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Pokerspot Online Cardroom For Sale

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Russ Boyd

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Nov 14, 2002, 3:31:36 PM11/14/02
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To all those interested:

I am the former president of a company called Pokerspot.com.
Unfortunately, many of you know of it. It was a multi-user poker
development project started by myself and a handful of other individuals
with a shoe-string budget of $50k. When it was live, it raked as much as
$160k/mo with 5000 players, 1200 of which deposited. We were growing at a
rate of 50%/mo the last three months we operated normally. We spent less
than $100k in marketing. We owned our own software and ran it ourselves.
The thing should have made everyone involved very, very rich.

Instead we were burned by one ecommerce solution right after another.
Epayment Solutions took $80k from us. Then Net Pro Ltd. took another
$400k. It presented us with severe enough cash-flow problems that we
couldn't pay our customers. You know what happened then. The damage was
multiplied due to the nature of multi-player community sites, like bingo
and poker... where the players are all chatting with each other on the
table. If one of them doesn't get paid, the rest of them know it before I
do. It's a gossipy little niche we're in.

The site went down soon after, and closed following the sale of the assets
to a large online casino whose name everyone would recognize. NDAs prevent
me from giving out any information about the deal, but I can say that it
would have enabled us to pay everyone off and receive a good chunk of
money ourselves. The deal fell through three months after we signed what
I still believe is a binding contract... after we ditched the leases on
our apartments, dumped our girlfriends, sold everything we owned that
wouldn't fit into a plane, and moved to Montreal. Instead of offering us
the initial price we agreed on, they told us that they were only willing
to give us a few hundred thousand for all of our assets and that they were
no longer interested in paying off players. We walked.

I feel that now I'm pretty much at the end of the Pokerspot road. I've
invested three years of my life into this project and haven't seen any
money. Despite what many believe, I am not sitting on a beach somewhere
with a nineteen year old bombshell and a yacht all funded by my loyal
players. Instead, I've spent the last three years spending almost all of
my energy building something great, then watching it crumble before my
eyes.

So now, if anyone is interested, we're entertaining buyers of this
technology. What you would be getting is an Antiguan company which owns
multi-user poker software, complete with tournament software and all
standard games. The code is documented, but would need some tender loving
care to recycle. You would also receive the userlist for the cardroom,
which consists of around 8000 names if I recall correctly, of which about
1600 had made deposits and 1000 were owed money totaling approximately
$400 Thousand US Dollars. I have plenty of business strategy documents
which would assist in the running of a successful cardroom. All
reasonable offers will be entertained.

You may contact me at poker...@hotmail.com. Unfortunately, due to the
number of emails I expect to receive from those who are not interested in
trying to help me solve this problem, I will not be answering flame emails.

Many of you have met me in the last year or so. It's not a big secret
that I've been playing in San Jose as Dutch. I've even posted here a few
times. Given some of the threatening emails I've received, I figured it
was best not to play under my real name. I lived with a few players out
there that I had met this year at the WSOP. I've met some incredible
players and poker figureheads, some of which I like to think of as
friends... the whole Garden City crew (where I propped at for awhile) and
many, many others. There are plenty of people here who I hope will vouch
for me as not as bad in real life as I've been made out to be on this
forum.

I accept a good deal of responsibility for what happened with Pokerspot.
I committed so many cardinal sins of business. We were all inexperienced
and saw Pokerspot as our way to get rich quick... it wasn't a scam,
because it was intended to be legitimate. It just didn't end up that way.

When things fell through, I should have been able to save the cardroom. I
should have written an email like this right when we started having
cash-flow problems. I should have shut the whole cardroom down until they
were resolved, either by Net Pro which promised almost every day to send
us the player settlement in two weeks, or by individual investors. I had
a whole list of 8000 players who I might have solicited. Particularly, I
feel very bad for those few players who lost a small fortune... you know
who you are.

But while I accept responsibility for what happened, I think everyone
should also know the names and contacts for everyone who is also
responsible. Those names are:

Tony Brown - This is the CEO of epayment solutions. They are amazingly
still processing... from the same name as they always were. The only
difference is that they bankrupted their UK company and rolled everything
into an Australian company. The $80k that EPS held from us was finally
divvied up by a company called DCTI (aka Databank). We weren't
resourceful enough to figure out that we needed to have filed a claim with
the Nevis judicial system... DCTI and EPS were strangely quiet about the
whole thing when it came time to divide up what was owed. We were under
the impression that the EPS assets were being held in receivership. I can
give you the law firm's name in London which handled the bankruptcy of EPS
if you'd like. As far as I can tell, the money was released in August of
this year, and Pokerspot didn't see a dime. You can reach Tony personally
at sa...@epaymentsolutions.com. Or you can call the Australian office...
their number is listed on their website: www.epaymentsolutions.com. He
doesn't answer my emails anymore. Give him my regards.

Paul Weinstock - This is the main man behind Net Pro, which was the second
company. He is from Ft. Lauderdale. His email address is
pa...@hksholdings.com, but I have not been able to get him to respond for
over a year. His old business partners tell me that he still reads his
email, however. From what I understand, he has moved on from the gaming
industry to produce children's TV. The Net Pro site now redirects to
Cable and Wireless, which is a big ISP geared towards gamers. The
redirect is in a language that I don't understand. There is probably some
connection between C&W and Net Pro, but I haven't been able to find it.

Michael Acierno - This was the CEO of Net Pro. From what I understand, he
was more of a figure head... Paul's puppet. Nevertheless, he is bound to
have a lot of information about this issue. He used to live in southern
Florida, but now he lives in Colorado from what I can gather. His email
address is mic...@hksholdings.com, though he hasn't returned my emails
either. I got his email address by catching him on AIM a few weeks ago
and asking him to chat with me about where the money is and what I can do
to get it back. He said he was busy and would answer an email that I
sent. He didn't answer. His AIM username is macierno1. BTW - I'll be
setting up an AIM username pretty soon in case any of you want to chat
with me.

Larry Hersch - Larry is a lawyer who worked with Net Pro and invested in
the company. From what I can tell, he lost a bundle... and he has plenty
of incentive to help in the recovery of the frozen funds. He worked side
by side all those in the company. He currently works at a two-man lawfirm
in Dade City, FL.

Barclays Bank - From what I understand from all Net Pro partners,
including the few that actually do return my phone calls, Net Pro
processed through Barclays bank out of London, and that is the
organization which is currently holding the bulk of the money owed. I am
pretty sure that this is the case, as all of our processing settlements
came from Barclays bank. I'm at a loss as to how to even start to get it
back. I've emailed numerous times with no response.

I am currently writing a short piece about my experiences with Pokerspot
that I hope to publish in one of the bigger magazines... I think there are
some valuable things to be learned from the Pokerspot story. Besides
that, it's interesting. If it's not accepted anywhere, I'll end up
publishing it here (or maybe Mark Napolitano will give me a hundred to
publish it on Poker Pages... I could sure use the money to support my
current JD addiction).

Finally, to dispel some rumors that I've heard, Mark Napolitano was not,
and never was involved with Pokerspot.com. He had a pretty good idea to
send a player to the WSOP with a freeroll, tried to develop his own
tournament software, and realized that it was hard. So he licensed our
software. We also had a referral deal going as part of that licensing
deal whereas he would actively promote Pokerspot. Three weeks later, the
first player's cashout bounced. He took off all of the Pokerspot
references on his site (although he didn't remove them from the actual
software), and kept them down even when we threatened to SUE him and take
our software back... leaving him right in the middle of a promotion where
he promised a WSOP seat and no chance to deliver. It wasn't a very fair
position to put him in, but he did what he thought was best for his users.
He refused. The bugger kept running our tournament software against our
wishes, though, and sent a few of you on some trips. A lot of you should
be really ashamed at the mud you threw at him and Tina because of
Pokerspot (or because of EVERYTHING really). It will never cease to
boggle my mind how much players complain when someone simply gives them a
good thing. Also, Pokerstars is not and never was affiliated with
Pokerspot. Though I do play there quite often as Kid Dutch (and -Dutch-
on Paradise Poker). Those are the two big rumors that I've heard, though
I'm sure there have been more.

