Has Full Tilt Poker Sullied Online Gambling

Author: Anton Johan

This is indeed the question currently reverberating around the online gambling industry following the news that earlier this week Full Tilt Poker founder and CEO Ray Bitar flew from the online poker room's headquarters in Ireland to New York City to hand himself over to U.S. Authorities.

Bitar was arrested Monday morning at JFK International airport on the orders of the U.S. Department of Justice, and will face a slew of charges including conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud, conspiracy to violate gambling laws, running an illegal online gambling business and more.

If convicted of these charges, 40-year-old Bitar faces up to 145 years in federal prison. Bitar pleaded not guilty in a Manhattan federal court hearing on Monday. After the hearing, the online gaming executive agreed to pay a bail bond of $2.5 million, which means he'll be released on his own recognisance.

A Multi-Million Dollar Ponzi Scheme

While the Full Tilt Poker saga has been ongoing for more than a year, it has only recently come to light just how fraudulent the whole operation was. Bitar and his co-conspirators are thought to have defrauded the poker site's thousands of registered players to the tune of $350 million, in what is now being widely described as a "multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme."

The Full Tilt Poker Ponzi scheme started in April last year, when Bitar and 10 other online gambling executives were indicted by the US government in a crackdown on online poker in the U.S. in an operation now infamously known as "Black Friday." Full Tilt and rival sites Absolute Poker and Poker Stars were specifically targeted.

As part of the crackdown, the FBI seized and froze the Full Tilt Poker website and operation, leaving the site's thousands of players - including many based in the United States - with no way of accessing their funds. Fifteen months down the line and that is unfortunately still the case.

Full Tilt Poker down to Last $70 million

And although many affected players have been hopeful that they would eventually get their funds out, the revelation that the internet poker room reportedly has no more than $70 million left in its coffers, which is nowhere close to the $350 million owed to them, has finally sunk in.

As a result, many are starting to accept that the chances of them ever seeing all of their money returned are slim to none, and that they are officially part of one of, if not the, biggest online gambling frauds perpetrated to date. They have also realised that all along Bitar has lied about the security of their funds.

While fraudsters and conmen are nothing new, and are certainly not limited to the online gambling industry - just look at the current global banking industry to see even greater villains - Bitar and co just happened to commit fraud in an industry with a naturally shaky and fragile reputation.

Always Been a Handful of Bad Seeds

Ever since the birth of online gambling, alongside the very pioneers that have built the popular internet pastime into the highly entertaining, lucrative and widespread activity it is today, there have always been a handful of "bad seeds" intent on defrauding players to line their seemingly bottomless pockets.

And although the advent of online gambling jurisdictions, licenses, regulation, audits and online gambling watchdog organisations have helped turned the industry into an honest, safe, secure, reputable and trusted one for the most part, the ugly reality is that unscrupulous executives like Bitar do exist.

Thankfully, however, they are the exception not the rule. But the question again is has Full Tilt Poker sullied online gambling?

Yes, Full Tilt has Sullied Online Gambling

The answer is, of course, yes. With the governments of so many countries still very much anti-online gambling - the United States included, the Full Tilt Poker saga has provided many of them with yet more fuel for the "anti-online gambling fire", which will make it even harder for proponents of legalised and regulated online gambling.

Ironically, perhaps, before the scandal, Full Tilt Poker was widely considered to be one of the world's best online poker rooms, which was even endorsed by many of the world's top poker pros including Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (who was also indicted by U.S. authorities), Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Jennifer Harman and many others.