Chris Ferguson Reaches Settlement in Black Friday Case
Poker pro Chris Ferguson has reached a settlement with the United States government to close a civil case related to his involvement with Full Tilt Poker and the Black Friday case, it has been widely reported in the poker news media.
In 2011 the United States Justice Department shut down Full Tilt Poker, in addition to a handful of other online poker websites that continued to offer real-money games to US-based players after 2006. That was the year in which a bill call the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA, was passed to restrict financial transactions related to online gambling.
Full Tilt, according to the government’s accusations, operated as little more than a Ponzi scheme of sorts, with player deposits being used to fund lavish paydays for executives and board members, while payment processors were flagrantly circumventing the UIGEA by making online gambling transactions appear on bank and credit card statements as wholly unrelated charges, such as to sporting goods and golf-related companies.
Under the terms of Ferguson’s civil settlement with the Federal government, he will reportedly be obligated to forfeit $2.35 million in cash, some of which will be used to repay so-called victim players, whose funds, which were frozen on April 15, 2011, have yet to be refunded. It remains to be seen whether or not the full value of player accounts will be reimbursed.
Ferguson, as part of his deal, will also be disallowed from doing business in any sort of unlicensed gambling or online poker enterprise.
More from the settlement text:
“This Stipulation and Order of Settlement shall in no way be deemed an admission of culpability, liability, or guilt on behalf of Ferguson. Further, this Stipulation and Order of Settlement shall in no way constitute any reflection upon the merits of the claims and defenses asserted respectively by the United States and Ferguson.”
“Ferguson contends that he was unaware of any wrongful activity at Full Tilt or that the company had become unable to satisfy its player account liabilities.”
The announcement of Ferguson’s settlement has cast the plight of another Full Tilt head honcho in a new light. Howard Lederer, another prominent face of the online poker giant, reached a similar settlement with the feds last December. Lederer agreed to a massive cash settlement, and interestingly, Lederer’s deal detailed a laundry list of assets that Lederer would be handing over, including luxury real estate in Nevada and California, cars, and bank accounts.
Such language was absent from Ferguson’s settlement. Also absent was the massive negative reaction that Lederer saw, particularly after he appeared in a multi-part interview last fall called ‘The Lederer Files.’ The video, intended to clear both the air and Lederer’s name, proved to be a failure in that regard. In the opinion of many, the airing of the video served only to solidify Lederer’s reputation as greedy and unwilling to admit culpability for his role in the downfall of Full Tilt.
It would appear that Ferguson, whose signature trick involves slicing a banana using a thrown playing card, will exit the scandal with his reputation intact. Though he too was a major player in the business of Full Tilt, he was never as high profile as Lederer, perhaps allowing him to avoid the majority of the backlash related to the collapse of the site.