Once again... please email me at poker...@hotmail.com if you are
interested in trying to help solve the problem that Pokerspot created,
either by purchasing the Pokerspot assets, fronting legal expenses and
investigative time in an effort to recover held funds from EPS and Net Pro
(or their respective banks and/or officers), or fronting legal expenses to
pursue a breach of contract claim against the major online casino which
purchased Pokerspot and breached the contract. If you have any other
questions, comments, or suggestions you can email me or post here. I'll
try to do my best to at least respond to what you contribute... unless
it's a flame, which I promise to at least think about for awhile.

Cheers,
Russ Boyd
poker...@hotmail.com

_________________________________________________________________
Posted using RecPoker.com - http://www.recpoker.com


Eric Rosenberg

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Nov 14, 2002, 7:52:16 PM11/14/02
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> Epayment Solutions took $80k from us. Then Net Pro Ltd. took another
$400k.

Could you explain how this happened? How did you let somebody take $80k
from you. And if that's not bad enough, how did you let it happen again for
even more money?

I know that you do not owe me an explanation, but maybe some sort of
explanation might make those that you owe money to feel a little better.

Cheers,
Eric Rosenberg
http://www.LiveActionPoker.com

Graham Ribchester

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Nov 14, 2002, 8:12:53 PM11/14/02
to
After everything that has been said, all would be forgiven if you managed to
find a way to refund the loyal player base you had at Pokerspot. Only
actions can show if you are sincere.

Ribs

"Russ Boyd" <anon...@wagerware.com> wrote in message
news:FKTA9.382078$5e5....@post-02.news.easynews.com...

susan

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Nov 14, 2002, 8:48:41 PM11/14/02
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"Graham Ribchester" <ribme...@excite.com> wrote in message
news:ar1hmk$ru5$2...@knossos.btinternet.com...

> After everything that has been said, all would be forgiven if you managed
to
> find a way to refund the loyal player base you had at Pokerspot. Only
> actions can show if you are sincere.
>
> Ribs

Not sure I agree that all will be forgotten. The silence has been too
long. Maybe this letter a year ago would have found people more forgiving.

Susan,
an ex-Pokerspot player who was NOT stuck with funds there.


HoldemZorro

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Nov 14, 2002, 11:10:55 PM11/14/02
to
Russ Boyd is amazing. Now he's blaming us for his folly and doesn't even
realize it!


"The damage was multiplied due to the nature of multi-player community
sites, like bingo and poker... where the players are all chatting with each
other on the table. If one of them doesn't get paid, the rest of them know
it before I
do. It's a gossipy little niche we're in."

"Russ Boyd" <anon...@wagerware.com> wrote in message
news:FKTA9.382078$5e5....@post-02.news.easynews.com...

Russ Boyd

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Nov 15, 2002, 12:56:29 AM11/15/02
to
On Nov 14 2002 10:10PM, HoldemZorro wrote:

> Russ Boyd is amazing. Now he's blaming us for his folly and doesn't even
> realize it
>
>

> "The damage was multiplied due to the nature of multi-player community
> sites, like bingo and poker... where the players are all chatting with each
> other on the table. If one of them doesn't get paid, the rest of them know
> it before I
> do. It's a gossipy little niche we're in."
>

My statement was a business point... not a pointed finger. When things
start going south for an online cardroom, it has a feedback effect which
is similar to a run on a bank due to the communicative nature of poker.
Plenty of casinos and sportsbooks have been able to survive a stop in
settlements since they are able to sustain normal operations even if they
are not paying any cashouts and are getting blasted by emails and
newsgroups. There is a very big benefit to not giving online casino
customers the capability to chat with each other.

Most online gaming sites are like offshore banks. Nobody is going to make
a run on an offshore bank like they would one located in a small town. I
suppose one thing you can take from this is realizing if that for some
reason there is something wrong at a cardroom, it becomes public very
quickly and can lead to that type of run effect. Even a well-funded
cardroom which appears healthy can get to the point where it is not
processing cashouts within a matter of weeks. I wasn't trying to blame
anyone for this effect. I'm a poker player as well, and if Pokerstars or
Paradise didn't honor a cashout of mine, you can be damn sure I'd email
RGP before support.

If you are offended by the wording, "the poker community is a gossipy
niche,", it makes me glad I didn't write "the poker community is mostly
composed of gossipy little bitches," as I assumed that is pretty much the
majority opinion these days.

Cheers,
Russ

Michael O'Malley

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Nov 15, 2002, 1:09:17 AM11/15/02
to
Russ, I believe that you got the shaft unwillingly and are now paying a
price for it. With that said, I am curious about your proposal here.
You are trying to sell pokerspot.com, which includes the software (which at
this point is mediocre at best, and way behind others), a player list of
8000 players that is more than likely comprised of a majority of players who
are floating around online poker rooms already, and a huge amount of debt?
You either want to sell this package or you want someone to pay your legal
bills to get back the money that is owed to you?
BY my count, there are about 35 online poker rooms online today or coming
online. All of these have superior software to pokerspot (maybe not the
tournament software) and most of them have access to player bases that drawf
8000 (either an agreement with another casino, sports book or the like).
I am guessing you arent going to get anywhere with this. I would suggest
giving up on something that could have been and move on.
RGP can be a brutal place to visit, and with some of the players you stiffed
hanging around here I dont think you stand a chance of getting any help or
sympathy.

"Russ Boyd" <anon...@wagerware.com> wrote in message

news:h00B9.400519$Q5.4...@post-03.news.easynews.com...

Russ Boyd

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Nov 15, 2002, 1:48:33 AM11/15/02
to
On Nov 14 2002 6:52PM, Eric Rosenberg wrote:

> > Epayment Solutions took $80k from us. Then Net Pro Ltd. took another
> $400k.
>
> Could you explain how this happened? How did you let somebody take $80k
> from you. And if that's not bad enough, how did you let it happen again for
> even more money?

It's not a matter of "letting" somebody take money from us. There is a
fundamental problem with online poker sites. It deals with the fact that
players expect to be able to play with their money immdediately after
depositing it. Yet the online cardroom does not actually receive that
money until three weeks or so later because the online cardroom works
through about two middlemen which handle the money first. If there is a
break in the cash line, it is a very big problem.

The matter is made worse when there are no additional deposits that are
being made. Suddenly, the online cardroom becomes a closed system with no
new money coming in and no money to back existing chips in the system. If
the cardroom can't get more money in than it is raking and cashing out per
day, it is then just a matter of time until the cardroom's chips are
distributed to few enough players and all activity ceases.

To put what happened in simple terms, what happened to Pokerpot would be
similar to what might happen if, for instance, Paradise Poker's processors
were shutdown and there was no way to get money into the system and to
make matters worse, their processors wouldn't give them their last month's
worth of deposits (which are generally about three times as much as the
site makes in rakes). Assuming this happened to Paradise Poker, it
wouldn't take long at all to see the drastic decline. I suspect, however,
that most of the major cardrooms which have been around awhile have enough
cash in reserve to cover a month or two's worth of player deposits. I
also suspect that Paradise is big enough of a company for its processors
to settle funds with them daily rather than weekly or bi-weekly.

