A person well-known for speaking out against questionable behavior on the part of poker rooms has taken aim at an issue many thought long closed.
Todd Witteles, aka Dan Druff, is claiming that PokerStars ripped off US players to the tune of millions of dollars via their FPP redemption process after Black Friday.
As Witteles tells it:
Cashing out FPPs was a complicated matter [...]
But what about FPPs. If you have 100,000 FPPs, what is their cash equivalent?
Is it obvious? Not at all.
Is it simple to figure out? Unfortunately, no.
Did this confuse the hell out of the DOJ, to where they ended up just nodding their heads “yes” to Pokerstars’ proposed plan? Unfortunately, yes.
This mass confusion, coupled with the general public’s existing elation with Pokerstars regarding their deal quickly allowing players to cash out (as opposed to Full Tilt and UB), formed the perfect storm for Pokerstars to steal a little bit from each player, and come out smelling like roses while doing it.
The basic argument is that Stars forced US players to take a lower-than-optimal value on their FPPs. Click the link below for the full story.
The real scandal here may be PFA’s current logo:
Stars is promising a response in the thread, but had this to say via Twitter:
@toddwitteles The author of this thread has completely mis-interpreted the process involved in the FPP conversions. >>
— PokerStars (@PokerStars) April 17, 2012
… and this:
@toddwitteles I doubt it. Also you are overlooking the fact that we were not required to pay out FPP values, we chose to as we felt it right
— PokerStars (@PokerStars) April 17, 2012
Source: Poker Fraud Alert.