U.S. Alleges Full Tilt Poker Was Ponzi Scheme - WSJ.com http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240531119... Wednesday, September 21, 2011 As of 12:00 AM New York 73º | 63º MEDIA & MARKETING U.S. Edition Home Today's Paper Video Blogs Journal Community World U.S. New York Business Markets Tech Personal Finance Life & Culture Opinion Asia Europe Earnings Economy Health Law Autos Management Media & Marketing Energy CFO Journal 2 of 12 3 of 12 4 of 12 TOP STORIES IN U.S. Alleges Poker Google Rivals Plan Focus on Site StackedBusiness Deck Antitrust Assault Goldman Ex-Director MEDIA & MARKETING SEPTEMBER 21, 2011 U.S. Alleges Poker Site Stacked Deck Article Video Comments (376) Email Print Save Like 4K 93 2,343 By ALEXANDRA BERZON As professional poker players, Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson and Rafael Furst got rich by bluffing players out of their money in televised tournaments. Now, the U.S. government alleges that they and their colleagues used this same approach in running one of the world's largest online poker sites. On Tuesday, the U.S. Justice Department in a civil suit accused Messrs. Lederer, Ferguson and Furst, and another director of the company behind the Full Tilt Poker website, of defrauding thousands of online poker Available to WSJ.com Subscribe players out of more than $300 million that is still owed to them. The government said that, in total, the 23 owners of the site had taken The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday accused out $444 million in distributions over the poker celebrities Howard Lederer and Christopher years. Ferguson among other executives of a major poker website of defrauding poker players out of more than $300 million. WSJ's Alexandra Berzon joins Digits with The Justice Department's civil suit against details. (Photo: FullTiltPoker.com) Full Tilt alleges that in 2010, Full Tilt began 1 of 8 9/21/11 9:37 AM U.S. Alleges Full Tilt Poker Was Ponzi Scheme - WSJ.com http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240531119... having trouble accepting new bets from Deal Journal Commercial Space players, thanks to U.S. efforts to crack down Starts to Wobble Highlights From the Lawsuit on payment-processing services for online gambling. But the U.S. says that Full Tilt's owners kept paying themselves millions of dollars anyway, fraudulently depleting the player funds on deposit with the company. "Full Tilt was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme," said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in a statement Focus on Goldman Tuesday. The U.S. government views online Ex-Director poker operations, at least those that cross state lines, as illegal. In its civil suit filed in U.S. District Court in Enlarge Image New York, the government alleged that Messrs. Lederer and Ferguson received $38 million and $24 million, respectively, in distributions from Full Tilt. It also alleged that a third poker player involved in the site, Mr. Furst, received $12 million and Raymond Bitar, who helped manage Full Tilt, got $40 million. "Mr. Furst hasn't done anything wrong," said David Angeli, Mr. Furst's attorney. "He always acted in what he believed was the best interest of players and anyone associated with Full Tilt." Attorneys for Mr. Ferguson and for Mr. Bitar had no comment. Attempts to reach Mr. Lederer Most Popular Video weren't successful. In a statement in August, Full Tilt acknowledged that it was having problems processing player money and said it lost $115 million to government seizure and $42 million it says was stolen by a third-party payment processor. Old Ketchup Packet "While the company was on the way to addressing the problems caused by these processors, Heads for Trash Full Tilt Poker never anticipated that the DOJ would proceed as it did by seizing our global 4:21 domain name and shutting down the site worldwide," the company said. It said it was seeking outside investment and was committed to paying players in full. More in Media & Marketing The accusations against Full Tilt are part of a crackdown that began in April when the Justice TV Lures Ads as Audiences Scatter Department indicted executives at three major online poker companies, including Full Tilt, on charges of illegal gambling, bank fraud and money laundering. The government sought $3 billion from the companies, shut down their sites and stopped much of the online poker played in the Most Popular U.S. It also filed a civil suit at the time, which it amended Tuesday to include much more detailed Read Emailed allegations against Full Tilt. The Wall Street Journal has examined how the owners of Full Tilt played a cat-and-mouse game 1. U.S. Alleges Poker Site Stack around the globe to process money from U.S. Internet poker players outside the purview of U.S. authorities. 