This is probably NOT the case for any cardroom which is struggling to make
a monthly profit and/or has not been open for long. Even if a cardroom is
well funded, say $1 million in cash reserves, any cardroom is going to
grow exponentially during the first several months or even year of
operations and at a certain point, more cash is being held in the system
than is being held unless they are freezing a lot of incoming revenues
just to be safe in case everybody cashes out at once and the cardroom
ceases operations. I am not sure, but I think it is a very normal
practice to treat accounts receivable as assets which can be counted on to
arrive. It is also a very normal business practice to sell accounts
receivables for cash. Those type of options aren't available to small
online cardrooms, and are unwise business strategies. A critical mass has
to be accumulated before a cardroom can keep steady tables going. This
means starting big or getting big very quick... if a cardroom is
well-funded, it can spend a few hundred thousand on marketing in the first
month, have several million in cash reserve, and at that point grow very,
very slowly if it chooses to play a safe game. If a cardroom is not
well-funded, it can still grow exponentially and obtain critical mass as
long as it has enough players to sustain and grow. This means that it has
a higher amount of players coming in and playing (either return-traffic or
new traffic) then it has those which are becoming stale. In that type of
scenario, however, rarely would player chips be held on reserve dollar for
dollar.

I don't know, but I would strongly suspect that one implication of this is
that a very safe place to play might be Delta Poker... one of the
unhealthiest cardrooms online in terms of numbers. But they've been open
since 1999. They have a loyal customer base which is always playing
there. They probably have reduced their nut to less than $10k/mo. They
probably only make $20k/mo. And they are probably only seeing $30k in
player deposits every month. It's not exactly where I'd prefer to play,
but you have to see my point... it's probably not going to be going under,
and even if it did, it would not have the same cashout problems that
Pokerstars had, since it almost certainly has enough money to cover the
player chips that are on deposit at any given time dollar for dollar.

This idea should trouble people who play online. Online cardrooms are
highly risky ventures. A lot of things can go wrong. Players should be
looking for warning signs to protect themselves. I know I am always
looking at current legislation, like the Kyle and Leach bill, to see if an
obstacle might arise that might shutdown an operation I have money in or
am thinking of depositing in.

Additionally, players should not treat these sites as banks. I would
suggest that online players not leave your bankroll in them. Keep your
bankroll in a bank and make a new deposit every time you buy in to a
table. Then cashout everything you have in your account regularly... as
often as the casino will let you. Do I usually do this? No... but my
bankroll is not enough to cause me great worries if it disappears. There
were more than a few players at Pokerspot with more than $10k in their
accounts. Having anything more than 20% of your bankroll online is
ridiculous given the history of what has happend with Pokerspot,
Highlands, and the host of other cardrooms which have tried to compete and
haven't. I think Pokerspot is the most infamous case because we were the
largest online cardroom to have gone down so far. We weren't the first
and we won't be the last. Some of the largest competitors have been very
close to suffering the same fate as Pokerspot (even the larger ones).

I hope that adequately explains what how what happened could have happened.

Russ Boyd

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Nov 15, 2002, 2:21:29 AM11/15/02
to
Mike,

Thanks for your comments. I'm not trying to make money off of Pokerspot
at this point. If the cardrooms assets aren't sold or somehow developed
to make money, they will be transferred off in an Antiguan bankruptcy
proceeding before the year is out. This probably also includes the
lawsuits that we have, since they'll probably e treated as assets. Either
someone will buy them, or they'll belong to the players. Unless something
is done with them, $400k in player deposits are going to be forfeited.

In a perfect world, someone would step up and turn this situation a round,
because I'm not the man to do it at this point. I could imagine a number
of possibilities where it would make sense for someone to purchase what
Pokerspot has. I could even imagine a player-operated site which would
run completely on some sort of coop system, with a bigger than normal
share of revenues going to the management team. Players would receive
their fair share of the monthly rake, or there would be no rake.

I wouldn't plan on selling the assets for any substantial amount of money
and not sending the vast majority of it to the players. I'll tell
everyone right now that I would expect a reasonable compensation for the
last year and a half of work on this since Pokerspot was closed and I've
been working on my own free time since every other Pokerspot employee,
investor, and even player has long ago moved on and written the project
off as a loss. But I am not looking to make substantial money on any
sale.

I am also not looking for sympathy. Every player who was ripped off has a
vested interest in seeing the assets converted to cash.

As far as the value of the assets, I disagree with your assessment of the
software's value. Online poker has changed very little since Pokerspot
was operating. The same games dominate and most of the sites right now
seem to run those games fine. The Pokerspot software offered all the
games that every other package does and had tournament support. It ran
fairly quickly on the cheap, overpriced Costa Rican servers and microwaves
that we were running off of at the time. The client interface is a very
small component of an online cardroom package, and also the one which is
easiest to replace. The much bigger and more complex (and much more
important to a cardroom's success) component is the server. The Pokerspot
server ran solidly for quite some time, and does a decent job supporting
all of the features which have become standard : holdem, 7 stud, stud h/l,
omaha, omaha h/l, variable limit betting, and multi-table and single-table
tournaments.

Also there is the back office. I won't go into detail about what that
contains, but will say that a strong back office is essential to a
cardrooms success, and is easily the component which is most neglected.
Most development teams don't even know where to begin because they haven't
operated. I promise you that Paradise Poker and Pokerstars are all much,
much stronger packages than they were when they opened, even though they
have seen little changes in the way of GUI interface and player features.

I also suspect that one of the reasons Planet Poker remained seemingly
stale long enough to allow Paradise to take over the market was because
they were focusing all development energies on server and back office
components rather than focusing on making the software look better from a
client side. After all, they had the market. But once the market saw
something which appeared more competitive as a whole (even though there is
no way to really tell which site was in better shape software and money
wise), they changed membership very quickly. We saw a mass migration from
Planet to Paradise. But when Planet caught up (and I don't think they
still have really caught up), they didn't have a significant enough
competitive edge to overcome that of Paradise: namely supply of games.

I am rambling... but you get the point. Without seeing the software from
teh operators point of view, you can't really judge how strong it is. It
is not difficult to make a working software package fast and pretty.

Cheers,
Russ Boyd

On Nov 15 2002 12:09AM, Michael O'Malley wrote:

> Russ, I believe that you got the shaft unwillingly and are now paying a
> price for it. With that said, I am curious about your proposal here.
> You are trying to sell pokerspot.com, which includes the software (which at
> this point is mediocre at best, and way behind others), a player list of
> 8000 players that is more than likely comprised of a majority of players who
> are floating around online poker rooms already, and a huge amount of debt?
> You either want to sell this package or you want someone to pay your legal
> bills to get back the money that is owed to you?
> BY my count, there are about 35 online poker rooms online today or coming
> online. All of these have superior software to pokerspot (maybe not the
> tournament software) and most of them have access to player bases that drawf
> 8000 (either an agreement with another casino, sports book or the like).
> I am guessing you arent going to get anywhere with this. I would suggest
> giving up on something that could have been and move on.
> RGP can be a brutal place to visit, and with some of the players you stiffed
> hanging around here I dont think you stand a chance of getting any help or
> sympathy.

_________________________________________________________________

Deicer

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 5:12:16 AM11/15/02
to
Hi Russ

First i'am sorry for my bad english, but i hope you understand anyway.

I'am one of the players that had money stuck with Pokerspot.com. It
was not a lot of money, but the result of me not getting paid, has
been that i NEVER will use my credit card in gambling over the
internet.

The worst thing, was the lies your supportteam was telling me, if I
remember it corretly, you first said something about your cash-out
software was down - then you said something about that we (the
players) had to wait 30 days to get our money....After 30 days in was
changed to 30 working days (monday to friday), and finally you did not
respond at all.

