Poker World Divided Over Full Tilt Poker Scandal
Apr 16, 2012 Full Tilt Poker Online Poker
With several incidents taking place in the poker world such as the license of the Full Tilt Poker revoked by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission, the management of Full Tilt Poker that had nearly shattered the coffers of players’ money and the “Black Friday” indictments; poker world seems to have been divided by these issues. The outrages in the poker community are representing both the facets that these issues present.
The star professional poker player, Daniel Negreanu, has expressed his exasperation over the actions of Full Tilt Poker which is distressing the poker world through a variety of media. Recently in an interview with Poker Player UK, Negreanu called the Lederer family “scoundrels” and in a blog posting on his Full Contact Poker site, he unhesitatingly stated that “Ray (Bitar) is a buffoon, Howard (Lederer) is arrogant and Chris (Ferguson) is a liar.” Further at the Latin American Poker Tour Grand Final, Negreanu, on a video blog, expressed no sympathy over “Vegas justice” on Lederer and stated that they should be bashed in the nuts with a baseball bat. Following such ruthless comments from Negreanu, the “Godfather of Poker,” Doyle Brunson, posted a blog on his own website saying, “Was Full Tilt guilty of gross negligence and terrible mismanagement? Yes, of course.” Through his rational interpretation, he further also attempted to defend two of the alleged perpetrators of the Full Tilt fiasco, Lederer and Ferguson.
Brunson also revealed that Jack Binion was almost at the verge of buying Full Tilt, but Ray Bitar, who on the advice of Ferguson took over control of the entirety of the Full Tilt operation in 2008. With the development of the site, Bitar started paying out the huge sums to the members of Team Full Tilt and the board of directors. That encouraged Brunson to ask, “If you were a stockholder, would you question the management of a company sending you hundreds of thousands of dollars each month? I doubt you would.” Brunson, however, believed that Bitar was trying to alleviate the situation and he might have worked things out, if Black Friday won’t have happened. He also cleared his stand over the issues and stated that none of the stakeholders knew anything about the issues with Full Tilt Poker.
As a result, we can analyze that how the two leading poker member are going through the clashes and arising plenty of questions over the issues. The most controversial question which has been hovering over the Full Tilt tragedy around the poker world is “When did members of the board of directors and/or the members of Team Full Tilt know anything?” According to a blog posted by Brunson, if the directors and the members knew everything and kept on taking the money then they are alleged of the criminal activities; and if they knew nothing then they can’t be called a good business men.
The other question which has created outrage in the poker world is “Are Bitar, Lederer and Ferguson the ‘fall guys’ for Full Tilt’s failure? “ It’s not surprising the cause is simply the receiving of huge sum of money for the operation of their company. However, the fact is that Bitar carried on the business at the best of his abilities, but because of “Black Friday” indictments, the mismanagement of Full Tilt the business eventually caused them severe loss, and even took them to the point of dissolution.
Besides Lederer, Ferguson and Bitar, the poker players also have not been spared; they were also held responsible for the Full Tilt issues and thrown on a number of questions about Phil Ivey, the players owing money to Full Tilt for their loans and the level of allegation on the other members of Team Full Tilt. Brunson writes in his blog post saying “I don’t want to keep them from rejoining the poker world. Where do you stop the level of responsibility?”
It is believed that the answers lie in the middle of the two extremes. Now, only time will tell how the poker world would pull through the controversial issues and end these malicious debates or continue to infuriate the poker community.
