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Former Full Tilt Poker executive Howard Lederer issued an apology for the events that led to the poker site failing to have funds on hand to pay all its players in the wake of 2011’s Black Friday.
Lederer, in part, said “I take full responsibility for Full Tilt’s failure to protect player deposits leading up to Black Friday.”
At least two execs each from PokerStars, Full Tilt Poker, and Absolute Poker were charged. Full Tilt’s Ray Bitar and Absolute Poker’s Scott Tom and Brent Beckley have become reviled figures in poker lore, after they and their companies walked off with hundreds of millions of dollars in unrefunded player deposits.
- Ferguson and Black Friday Ferguson disappeared from poker following April 15, 2011, a day now known as Black Friday. It was the day the US Department of Justice shut down Full Tilt and a number of other offshore online poker operators. The sites’ principals were charged with various money laundering and illegal gambling charges.
- Home Full Tilt Poker’s Nelson Burtnick Pleads Guilty To “Black Friday” Charges Full Tilt Poker’s Nelson Burtnick Pleads Guilty To “Black Friday” Charges By Earl Burton - Sep 20th, 2012.
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- As the community holds out hope for a French firm acquiring the company and reopening its doors, the lingering pain of Black Friday rests with Full Tilt Poker.
You can read the whole apology here, which was posted at poker pro Daniel Negreanu’s blog. Negreanu had been one of Lederer’s most vocal critics.
The abbreviated history of Lederer and Full Tilt
In the wake of its domain being seized by the U.S. Department of Justice in April of 2011, Full Tilt was not able to refund all account balances because of a failure to segregate operational and player funds. PokerStars went on to buy the Full Tilt platform and refund all players.
Lederer, the public face of Full Tilt, settled a civil complaint stemming from Black Friday in 2012. He’s pretty much stayed out of the poker spotlight ever since, other than a series of interviews he did called the Lederer Files.
The Lederer apology, at a glance
Lederer does not get into much in the way of details about the events leading up to Full Tilt having a massive shortfall of funds, but endeavors to apologize. In the wake of Black Friday, Lederer admits that Full Tilt players “trusted the site, and they trusted me, and I didn’t live up to that trust.”
More from the apology:
I take full responsibility for Full Tilt’s failure to protect player deposits leading up to Black Friday. The shortfall in player deposits should never have happened. I should have provided better oversight or made sure that responsible others provided that oversight. I was a founder in the company that launched Full Tilt, and I became the face of the company’s management in the poker community. Many of our players played on the site because they trusted me.
At the same time, Lederer also deflects some of the blame, pointing out he really wasn’t in charge when things went down:
Even though I was no longer overseeing day to day operations, my inattention in the two years leading up to Black Friday imperiled players’ deposits. My involvement in Full Tilt from 2003-2008 put me in a unique position of trust—a trust that I disappointed by failing to ensure that Full Tilt was properly governed when I stepped away in 2008. My failure to make sure proper oversight was in place when I left resulted in the situation that began to unfold on Black Friday.
Why now for the Lederer apology?
It’s a curious time for an apology from Lederer, and years overdue, according to most of the poker-playing public that had money on Full Tilt when Black Friday happened.
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Why now? First, the apology comes as the Full Tilt software platform is being retired and the player pool merged with PokerStars. That’s led to some nostalgia for Full Tilt — once the No. 2 online poker site worldwide and in the U.S. And perhaps that was what triggered Lederer to speak.
The other main theory of why Lederer apologized now? He might plan on showing up for the World Series of Poker that starts later this month. Negreanu hinted at that, writing, “My guess is that he just wants to be able to play poker again without the vitriol sent in his direction.”
We’ll find out if that theory is correct in short order — showing up without some sort of blanket apology before the WSOP in Las Vegas likely would have ended poorly for him.
Does anyone care that Lederer apologized now?
Had Lederer apologized in 2012 or 2013, it might have been better received by the poker world. In 2016, the apology seems to be a day late and a dollar short.
Negreanu, for his part, accepted the apology, writing “I have no interest in continuing to hold my grudge against him.”