2. U.S. Request Sent to News Cor The government charges have upended an industry that in the past decade became a 3. Google+ Opened to Public behemoth online business as Full Tilt and other websites fueled a global poker boom. Full Tilt 4. Old Ketchup Packet Heads for once hosted 54,000 people in a single online tournament. 2 of 8 9/21/11 9:37 AM U.S. Alleges Full Tilt Poker Was Ponzi Scheme - WSJ.com http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240531119... The crackdown has shaken the large 5. Execution to Proceed as Ple universe of poker fans. Before the April crackdown, researcher H2 Gambling Capital Most Read Articles Feed estimated there were 1.7 million active poker player accounts in the U.S. from players wagering around $14 billion a year online. In London, Sebastian Fox, an aspiring music producer, said he could earn around $1,200 a Enlarge Image month playing poker online. He racked up Roll Call Photos/Getty Images $8,000 in an account on Full Tilt. On June 29, Chris Ferguson, right, and Howard Lederer at a roundtable discussion held by the Poker Players he said that he tried to withdraw around Alliance in 2006. $2,400 to pay for rent and other living expenses and discovered Full Tilt's website had been closed down, following the U.S. suit and a subsequent raid by authorities in the U.K.'s Channel Islands where Full Tilt is licensed to operate its website. "I didn't even consider such a big company would be able to go bust just like that," Mr. Fox said. The U.S. government has long argued that online gambling, including poker, is illegal under the Wire Act, a 1961 law that explicitly prohibits sports betting conducted over electronic communication. The law is less clear about other types of gambling that are outlawed by the Wire Act, say legal experts. Online poker sites started popping up over a decade ago but took off in 2003 when an accountant named Chris Moneymaker entered an online tournament and later won $2.5 million in the World Series of Poker. His success enticed thousands of new players online and lured entrepreneurs hoping to capitalize on the boom. Among them was a lanky poker player, Chris Ferguson, nicknamed "Jesus." Mr. Ferguson, who sported a thick, shaggy haircut and had a Ph.D in software engineering, and his colleague Mr. Bitar tinkered with their concept for web poker while they traded stocks in Los Angeles. The idea: recruit stars from the poker world to lure players to a new site. The pair dubbed their cadre "Team Full Tilt." Team members were given stock in the company. Most of the early members got a 10% stake though that fell as more members were added. Mr. Ferguson took 20% of the company for himself, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. To raise its profile, Full Tilt promised online players the opportunity to play with and learn from its stable of poker stars. The site worked like many others. Players deposited money into an account held by the poker company. When the player won, the account would be credited; when the player 3 of 8 9/21/11 9:37 AM U.S. Alleges Full Tilt Poker Was Ponzi Scheme - WSJ.com http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240531119... lost, it would be debited. Behind the scenes, poker sites used other companies, called payment processors, to maintain player accounts. The poker sites made money from tournament fees and took a small percentage, or "rake," of the money wagered. The processors, meanwhile, charged additional fees. That business in the U.S. hit a wall in 2006 when Congress made it illegal for financial institutions to process funds for online gambling. The law, called the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, stopped online poker sites from processing payments in the U.S., forcing many online poker companies to abandon U.S. players. Others, such as Full Tilt, had already moved their processing of U.S. poker games outside of the U.S. By this point operating out of Jay Newnum Ireland, Full Tilt thrived, and in April of 2007, Rafael Furst, shown in 2006 began paying its owners a total of about $5 million a month, according to a person familiar with the situation. That same year, the Justice Department clamped down further, arresting and charging two U.S. executives of NETeller, a publicly traded payment processing company based in the Isle of Man, with money laundering. The U.S. seized $55 million belonging to gamblers and shut down NETeller's U.S. operations, while both executives pleaded guilty. Enlarge Image Getty Images The closure of NETeller put poker companies The U.S.