“Defraud wasn’t part of their plan.”
“POKER players including myself are terrible business men,” according to 78-year old poker legend Doyle Brunson. He recently shared his insight into the whole Full Tilt Poker fiasco in a blog post. The main message he wanted to get across was that the main shareholders were not aware of the company edging towards hot water, until it was too late.
In a six-and-a-half page letter to his own website, which has been uploaded as a blog, Brunson claims Full Tilt CEO Ray Bitar was in the process of sorting out the mess – when Black Friday hit. He emphasises that we (the gaming community) all know the ‘facts’ about the case and we can all believe what we want. But in his eyes, “Was FT guilty of gross negligence and terrible mismanagement? Yes of course but what happened and why? It’s my understanding that an unknown person to the poker world Ray Bitar, was a very good friend to FT’s largest stock holder Chris Ferguson. Upon Fergusons recommendation Bitar was named CEO and put his name on all the documents, BANK accounts, different corporations, etc.
“FT did an amazing job of advertising and marketing under the supervision of Bitar and Howard Lederer, Lederer held the position of President of FT and was very instrumental in helping FT’s remarkable growth. But remember, this was 2008 and Lederer retired from management after a year. Bitar remained in power and knew all of the inner workings of FT.”
He believes that the business direction of FTP went off tangent, sparking Black Friday. Players were given “the illusion everything was alright” when really, behind closed doors, it was a completely different story: Doyle added in his blog: “Exactly how FT lost their cash is not clear to me. Something about processors, electronic checks they couldn’t cash, etc. They lost the WAY to get the money to the site. Bitar was in power and obviously made some bad decisions. He got into financial trouble and instead of telling his stockholders, thought that he could work his way out of the trouble.”
Loyalties clearly lie close to home. Doyle said: “All of the stockholders said they knew nothing of the financial problems. I think most of them told the DOJ they had no knowledge of the condition of FT and the risk of perjury to a government agency would strongly suggest they ARE telling the truth.”
Doyle, referring to himself as a: “a big old Texas sucker” stands by his word. He questions where the Chief Financial Officer was at the time of the collapse or even before that. Not really defending anyone and still standing on neutral ground to an extent, or taking a stern side, he says: “The question of how and why may never be explained to everyone’s satisfaction. It seems inconceivable that the board of directors or some of the major stockholders didn’t investigate the affairs of a billion dollar company. It looks like Bitar, Ferguson and Lederer are taking all the heat. Ferguson had a lot of faith in his friend Bitar. It is widely perceived that Howard Lederer was still heavily involved in running the company even though he retired two or three years earlier. I’ve been in contact with Lederer the last few months. When someone I’ve known for years, trusted and respected looks me dead in the eye and says he didn’t know about the financial problems, call me a big old Texas sucker because I will believe them.”
In conclusion, Doyle thinks that the whole fiasco just blew itself out of proportion: “the CEO of the company tried to salvage his mistake by continuing to pay the huge dividends.”
His loyalties and firm belief is left for us to ponder upon in his closing justification of a blog: “As far as I know, every member and stockholder of FT was my friend before Black Friday. Despite all the terrible mistakes and mismanagement I know the intent to defraud wasn’t part of their plan.”
Doyles full Blog can be seen here