Now a couple of years later you come up with this ?!?! Why ?!?! I can
understand that you were fighting for your/our money, but i'am sorry
to said that, it's not MY problem. I trusted you and your software...
Why not just tell the truth at the beginning or at least keep your
players informed on you website. (which has also been closed for a
long time).

Lucky for me, I found a person who could help me with our problems
regardring you and pokerspot.com. I resulted to at complaint til the
american FBI, some years ago.... Not, that i has brought my money back
- but it feelt good to me at the time.

This is not at flame, just my oppinion on this matter...

Of course I wish the best for you, and i hope someone will help you,
but I think that our replutation is ruined.

Take care..

Best reagards,
an ex-Pokerspot player who WAS stuck with funds there

DaVoice

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 5:52:38 AM11/15/02
to

"Russ Boyd" <ru...@wagerware.com> wrote

> It's not a matter of "letting" somebody take money from us. There is a
> fundamental problem with online poker sites. It deals with the fact that
> players expect to be able to play with their money immdediately after
> depositing it. Yet the online cardroom does not actually receive that
> money until three weeks or so later because the online cardroom works
> through about two middlemen which handle the money first. If there is a
> break in the cash line, it is a very big problem.

It would not be a big problem if the online cardroom didn't open up on a
shoestring and expect the new deposits to cover the FLOAT. Let's call it
what it was Russ, You guys were kiting money because you were underfunded!
Why do you think the NGCB requires casinos to keep a reserve? So the
customers don't get screwed!


> To put what happened in simple terms, what happened to Pokerpot would be
> similar to what might happen if, for instance, Paradise Poker's processors
> were shutdown and there was no way to get money into the system and to
> make matters worse, their processors wouldn't give them their last month's
> worth of deposits (which are generally about three times as much as the
> site makes in rakes). Assuming this happened to Paradise Poker, it
> wouldn't take long at all to see the drastic decline.

Not if Paradise had enough cash in reserves to cover the withdrawals.
You're being a bit disingenuous here. What you're trying to do is blame
everyone except you and your partners for bouncing the FIRST check you
bounced. If you weren't underfunded as drastically as you were the first
check would never have bounced. Once you bounce a check you can't blame the
person who attempted to deposit or cash it for your lack of funds.

The "gossip" is not just in the Poker World. I can give you a great
example. I worked for a radio group that tried to expand too fast. They
bought up 5 stations in 2 markets for more than they were worth because with
the deregulation, they could. This was great, right? NO. They didn't have
the cash in reserve to do it well and bounced an entire station's payroll.
The other stations in the group all heard about it within hours of the
initial bad check. When you screw up people will talk, period.

> Additionally, players should not treat these sites as banks. I would
> suggest that online players not leave your bankroll in them.

Why is that? Maybe because unscrupulous operators like YOU and your
partners will shut down the site, not pay the players and run off blaming
others? Sorry man, no sympathy from me.

>Keep your
> bankroll in a bank and make a new deposit every time you buy in to a
> table. Then cashout everything you have in your account regularly... as
> often as the casino will let you. Do I usually do this? No... but my
> bankroll is not enough to cause me great worries if it disappears.

I'm shocked that you would even make that statement. I know many people who
know you and like you, they tell me you got hosed. Ok, You got hosed, but
to now come in here and say that you're "not worried" about your bankroll
disappearing is just as arrogant and self-serving a statement as I've ever
heard. WHAT ABOUT THE 1000 (your number, not mine) PLAYERS THAT YOU OWE
$400,000 to? They didn't make a deal with your processor or your
middle-men. The made a purchase from YOU, and you didn't give them what
they had coming. Dude, you're fighting a losing battle trying to get people
to "understand", and to make an off the cuff remark like that just hurts
your case.


>There
> were more than a few players at Pokerspot with more than $10k in their
> accounts. Having anything more than 20% of your bankroll online is
> ridiculous given the history of what has happend with Pokerspot,
> Highlands, and the host of other cardrooms which have tried to compete and
> haven't.

"What happened to Pokerspot..." WHAT? What happened to *pokerspot*? Oh my
God. Nothing happened to POKERSPOT. Pokerspot "happened" to 1000 poor
suckers whom you ended up screwing. I don't think you ever intended to
screw anyone, but face facts buddy, you DID.

Rick "DaVoice" Charles

HoldemZorro

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 7:06:28 AM11/15/02
to
You just don't get it, Russ. You blame everyone but yourself. You consider
yourself a victim when it was all do to your own incompetence, you fool.

"Russ Boyd" <anon...@wagerware.com> wrote in message

news:h00B9.400519$Q5.4...@post-03.news.easynews.com...

Keith Sloan Bendigo

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 8:58:09 AM11/15/02
to
Who are the owners of Pokerspot?

Eric Rosenberg

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 9:09:05 AM11/15/02
to

> You're being a bit disingenuous here.

Big word, Rick. I'm impressed! LOL

But seriously... Russ, I don't know you and I've never played at your site,
but I do have an interest in the online poker arena and I know that 1,000
people (your number) did not get paid by your site. What makes things worse
is that your appology / for sale letter is filled with contradictions. For
example, in your original "for sale" letter you describe your card room as
having:

> 5000 players, 1200 of which deposited.

Then three paragraphs later you say:

> 8000 names if I recall correctly, of which about 1600 had made deposits.

Furthermore, your response to me did not answer my question. You explained
how you bounced the checks (as Rick put it), but you never explained how you
were "screwed". Remember saying that "Epayment Solutions took $80k from us.
Then Net Pro Ltd. took another $400k." Where did the money go, Russ? You
said in your response "It's not a matter of "letting" somebody take money
from us." BUT YOU JUST SAID IT WAS! How did that happen? Didn't you
eventually get that money from the third party - three weeks later to quote
you. Did you spend $400k on payroll in three weeks? Did you spend $400k in
server maintenance in three weeks? What happenned when you eventually got
the money? Where did it go? And if you never did get that money, then why
didn't you? Please explain this situation better.

> Players should be looking for warning signs to protect themselves.

Perhaps you can help out a little more by telling us... what were
PokerSpot's warning signs?

Basically, you have said that you were screwed by your third party payment
systems, you were screwed by players telling other players that they were
not paid, and you were screwed because people stopped depositing money.
According to you, you sure were screwed a lot... but what about the players?
They were screwed by bad business decisions and bad planning.

I realize that you were using this forum to offer a somewhat appology, but
it seems that your appology was skewed when you tried to make excuses and
offer advice as payment. i.e. "players should not treat these sites as
banks" and "Players should be looking for warning signs to protect
themselves".

> I'll try to do my best to at least respond to what you contribute...


unless it's a flame

God forbid you should be flamed. How dare somebody that lost their bankroll
at your site flame you! Don't they know that you are busy trying to sell
your assetts?

Cheers,
Eric Rosenebrg
http://www.LiveActionPoker.com

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 10:01:23 AM11/15/02
to
Eric,

Replies follow.

RB

On Nov 15 2002 8:09AM, Eric Rosenberg wrote:

> example, in your original "for sale" letter you describe your card room as
> having:
>
> > 5000 players, 1200 of which deposited.
>
> Then three paragraphs later you say:
>
> > 8000 names if I recall correctly, of which about 1600 had made deposits.

The first reference was to the state of the cardroom when we had problems
with Net Pro in January 2000. The second reference was to what the final
count was when we finally closed the site and stopped accepting new
sign-ups when the cardroom closed its doors in June or July of 2000. I
hope that explains the contradiction.

