Full Tilt Poker, it seems, is bound and determined to stay in the news, one way or another. The ongoing negotiations between Groupe Bernard Tapie and the United States Department of Justice are making news again– this time because several professional poker players still owe the site a hefty debt that is throwing a wrench into the sale of the company.
Groupe Bernard Tapie’s lawyer, Behnam Dayanim, has stated that the debts owed by big-name players (almost all of whom were at one point Full Tilt Pros) are only one among a number of problems that are stalling the company’s purchase of the now-defunct poker site from the DOJ, but when certain pro players owe FTP somewhere between 10 and 20 million dollars, it’s certainly a big issue, and one of the hardest to address.
Dayanim broke it down like this: “The analogy that I like to use is that if you think of the target as a shiny apple. At the start of the diligence process, you expect that there are going to be some bruises on that apple, but after you finish your diligence, the problem here is that there are more and deeper bruises than we had anticipated. The professionals’ obligations to the company are a larger and deeper bruise than we had hoped, and we have had less success than we had hoped in trying to brush off that bruise.”
It’s no wonder that GBT’s lawyer uses the apple analogy, as FTP has been less than forthcoming about their finances, and these debts only came to light due to extensive searching by the prospective buyers. Dayanim stated that very few of the players who owe money to FTP have made any effort or expressed any willingness to pay it back. These players include Phil Ivey, David Benyamine, Barry Greenstein, Erick Lindgren, and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, although there’s speculation that the debts extend all the way through the lineup of recent Full Tilt Pro players.
Will the Full Tilt Poker sale be completed as hoped, or will negotiations fall through because of this? If the sale is the only way that players can hope to get their money back, what does it mean if the GBT sale doesn’t happen? Perhaps most importantly, if the other issues can be resolved but the big-name pros who owe the company money refuse to make good on their debts, can we expect a backlash against these players by the little guy who may never see his money again? Let’s face it– if you leave a drowning company with a few million of the company’s money, you’ve come out ahead, but if the company is holding onto your funds, then you’re at a loss. Doesn’t it seem like the wins and losses should be the same across the board, rather than the more famous players being blatantly privileged?
The US Department of Justice has issued a resolution deadline of February 29th– stay tuned as we bring you news of the latest developments in this and other poker news.