Full Tilt Players to Be Paid

PokerStars Buys Full Tilt Assets! April 15, 2011, became to be known as Black Friday in the Poker World. and July 31, 2012 was the day the players learned they would be made whole.

The Department of Justice announced last Monday a deal has been struck between Full TIlt Poker and PokerStars for Stars to purchase the assets of FTP -- resulting in the vctims of the FTP debacle being paid. As part of the deal, PokerStars has agreed to forfeit $547 Million to the U.S. and to reimburse the approximately $184 million owed by Full Tilt to foreign players for  total settlement of $731 million dollars. U.S. citizens, the victims of Full Tilt Poker, will be paid from the $547 million paid by Stars to the U.S. Government. The $184 million dollar number reflects Full Tilt balances dues to ROW (Rest of World) players, and those players are required to be paid by Stars as part of the agreement in ninety (90) days. Additional terms of the agreement includes: The head of PokerStars, Isai Scheinberg, must not serve iin any management roles. PokerStars can not hire from the Full Tilt management team, specifically Raymond Bitar, Howard Lederer, Rafael Furst, Chris Ferguson or Nelson Burtnik. Naturally, PokerStars and the new Full Tilt Poker may not enter the U.S. market UNLESS poker is made legal within said jurisdictions. Here is a quote from the DOJ press release...

"Full Tilt Poker owed approximately $390 million to players around the world, including approximately $160 million to players in the United States.  At that time, Full Tilt Poker had only approximately $60 million on deposit in its bank accounts".

PokerStars made one heck of a deal in this agreement. Stars assured itself of being to re-enter the U.S.market, and it took over the only entity to ever truly compete with itself, while thwarting the attempts of others to acquire Full Tilt. Considering Stars was facing a $500 million dollar fine, it bought FTP at a bargain rate. Stars will pay ROW players, and the U.S. victims of Full Tilt  poker will have to solicit he U.S. government to regain their balances. Read more at ScottyClarkPoker.com

October Nine Biographies. The WSOP released the biographies of Steve Gee and Robert Salaburu this past week. Gee won a WSOP Bracelet in 2010 and is fifth in the chipcount, while Salaburu has been playing professionally for about eight years and is seventh in chips. Read about the players now.

Steve Gee - Robert Salaburu - Greg Merson - Russel Thomas - Michael Esposito 

Jake Balsinger - Jesse Sylvia - Andras Koroknai - Jeremy Ausmus

The Scotty Clark Poker Show #14. This week we had a good show, with Amanda Musumeci, two-time WSOP Bracelet winner Brian Rast, and poker room managers Jeremy Smith of the Horseshoe in Cleveland, and Kenny Lambert of Choctaw Casino in Durant, Oklahoma as our guests. We talked bracelets, One Drop, Esfandiari and Hellmuth with Brian Rast from his home in Brasil, and we talked with Amanda while she was on the road driving. Amanda is one of the up and coming young ladies in poker. We discusses her runner-up finish in WSOP ($1500 NL) Event #9 for a hefty $481,683, her poker roots, and her plans for the future. 

My friend, Jeremy Smith, formerly worked at the Horseshoe in Hammond, before being named the poker room manager in Cleveland at the Horseshoe. Smith is at the helm of what is (arguably), the hottest cardroom in the nation right now, and despite Cleveland being a smaller market. Jeremy filled us in on the action in Cleveland. Kenny Lambert has been in this business a long time, and he made his bones at the Horseshoe in Vegas, and in the Great State of Mississippi. Kenny reflected on the first stop ever on the CardPlayer Poker Tour series at Choctaw and told us about the good ole days when he worked security for the Binion family, among other things.

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