> Furthermore, your response to me did not answer my question. You explained
> how you bounced the checks (as Rick put it), but you never explained how you
> were "screwed".

First, you use that word "screwed" as if I used it somewhere. I had tried
to be pretty careful in avoiding language that suggested that Pokerspot
was screwed over... even though that is exactly how I feel. From pretty
much everyone's perspective here, Pokerspot did the screwing.

Second, I thought I had made it clear that the $400k processed through Net
Pro was never released and as I understand it, the funds are being held by
Barclays bank. I have not been able to get anyone from Barclays to
confirm or deny that statement. If anyone here is able to get more
information out of the UK-based bank, I'd be all ears.

> Basically, you have said that you were screwed by your third party payment
> systems, you were screwed by players telling other players that they were
> not paid, and you were screwed because people stopped depositing money.
> According to you, you sure were screwed a lot... but what about the players?
> They were screwed by bad business decisions and bad planning.

I'm not really sure how to address this one. My explanation of what
happened with the Pokerspot site was intended to show why the PLAYERS were
screwed by POKERSPOT. I don't see how players could ever screw an online
cardroom unless they were cheating it somehow. As far as players being
screwed by bad business decisions and bad planning, I'll have to admit
that my own business inexperience in dealing with troubled times
definitely had a role in what happened. Two years after the fact, I can
think of a lot of things that I should have or could have done. I like to
think that it wouldn't have mattered, but I'll never know.

RB

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 10:03:39 AM11/15/02
to
Rick,

I find it more than a little bit irritating that you blatantly twisted my
words around to make me sound like I was trying to paint Pokerspot as the
victim. Your quote of "What happened to pokerspot", and then again, "What
happened to *pokerspot*" is a pretty smart way of twisting my statement
around on its head. The original statement was "Having anything more than


20% of your bankroll online is ridiculous given the history of what

happened WITH Pokerspot, Highlands, etc..." I don't see how anyone can
disagree with that statement.

As to your other comments, why is it that the loudest voices have nothing
new to say? How about instead of pouring salt on open wounds, you use
that big mouth of yours to help solve this problem for the thousand users
who were unlucky enough to ever hear about Pokerspot. Seems that you're
in a position to help here, since you distribute information. Read my
open letter on the air. Who knows... maybe some good would come of it.

RB

ps - Just in case you didn't know, calling someone you don't know "buddy"
and "dude" while also calling them a liar and a cheat is a tad
patronizing. Hope this helps.


> >There
> > were more than a few players at Pokerspot with more than $10k in their
> > accounts. Having anything more than 20% of your bankroll online is
> > ridiculous given the history of what has happend with Pokerspot,
> > Highlands, and the host of other cardrooms which have tried to compete and
> > haven't.
>
> "What happened to Pokerspot..." WHAT? What happened to *pokerspot*? Oh my
> God. Nothing happened to POKERSPOT. Pokerspot "happened" to 1000 poor
> suckers whom you ended up screwing. I don't think you ever intended to
> screw anyone, but face facts buddy, you DID.
>
> Rick "DaVoice" Charles

On Nov 15 2002 4:52AM, DaVoice wrote:

> "Russ Boyd" <ru...@wagerware.com> wrote
>
> > It's not a matter of "letting" somebody take money from us. There is a
> > fundamental problem with online poker sites. It deals with the fact that
> > players expect to be able to play with their money immdediately after
> > depositing it. Yet the online cardroom does not actually receive that
> > money until three weeks or so later because the online cardroom works
> > through about two middlemen which handle the money first. If there is a
> > break in the cash line, it is a very big problem.
>
> It would not be a big problem if the online cardroom didn't open up on a
> shoestring and expect the new deposits to cover the FLOAT. Let's call it
> what it was Russ, You guys were kiting money because you were underfunded

> Why do you think the NGCB requires casinos to keep a reserve? So the
> customers don't get screwed
>
>

_________________________________________________________________

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 10:05:16 AM11/15/02
to
I don't really have any excuse for the way our support team handled it.
They were doing what I told them to do. You have to understand that we
thought the Net Pro funds were not going to be held for more than a few
days. It was a temporary problem, they said. We had no choice but to
believe them. So when my Customer Relations Manager asked how in the hell
he was supposed to handle the situation, I told him to delay. No cashouts
were going to be going out until further notice. But spin it so that the
players don't feel the need to make a mad rush on the cardroom OR the need
to tell everyone they know that Pokerspot was going to hell in a
handbasket. Spin it so that the players continue to just keep on playing.
Hopefully they'd rake away some of those chips that we can't cover. At
the very least, keep activity going and players as comfortable as possible
until we get another processing solution. Then we can decide whether or
not we can survive.

As to WHY I'm coming to the poker community with this open letter after
all these many months of silence... I suppose it's because it's my name
that was connected to the cardroom. Unlike so many other projects, we
weren't too secretive about who we were and what we were doing. I used my
real name when operating the site because I didn't see any reason NOT to.
I felt that an element of transparancy would be healthy for the cardroom.
It was.

When the proverbial shit hit the fan, everyone else involved was able to
walk away from the project feeling a little bad that things didn't work
out. My CTO got a job at Juniper. My VP got a job with the JAG. My
customer supporty guys got jobs at wherever. And I went back to play
poker for a living. But I always have had a strong interest in bringing
this matter to a favorable conclusion for everybody because I put my
reputation on the line. And for the last year (last November is when the
last employee finally left) I've been working part-time to try and put
something together. At the very least, I should be able to convert the
Pokerspot assets into SOME cash. Even if all MS Sunshine gets out of it
is a check for $1000 and a sympathy note that says I'm sorry for the other
$55k... well at least that would be something, wouldn't it?

Besides that, I don't want to be in a position where I have a bunch of the
Feds you sicked on me asking me why I didn't do everything I could to
remedy the situation and not have a good answer for them.

Thanks for your post and for wishing me the best. Sorry you got burned.

RB

ps - I do hear that there's a lot of poker in prison... I read a few
journals of prisoners when things were starting to look very bad. A few
of them said that some of the prisoners made more money than the warden's
salary at poker. Maybe Rick Davoice would like to comment on this
question? From what I hear, he was quite popular in prison...


On Nov 15 2002 4:12AM, Deicer wrote:

> Hi Russ
>
> First i'am sorry for my bad english, but i hope you understand anyway.
>
> I'am one of the players that had money stuck with Pokerspot.com. It
> was not a lot of money, but the result of me not getting paid, has
> been that i NEVER will use my credit card in gambling over the
> internet.
>
> The worst thing, was the lies your supportteam was telling me, if I
> remember it corretly, you first said something about your cash-out
> software was down - then you said something about that we (the
> players) had to wait 30 days to get our money....After 30 days in was
> changed to 30 working days (monday to friday), and finally you did not
> respond at all.
>

> Now a couple of years later you come up with this ?? Why ?? I can


> understand that you were fighting for your/our money, but i'am sorry
> to said that, it's not MY problem. I trusted you and your software...
> Why not just tell the truth at the beginning or at least keep your
> players informed on you website. (which has also been closed for a
> long time).
>
> Lucky for me, I found a person who could help me with our problems
> regardring you and pokerspot.com. I resulted to at complaint til the
> american FBI, some years ago.... Not, that i has brought my money back
> - but it feelt good to me at the time.
>
> This is not at flame, just my oppinion on this matter...
>
> Of course I wish the best for you, and i hope someone will help you,
> but I think that our replutation is ruined.
>
> Take care..
>
> Best reagards,
> an ex-Pokerspot player who WAS stuck with funds there

_________________________________________________________________

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 10:13:15 AM11/15/02
to
On Nov 15 2002 6:06AM, HoldemZorro wrote:

> You just don't get it, Russ. You blame everyone but yourself. You consider
> yourself a victim when it was all do to your own incompetence, you fool.

