Poker Blog

According to sources at Subjectpoker.com, both Phil Ivey and David Benyamine have, over the course of the past two to three years, borrowed large amounts of money from Full Tilt Poker.

Benyamine’s accounts are the seemingly less harmful of the two– while he still owes money to FTP, the remarkable thing is that he was overheard talking on the phone while in Vegas, asking about money for his WSOP buy-ins (Full Tilt was sponsoring him before they went belly-up), and that in early May, he was able to withdraw money (over 5,000 dollars) from his FTP account for travel expenses. If Full Tilt was in a bind and could not transfer money through the site by the time the WSOP rolled around, how was Benyamine getting his money? It seems that a lot of what happens at Full Tilt is going on behind the scenes, away from the prying eyes of customers (and accountants).

According to Ivey’s account records, he has borrowed $11 million from Full Tilt Poker and has yet to repay about $6 million of it. How many players accounts could be settled with that returned money? What did Ivey hope to gain by suing Full Tilt about the frozen accounts? Consider Full Tilt Poker’s statement after Phil Ivey filed his lawsuit against FTP (and hastily withdrew– and no wonder!):

• “In an effort to further enrich himself at the expense of others, Mr. Ivey appears to have timed his lawsuit to thwart pending deals with several parties that would put money back in players’ pockets. In fact, Mr. Ivey has been invited — and has declined — to take actions that could assist the company in these efforts, including paying back a large sum of money he owes the site.”

Is it possible that Full Tilt is tired of being on the hook for their economic disaster, and they’re leaking information about Ivey and Benyamine to give the public someone else to hate? Well, that’s entirely possible (and not unlikely, actually). The public, however, doesn’t seem to be taken aback so much by the fact that the players were loaned extraordinary amounts of money, but that Full Tilt let them. Likewise, Benyamine isn’t being blamed for withdrawing money from his account– instead, FTP customers are wondering why he can take money out of his US-based account when no one else can.

What’s really worrisome about this (apart from the fact that Full Tilt has no problem throwing around millions of dollars to its select players but can’t seem to manage paying back its customers, whose accounts are still frozen) is that this may be an indication of how Full Tilt does business on a greater scale. How many players in the rest of Team Full Tilt (there are thirteen players besides Ivey) or among the Full Tilt Pros (Benyamine is one of the 159) are getting the same kinds of deals that these two are? One irate former Full Tilt player, upon learning of these developments, has expressed frustration that Full Tilt has been “an ATM that certain pros were able to access at will.” More and more, it seems as thought Full Tilt is not in a position where they can’t pay people back, but one where they won’t pay people back.

The class action lawsuit against Full Tilt names Phil Ivey and other members of Team Full Tilt and Full Tilt Pros as partial owners of Full Tilt, and claims that they are in part responsible for the actions of the company. Regardless of whether or not this is true, Ivey and other pros played fast and loose with Full Tilt Poker, and while these transfers and loans may well not be illegal, to a poker-loving public that doesn’t have millions of dollars to throw around and is still waiting to see their money, these actions certainly seem a little dicey. To access all the details from subjectpoker’s investigation, visit the following URL:

• www.subjectpoker.com/2011/07/ivey-benyamine/

Bet24, the online sportsbooking and poker site, has announced Monday that they were the target of a security breach. The company sent out an email to its current and past customers letting them know that some of their personal information may have been compromised. While this is becoming more and more common of late, especially with the Sony scandal a few months ago, what’s particularly unique about the case with Bet24 is that they were hacked in December 2009… and they’re just now telling customers about it, some 19 months later.

When police recovered unauthorized data, including personal and account information belonging to different sites, including Bet24, the Malta-based company came forward and issued a statement something like, “Oh, yeah, by the way, some of your data was lost in a security breach almost two years ago, and since the authorities have already recovered it, we may as well come clean and admit that it happened before someone else tell you.” Really, Bet24’s hesitation to come forward with this information until they absolutely had to begs two questions: first, would they have ever told their customers if the stolen information hadn’t been recovered? Second, how many other online poker sites have had likewise assaults and aren’t reporting them?