In talking about Lederer on Twitter soon after the apology became public, poker players’ reactions generally ranged from ambivalence to cynicism.
Many people had moved on from the Full Tilt debacle years ago, even though claims in the U.S. regarding player funds are still being dealt with today. The Lederer apology certainly tests the idea of “better late than never.”
Photo by flipchip / LasVegasVegas.com used under license CC BY-SA 3.0
A year ago, hundreds of thousands of online poker players in the United States woke up on what was later dubbed Black Friday to the Department of Justice cracking down on the alleged crimes of the major offshore operators.
While the case (U.S. v. Scheinberg et al) is still playing out in federal court, many in the community are still coming to grips with not only the games disappearing, but their funds falling into the abyss of cyberspace.
PokerStars paid its U.S. players in full, but Absolute Poker and Full Tilt Poker have stiffed their former customers. The combined debt of the two companies is in the hundreds of millions.
Months after the indictment was unsealed, the government piled on the accusation that Full Tilt Poker was running a “global Ponzi scheme” by defrauding players to line the pockets of its shareholders. As the community holds out hope for a French firm acquiring the company and reopening its doors, the lingering pain of Black Friday rests with Full Tilt Poker.
Absolute Poker was already viewed as a big gamble by some, thanks to past cheating scandals within the company, but Full Tilt Poker had the illusion of stability and contained a much larger sum of player money ($300 million is owed to former FTP customers, compared to $60 million for Absolute Poker/UB).
After the insolvency of Full Tilt Poker and its atrocities with player funds, American poker players of the future will have the security of playing on sites run by publicly traded casino companies, with strict rules on accounting practices.
The Las Vegas Strip Shines Bright
With the largest offshore poker sites out of the way and stagnant efforts for a federal piece of legislation, Nevada brick-and-mortar giants are poised to tap into a demand for online gaming. Other gaming options still remain, including free online slots at Slotsadviser.com.
Despite lobbying efforts behind closed doors and public statements about the need for a federal bill, lawmakers on Capitol Hill haven’t made any significant progress on the issue.
Nevada, with its storied gaming history, has the attention of state governments around the country, Gov. Brian Sandoval said recently. The Silver State is in many ways the guinea pig for an American online poker industry.
Jim Murren, CEO of MGM Resorts International, said last month, during a meeting of the resurrected gaming policy committee, that his company will be “punished” if it stumbles out of the gate. Also on the panel was Reno businessman Paul Matthews, who said that Nevada only has “one shot at this and if we miss it it’s going to be a shame.”
Well before Nevada passed legislation that required the adoption of regulations for online poker, PokerStars was looking to set up shop in the Mojave Desert.
The largest site in the world hired a former Nevada lawmaker to lobby on the company’s behalf, before eventually agreeing to a joint venture with casino mogul Steve Wynn. The deal dissolved when PokerStars fell in hot water with the federal government.
PokerStars was once poised to dominate Nevada-based online poker thanks to a bill the company was backing, but instead it was left out in the cold.
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While indicted companies flaunted their businesses in the face of U.S. law for many years, the precursor to bwin.party digital entertainment left the American market when the legal waters became muddied from the 2006 Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act. The company is now eying a huge return via a partnership to run games with MGM.
Long-term Outlook in the U.S.
With a population of just 2.7 million and a monthly visitor volume of about 4 million, online poker only existing in Nevada isn’t going to satisfy the demand in the country.
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Thanks to a Department of Justice legal opinion in December 2011 — a move that was ironically both shocking and expected — states that legalize online gaming will likely have the freedom to form partnerships. For online poker, having a healthy player pool is the name of the game.
California and New Jersey currently have proposals working through their respective legislatures, while Delaware is prepared to introduce a bill.
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Despite Black Friday and the DOJ letter, some states are still having a hard time with the online gaming issue. Bills have failed this year in both Hawaii and Mississippi, while Utah has preemptively banned and criminalized web poker.
The quicker resolution would be a federal law authorizing the activity. However, many in the industry are extremely pessimistic about anything coming out of Congress. A state-by-state patchwork might also not be too dissimilar from how it would look under a federal regime that allows opting in or out.