Thanks Zorro. I think I'm starting to get it. With God's help, I'll just
take this blame addiction one day at a time and try to redirect the blame
inwards.

RB

ps - Fuck you for thinking you know anything about what happened. You
don't know jack shit. You couldn't even spell "due" right in the same
sentence that you called me an incompetent fool. Did you even PLAY at
Pokerspot? Or are you just another troll who lives to flame and break
constructive threads down to meaningless insults... especially when he
thinks that the flamed is probably in a position that makes calling you
for what you are a bad move.

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 10:17:16 AM11/15/02
to
I own 35% of PSI Corporation, which is the Antiguan-based company which
owned all of the Pokerspot-related assets. The remaining 65% is owned
more or less evenly by three other parties. For obvious reasons, I am not
going to be giving any more information about the real identities and/or
involvement of my business partners over this forum.

RB

On Nov 15 2002 7:58AM, Keith Sloan Bendigo wrote:

> Who are the owners of Pokerspot?

_________________________________________________________________

danny

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 11:30:24 AM11/15/02
to
> > > Epayment Solutions took $80k from us. Then Net Pro Ltd. took another
> > $400k.
> >
> > Could you explain how this happened? How did you let somebody take $80k
> > from you. And if that's not bad enough, how did you let it happen again for
> > even more money?
>
> It's not a matter of "letting" somebody take money from us. There is a
> fundamental problem with online poker sites. It deals with the fact that
> players expect to be able to play with their money immdediately after
> depositing it. Yet the online cardroom does not actually receive that
> money until three weeks or so later because the online cardroom works
> through about two middlemen which handle the money first. If there is a
> break in the cash line, it is a very big problem.

This explains how an interruption of cash flow might occur (causing
panicked players to cashout), but it still doesn't explain how
Epayment and Net Pro were able to keep money paid to you, when they
were just acting as middlemen.

According to your post, the floating $480k should have been delivered
to you after 3 weeks.

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 12:51:49 PM11/15/02
to
Last night I went to bed a little bitter, wishing that everyone here knew
how hard it was to do what I did. I woke up with a possible idea which
might get Pokerspot out of the gutter and everyone who is owed money their
money back in full. More important to me personally, it might restore my
reputation and then some.

It seems to me a little unfair that MS Sunshine is arguably one of the
best poker players in the world, yet is only making a couple hundred
thousand playing poker every year while the schmuck who thought it would
be a good idea to be the first to offer her the privilege to play online
is making a lot more off of her efforts.

This might seem a little strange, but it seems to me a little unfair that
poker players have to pay a rake online. It seems to me a little unfair
that poker players should have to be paying ANYTHING to play online. In
fact, I think poker players should even get PAID to play online.

I remember when I first started playing poker for a living. It was at a
little site called 2am.com. I remember I used chill out, wait for the
fish to come in, play them for the points they accumulated at the site,
and make money every week because I'd redeem my points for actual cash. I
made about $200 / week playing poker while risking absolutely nothing.

One might ask how they were able to offer these services... the answer
was advertising. The company was a management company which got
advertising revenue in exchange for operating the site. The players would
build up points by going to clicking on banners of online casinos, sports
magazines, personal ads, etc. Maybe they'd look around and buy something.
Whatever.

The point is this. I think I am in a unique position to offer the poker
community a little present. It would be a revolutionary online cardroom
which would be owned completely by the players. The players would own all
the headaches that go into running the site.

The site would be raked. At the end of an operational period, the rakes
would be tallied and divided up to the players based on the amount of
raked hands they played.

The players would be asked to assist in operations. Everyone assisting in
operations would get a salary every quarterly period.

The company which owned this coop setup would be public and transparent.
At the end of every year, the equity in that company would be
redistributed to the players based again on the amount of raked hands that
they played. The operations team would also get a percentage every year.
It would be structured so that they would own something like 20 % or so
that they could control the coop from being taken over by any players and
changed.

Every so often the operations team would be voted on and kicked out if
they aren't doing a good job making the players money... revenue would be
had by selling advertising on the site. Banners and emails and all the
shit you hate to see at Yahoo. Players could pay a premium yearly fee
equal to not have to see the advertisers.

Mark Napolitano had the right idea with his poker school... a community
that would feed itself rather than be drained by for-profit cardrooms. I
would be very interested in setting this type of arrangement up very
quickly. Pokerspot has the software, or I could easily get leading tech
software from any number of other sources. This is not an idea that
really needs a backer... it just needs a lot of them. I'd be willing to
setup a corporation somewhere that was very, very transparent. You'd be
able to see exactly who owned what. And that company would be controlled
by the players.

If anybody is interested in seeing if this type of online cardroom model
is possible, please feel free to email me at Ru...@Wagerware.com. I figure
to get this thing started, it's going to take the following:

- fees to see whether or not it would be legal to set something like this
up in the US (since an online player coop of this type MIGHT just subvert
the legal problems surrounded with raking for profit), and if not, where
we should set it up (maybe UK or Australia? I dunno... help me out guys);

- incorporation costs

- initial software costs

- bandwidth costs

I figure this thing doesn't even have to be marketed... it would just
start small and make money. And the players would make exactly as much
money as they were giving. I think we could probably set something up
like this before 1/1/2. An operations team (or multiple teams) which
could be trusted would have to be selected by the owners of the cardroom.

The big condition of all of this would be that in order to be a part of
this new idea, players would write off the amount of money owed from
Pokerspot. If they came on board, they would receive a double share until
the money was paid off.

I'm not really sure if an idea like this could work or not, but I bet that
it would catch on.

Cheers,
Russ Boyd
ru...@wagerware.com

-

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 2:29:56 PM11/15/02
to
To all those interested:

It appears that my plea to the general poker public has been met with a
lot of criticism from my critics here on RGP. But it also appears that it
has been met with a few raised eyebrows from some powerful people in the
poker industry who I believe will be able to turn this thing around for
everyone fairly quickly. I do not know if it is possible to return all of
the money to our Pokerspot players... but it is something I'm going to try
to do.

I've agreed not to talk to anybody else about this business proposition
for one week. Hopefully by then I'll have a good announcement.

Cheers,
Russ


On Nov 14 2002 2:31PM, Russ Boyd wrote:

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 2:51:15 PM11/15/02
to
If any players wish to talk to me personally 1:1, I set up an AIM account.
The username is pokerspot. Feel free to shoot me a line and we'll chat
about whatever you want... except the business deal I am working on. I
made a strict agreement which I intend to keep not to talk to anybody else
about any potential business deal for one week.

I'm really hoping that when the smoke clears, things will be a lot better
for me as well as all of my old loyal players.

Cheers,
Russ Boyd
ru...@wagerware.com

GM

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 2:20:40 PM11/15/02
to
It should go something like this. The player community should elect a board
of directors to oversee and manage all transactions. The board, with your
assistance, will identify all the players to whom Pokerspot owes money. An
organization will be formed consisting of these players. This organization
will purchase from you the software and other assets of the defunct
Pokerspot for a nominal fee, such as one dollar. They will then entertain
any ideas you may have and may even choose to hire you as a consultant.

"Russ Boyd" <ru...@wagerware.com> wrote in message
news:VuaB9.846385$Xw1.1...@news.easynews.com...

Fourflushr

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 3:55:50 PM11/15/02
to
>From: "Russ Boyd"

>For obvious reasons, I am not
>going to be giving any more information about the real identities and/or
>involvement of my business partners over this forum.

the obvious reasons are that these people, along with you, are responsible for
paying back the players. if any of you had any integrity, you would have
already made a repayment plan. why hasn't this been done?

