boost him near $3,000,000 in career earnings. Other notables at the final table included Lee Markholt, Hans Winzeler, and Byron Kaverman.
Reid/Kyl in the Lame Duck: What You Need to Know – Chris Grove at PokerFuse has a nice little writeup about the online poker bill over the next few months, none of it terribly positive.
One of China’s most ingenious bribery schemes: the professional poker loser – You mean to tell me poker in China isn’t completely on the up and up? Using the game as a convenient way to bribe corrupt officials. h/t Otis.
Co-CEO Of Nevada Online Poker Applicant Questioned By Belgian Authorities – Norbert Teufelberger (Norbert!) went to Belgium for a responsible gaming convention and ended up having a nice conversation with the authorities of bwin.Party business.
DOJ, PPA Meet to Address Remission Timeline, Player Points – In case you missed it yesterday, Dan posted a statement from the PPA after they met with the DOJ about Full Tilt U.S. player accounts.
The Final Table – Episode 6 – The last episode of an excellently produced series of web videos about Russell Thomas preparing for the WSOP Main Event final table.
Full Tilt repayments still "a long way away"
The Poker Players Alliance’s legal team met with the DOJ earlier today in Washington DC for a status update on player repayments, and perhaps do a little lobbying on behalf of Full Tilt player points that could and should maybe someday count for something. Overall, it wasn’t very good news for players … particularly those who might be banking on the repatriation of online bankrolls at some point in 2012.
Considering that the DOJ hasn’t even set a deadline yet for when to hire an administrator to handle the Full Tilt repayment process … well, you can understand the harsh reality players face working with the government.
Read below for a report from PPA Executive Director John Pappas about what the DOJ had to say.
Due to the terrific efforts of the entire poker community, we have seen some nice victories, including the Department of Justice’s revised interpretation of the scope of the Wire Act as not applicable to poker and the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York ruling in the U.S. v DiCristina case that poker is a game of skill and is not illegal gambling under the Illegal Gambling Businesses Act. We clearly have the momentum in this fight.
It is unfortunate that the authors of the plank are at odds with many House Republicans who are leading the charge for licensed and regulated online poker, but it is even worse that they are so out of touch with the actual voters. Let’s all be sure to do our part through Election Day to ensure that all lawmakers understand where the people are on this important issue.
Last week, PPA shared the great news that the Justice Department approved the deal for PokerStars to purchase Full Tilt Poker. Through this deal, PokerStars provided funds to cover all player balances at Full Tilt Poker.
The DoJ is currently establishing the process by which we U.S. players will request and receive our money. PPA is at the forefront of advocating for our rights in this matter. PPA requested and was granted the opportunity by the DoJ to provide a recommended path for repayment of U.S. players. Needless to say, we asked for repayment of 100% of player balances. I hope everyone will take a moment to read this important letter to the DoJ (here).
PPA will continue this dialog with the DoJ. We are seeking a streamlined process for application for remission. We are also advocating for clear processes to address withdrawals that were deducted from balances but never sent, bounced withdrawal checks, unused tournament tokens, FTP points, Iron Man Medals, etc. Non-cash items will be toughest, but we will do our part to make the requests through the appropriate channels. PPA’s legal team will remain fully involved as the ‘voice of the player’ to ensure we are all heard throughout this process.
To aid all of us, as I mentioned last week PPA is gathering and posting the needed information on the reimbursement process in real time at http://theppa.org/repayment.
No surprise, QuadJacks was all over Tuesday’s news — as the story that originally put them on the map begins to come to a close some 15 months later. They did a series of quick, YouTubeable interviews throughout the day that you can listen to all together here. Was gonna highlight just a few, but by the time it was all said and done, I listened to the whole lot of them, well-hosted by Marco doing his best Frasier Crane of Poker.
Collectively they tell quite the narrative about a dramatic day’s impact across a representative patchwork of serious players who all had some sort of stake in the outcome. And while I’m loathe to do Zac and Marco’s work for them, here’s a rundown of what I spent my yesterday listening to (in the order I listened) instead of watching the Olympics even though Michael Phelps still plays poker.
Steve Preiss – Wicked Chops first told us about this story several months ago, and plenty of poker idiots out there didn’t believe it for a second — calling the deal “fiction” and “fantasy” while figuring WCP musta still been on tilt after the collapse of Epic Poker, which the consummate poker-insider indie-media op also reported ahead of anyone else. Here’s what Chops saw that others didn’t as the Stars-buys-Tilt deal emerged.
Jeff Ifrah – Ray Bitar attorney celebrates a “victory” as his client awaits trial in a California mansion and is still facing the rest of his life in prison for getting rich by lying to his customers about how awesome he and Full Tilt players were. But none of that matters because all Full Tilt ever wanted to do was clean up the mess that Bitar didn’t leave behind?