The stolen data included customer names and contact information, user account IDs, passwords, and numbers for the card(s) used for payment. Some players have reported fraudulent use of their information both on and off the Bet24 site, and surely they would have liked to have known about the breach a little bit sooner. Bet24’s security notice states, “A small number of customers have alerted us to unauthorised activity on their Bet24 accounts, and we have fully reimbursed them for any financial loss incurred on their accounts.” That’s really the least that they can do, all things considered, but seeing as the poker world is currently filled with players irate because they haven’t been given their money back, Bet24’s attempts to watch their backs by keeping player alarm at a minimum seem to be satisfactory.

What isn’t satisfactory, however, is the unspoken failure attached. As Bet24’s security notice also says, “The stolen information is so far known to have been used to access a limited number of customers’ Bet24 accounts, third-party accounts and personal email accounts.” Now, security breaches happen, and surely Bet24 can’t be held entirely responsible for any information that escaped their site; truthfully, Bet24’s culpability is a more complicated subject that would require analysis of the quality of their security at the time. Waiting 19 months to inform customers of the breach, however, does make them culpable for the damages that resulted. If players had been informed of the types of information taken by the hacker(s), they could have taken the necessary precautions– changing passwords, watching bank statements and other activity more closely, etc. But the fact of the matter is this: Bet24 just sat on the information. They claim that they made efforts to counteract the damage done, but all of these measures– beefing up security, resetting passwords for some customers, etc– don’t take into consideration that the security breach caused a ripple of damage that extended beyond the site.

When asked why Bet24 didn’t report the breach to their customers sooner, a customer service representative (who we can be sure was just providing the script given to all customer service representatives) responded, “We were not aware until very recently that this customer data had been stolen. At the time of the security breach in December 2009 we were advised by our database managers that no data had been copied. We are working closely with the police authorities to establish how the information was stolen, how it has been used, and which customers are affected.”

It seems, Bet24, that discovering these crucial details now is too little, too late.

In a move that seems to have removed all doubt that Full Tilt has no interest in their players, the company filed to adjourn their hearing with the Alderney Gaming Control Commission until September. What’s more is that they made this official request in private, shutting out a courtroom full of journalists and players anxious to hear news from a site that they feel has abandoned them.

The AGCC had created this open hearing so that they could air Full Tilt’s dirty laundry in public, stating that the players and the rest of the public had a right to the information behind the license suspension for the popular online poker site. Andre Wilsenach, the Executive Director of the AGCC, stated that they wanted a public hearing because it “demonstrates [their] willingness to act transparently.” Not transparently enough, it seems, to allay the concerns of a public that is now crying foul.

Full Tilt lawyer Martin Heslop began today’s hearing by requesting a private hearing to determine whether the AGCC would adjourn the proceedings until later. Although he claims that this was not due to Full Tilt’s attempts to hide anything from their players, but rather to respect the delicacy of the situation with the mysterious, unnamed buyer/investor, especially given the media frenzy surrounding this case, a lot of people are skeptical. After Heslop’s request, professional poker player Harry Demetriou stood up and shouted, “What about the interests of the players? Why are you protecting this corrupt company?” He was removed from the courtroom, but not before many other people in the audience could mirror their support of his statement.

One of the new bits of information that we learned from this hearing (apart from the fact that everyone seems to be tired of Full Tilt and their antics by this point) is that the company owes the Alderney Gaming Control Commission ₤250,000, which they have no intention of paying back if their license isn’t reinstated. What does that say about the way that Full Tilt does business? If they don’t get their way, they’re not planning on paying off their debts? Is it just me, or does that not bode well for the countless players who are owed, in sum, hundreds of millions of dollars, rather than just a quarter million to a gaming agency that currently has Full Tilt over a barrel?

As it turns out, the AGCC decided to postpone the hearing until September 15, and the internet erupted into a cacophony of lambasting and criticism as soon as the decision went public. Players, at this point, seem to believe that Full Tilt isn’t on their side any more (if ever they were), but they thought that they could at least trust a regulatory agency that was supposed to protect them. More and more players are criticizing the AGCC, stating that the company is interested only in its own monetary returns, and not that of the countless Full Tilt players who have yet to see a cent of their money returned.

We will have to wait and see what is in store with the upcoming hearing and the “investors” that Full Tilt sources say will be game changers (unless you live in the US, as the “investors” only want the Europe market, leaving US players without any kind of recourse– except for that class action lawsuit). Keep tuned to MaxPokerBonus.co.uk for more breaking poker news!