I don't know who the third party is, but Matthew D Winfrey, VP and General
Counsel, and Robert Boyd, Chief Technical Officer, should be paying as much as
possible, along with you, until every player has been paid in full. Since
Winfrey is a lawyer, and Robert Boyd is a software developer, and you yourself
have a law degree, there is no reason that the three of you can't earn enough
to repay $400,000.
Would it help if I also posted the last known addresses and phone numbers of
these principals? Why hasn't anyone held these people responsible?

brett

Michael O'Malley

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 4:04:03 PM11/15/02
to

"Fourflushr" <fourf...@aol.comdamnspam> wrote in message
news:20021115155550...@mb-mo.aol.com...

From Russ's recent posts he doesnt think he is repsonsible. His only
concern now is trying to make some money off of the whole thing and trying
to pawn his ideas of reopening the site off on the players that got screwed.
Russ..I gave you the benefit of the doubt after your first post, but since
then you have shown your true colors. YOU are soley to blame for the 1000
players getting screwed. Not some bank or cash processot, not the players
for talking and trying to pull their money out. As much as you would like
to think otherwise, you opened a business and it failed. That leaves you
solely responsible.


> brett


minus200

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 4:10:16 PM11/15/02
to
Since no one seems interested in making and offer, I choose to make a firm offer for all assets of the company known as Pokerspot.

My offer is $906.  Since you already have my money then please forward all assets.

for furthur information - reply to my KNOWN e-mail address

Peg Smith

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 4:21:42 PM11/15/02
to
In article <VuaB9.846385$Xw1.1...@news.easynews.com>, "Russ Boyd"
<ru...@wagerware.com> writes:

>I woke up with a possible idea which
>might get Pokerspot out of the gutter and everyone who is owed money their
>money back in full. More important to me personally, it might restore my
>reputation and then some.

Your reputation is more important than paying the money you owe? I was rooting
for you until then, Russ.

Peg

The Beet Man

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 4:28:55 PM11/15/02
to
On Fri, 15 Nov 2002 15:05:16 GMT, "Russ Boyd" <ru...@wagerware.com>
wrote:

>I don't really have any excuse for the way our support team handled it.
>They were doing what I told them to do. You have to understand that we
>thought the Net Pro funds were not going to be held for more than a few
>days. It was a temporary problem, they said. We had no choice but to
>believe them. So when my Customer Relations Manager asked how in the hell
>he was supposed to handle the situation, I told him to delay. No cashouts
>were going to be going out until further notice. But spin it so that the
>players don't feel the need to make a mad rush on the cardroom OR the need
>to tell everyone they know that Pokerspot was going to hell in a
>handbasket. Spin it so that the players continue to just keep on playing.
> Hopefully they'd rake away some of those chips that we can't cover. At
>the very least, keep activity going and players as comfortable as possible
>until we get another processing solution. Then we can decide whether or
>not we can survive.

Your use of the word "spinning" is just a bit disingenious--your
support staff outright lied to your customers. Specifically, I was
told twice that my check had already been mailed, when it hadn't.

--
This post brought to you courtesy of the Beet Man!

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 5:09:02 PM11/15/02
to
Desperate men do desperate things. I was wrong and I admit that. I am
very sorry for the trouble caused, and now I'm trying to make things
right. Failures an orphan and all that jazz...

RB

> Your use of the word "spinning" is just a bit disingenious--your
> support staff outright lied to your customers. Specifically, I was
> told twice that my check had already been mailed, when it hadn't.
>
> --
> This post brought to you courtesy of the Beet Man

_________________________________________________________________

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 5:10:05 PM11/15/02
to
No comment.

RB

_________________________________________________________________

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 5:15:41 PM11/15/02
to
Well, Michael... I just ask that yo don't judge me TOO harshly just yet.
Or even if you do, maybe leave a LITTLE wiggle room to change your mind.

A lot of players have said that I sound like I'm shirking responsibility.
I can see how this appears to be doing that. So what I think I'm going to
do is write down the Pokerspot story from the beginning. I'll try and get
it done over the weekend and post it pretty soon. It's an interesting
tale. And once you've seen in detail what the project was all about, why
it failed, and how fucking sorry I am that I had anything to do with all
those players getting screwed by me and my partners. I have regretted the
day I even dreamt up the name "Pokerspot".

I am sorry to all the players. I feel responsible. I really do. If you
don't believe me, I don't know what to say except that I'm trying my best
to prove just that and that if players keep an open mind, I think they
might be impressed with what I'm able to put together. I don't fault you
for being a naysayer on this idea because it's all been said before in
slightly different ways.

RB

_________________________________________________________________

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 5:17:00 PM11/15/02
to
Sounds like a pretty fair deal to me.

RB

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 5:18:06 PM11/15/02
to
Yes Peg... I must admit that I have selfish reasons for wanting to return
all moneys lost to players. I'm sorry that you lost respect for me.

RB

_________________________________________________________________

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 5:20:42 PM11/15/02
to
You've been pretty viscious about that $906, minus... and understandably
so. That makes you lucky enough to be one of the top owed players. If
nobody makes a better offer by 1/1/2003, I hereby accept your offer. You
can treat this as a binding contract with PSI Corporation, of whom I am
the one that is left holding the pen.

I suspect, however, that MS Sunshine probably would be willing to make an
offer of about 56 x yours.

Cheers,
Russ Boyd

On Nov 15 2002 3:10PM, minus200 wrote:

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> --------------6EDDA591DAEC17CBF560176C
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> Since no one seems interested in making and offer, I choose to make a firm
> offer for all assets of the company known as Pokerspot.

> <p>My offer is $906.&nbsp; Since you already have my money then please
> forward all assets.
> <p>for furthur information - reply to my KNOWN e-mail address
> <p>Russ Boyd wrote:
> <blockquote TYPE=CITE>To all those interested:
> <br>&nbsp;
> <br><a href="http://www.recpoker.com"></a>&nbsp;</blockquote>
> </html>
>
> --------------6EDDA591DAEC17CBF560176C--

DaVoice

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 7:32:41 PM11/15/02
to
Posted and emailed:

Replies throughout

"Russ Boyd" <ru...@wagerware.com> wrote


> Rick,
>
> I find it more than a little bit irritating that you blatantly twisted my
> words around to make me sound like I was trying to paint Pokerspot as the
> victim. Your quote of "What happened to pokerspot", and then again, "What
> happened to *pokerspot*" is a pretty smart way of twisting my statement
> around on its head. The original statement was "Having anything more than
> 20% of your bankroll online is ridiculous given the history of what
> happened WITH Pokerspot, Highlands, etc..." I don't see how anyone can
> disagree with that statement.

Russ, IMHO, and the opinions of many other readers/posters here you are
blaming everyone BUT you and your partners. I have a solution for you,
later in this reply.


>
> As to your other comments, why is it that the loudest voices have nothing
> new to say? How about instead of pouring salt on open wounds, you use
> that big mouth of yours to help solve this problem for the thousand users
> who were unlucky enough to ever hear about Pokerspot.

Ok, here is my solution. Divide the $400,000 into 400,000 shares and give
all of the players that are owed the money one share per dollar in the
Antiguan corporation that you still own. You and your partners are out, the
people that are owed get some value for what they are owed. Simple.

Businesses go broke all of the time, however, what you guys did
(unintentionally, I believe) was equivalent to a check-kiting scam. You
relied on new deposits to cover current withdrawals. This is the same
problem that was faced by the Social Security Fund. If you were a U.S.
Corporation you would have been charged with fraud. As I just stated a
couple of sentences ago, I don't believe that the demise of PokerSpot was
intentional, and I don't believe you or your partners went in with the
intention of "screwing" anyone. When you bounced the first check and then
were not honest with the players about the situation, that is where you
totally crossed the line.

>Seems that you're
> in a position to help here, since you distribute information. Read my
> open letter on the air. Who knows... maybe some good would come of it.
>
> RB

The talk show is on hiatus til December, but I would be happy to have you on
as the next guest. You may state your case, but you must answer questions
from listeners. If you feel you can do that, or are willing, consider this
an inviation. I will treat you fairly as I would any other guest. I think
that you really believe this is a salvageable situation, what better way
than to have a "town meeting" of sorts with your depositors and former
players.?


> ps - Just in case you didn't know, calling someone you don't know "buddy"
> and "dude" while also calling them a liar and a cheat is a tad
> patronizing. Hope this helps.

I've never called you a liar, although you have admitted that you guys *did*
lie when people were questioning their withdrawals. I've never called you a
cheat, and as I've now stated two other times in this reply, I don't think
you ever intended to defraud anyone.

As far as calling you "buddy" and "dude" those are fairly innocuous ways of
referring to someone in an informal way. I'm sorry, I should have called
you SIR or Russ, or perhaps Mr. Boyd, but this is an informal newsgroup, not
a business letter.

If you really want to make all of this good, I'm certainly willing to do
whatever I can in my limited capacity to do so. I don't think you and your
partners getting anything out of this while your depositors are left holding
the bag is a good solution.

Rick "DaVoice" Charles

calmar

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 10:04:48 PM11/15/02
to
Hi,

"DaVoice" <ri...@voiceofpoker.com> writes:
> "Russ Boyd" <ru...@wagerware.com> wrote


>
> > It's not a matter of "letting" somebody take money from us. There is a
> > fundamental problem with online poker sites. It deals with the fact that
> > players expect to be able to play with their money immdediately after
> > depositing it. Yet the online cardroom does not actually receive that
> > money until three weeks or so later because the online cardroom works
> > through about two middlemen which handle the money first. If there is a
> > break in the cash line, it is a very big problem.
>

> It would not be a big problem if the online cardroom didn't open up on a
> shoestring and expect the new deposits to cover the FLOAT. Let's call it

> what it was Russ, You guys were kiting money because you were underfunded!


> Why do you think the NGCB requires casinos to keep a reserve? So the

> customers don't get screwed!
>
I just want to mention, Highland was absolutely not better in this.
When I see this correct, they screwed also everybody who was there.

So it was Mister D. B. formerly from Texas (when I'm right), which made that nobody will lose any money there, and not the company itself, isn'it.

calmar


DaVoice

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 10:32:20 PM11/15/02
to

"calmar" <m...@calmar.ws> wrote

> I just want to mention, Highland was absolutely not better in this.
> When I see this correct, they screwed also everybody who was there.
>
> So it was Mister D. B. formerly from Texas (when I'm right), which made
that nobody will lose any money there, and not the company itself, isn'it.
>
> calmar


Calmar,

I can speak to the "Highlands debacle" with authority as I spoke to the
principal(s). Doyle was only an endorser of the site, he certainly was
under no obligation to cover any of the depositors money any more than Jay
Leno would have been responsible had Doritos stopped "making more". (old
example).

Doyle had no ownership or partnership interest at all in Highlands, but felt
like his reputation was worth more than the money he paid back to
disgruntled depositors.

RC


thePokerCroaker

unread,
Nov 15, 2002, 11:51:57 PM11/15/02
to
Does this mean that Rick Davoice was "doing time" or his poker radio show
was popular in prison?


On Nov 15 2002 7:05AM, Russ Boyd wrote:

ps - I do hear that there's a lot of poker in prison... I read a

fewjournals of prisoners when things were starting to look very bad. A
fewof them said that some of the prisoners made more money than the
warden'ssalary at poker. Maybe Rick Davoice would like to comment on
thisquestion? From what I hear, he was quite popular in prison...

minus200

unread,
Nov 16, 2002, 2:00:38 AM11/16/02
to
then MS SUNSHINE should have it.

I did not mean to be viscous - it is not a lot of money. I try to find humor
everywhere. I have for many years donated all my poker winnings to a charity.
I just found out that they have joined the Untied Way so I will find another one
just in case I ever win any money at poker again. I stopped using my name with
these donations since it seems to attract a lot more efforts from them and other
charities.

I have one more question for you: Would you send money to a site to gamble if
operated by someone with your history?

minus200

charb

unread,
Nov 16, 2002, 2:46:56 AM11/16/02
to
Well, then. I nominate a team consisting of these three persons if
they would accept: Rick Charles, Mike Caro, Ashley Adams. Would any of
you three be willing to undertake the fair management/distribution of
these "assets"? Russ, if such a group agrees, will you turn the
Pokerspot property over to them?

"Russ Boyd" <ru...@wagerware.com> wrote in message news:<wneB9.428768$Q5.5...@post-03.news.easynews.com>...

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 16, 2002, 4:46:22 PM11/16/02
to
Yes I would.

RB

Russ Boyd

unread,
Nov 16, 2002, 4:47:51 PM11/16/02
to
On Nov 16 2002 1:00AM, minus200 wrote:

> I have one more question for you: Would you send money to a site to
gamble if
> operated by someone with your history?
>
> minus200

Of course not.

RB

DaVoice

unread,
Nov 16, 2002, 6:23:05 PM11/16/02
to
I would gladly help oversee any such transfer, but would certainly want to
be informed by legal counsel about the legality of my involvement. Let's
not forget that there is someone in federal prison as we speak for being a
U.S. Citizen and owning an Antiguan sports book.

Rick
PS Ashley, if you agree you must also agree that I don't need to join any
union to participate :) Just ribbing ya.


"charb" <1981...@eudoramail.com> wrote in message
news:55fafcd1.02111...@posting.google.com...

aaron

unread,
Nov 16, 2002, 7:31:39 PM11/16/02
to

DaVoice wrote:
> I would gladly help oversee any such transfer, but would certainly want to
> be informed by legal counsel about the legality of my involvement. Let's
> not forget that there is someone in federal prison as we speak for being a
> U.S. Citizen and owning an Antiguan sports book.
>
> Rick
> PS Ashley, if you agree you must also agree that I don't need to join any
> union to participate :) Just ribbing ya.
>
>

as an outside observer who wasn't around to play at pokerspot, i have
one question. why get involved with a business of questionable
legality, that has significant liabilities(deposits of poker players),
and uncollectible(by the current owner) accounts receivable?

sounds like a recipe for disaster.

Vegasone at pokerstars and other fine poker sites

aaron

unread,
Nov 16, 2002, 7:40:48 PM11/16/02
to

minus200 wrote:
> Since no one seems interested in making and offer, I choose to make a
> firm offer for all assets of the company known as Pokerspot.
>
> My offer is $906. Since you already have my money then please forward
> all assets.
>
> for furthur information - reply to my KNOWN e-mail address
>


minus 200,

so you're offering to take on the companies liabilities as well as assets?
if so, i'm sure there will be many players wanting to get in touch with
you. ;-)

--

charb

unread,
Nov 17, 2002, 9:35:45 AM11/17/02
to
I wish I had an attorney to offer. I made a suggestion, but I am sorry
to say that I don't have much in the way of finances to offer. I do
know that you are honorable and known to be honorable and would be
trusted by the "player community".

"DaVoice" <ri...@voiceofpoker.com> wrote in message news:<utdkqqc...@corp.supernews.com>...

minus200

unread,
Nov 18, 2002, 12:23:15 AM11/18/02
to
i think if you read you will see the word assets and no mention of liability
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