funnily enough, that's the argument they're making. from the wall street journal blog (exerpts taken as it's too long otherwise and the link's weird):
Attorneys for Full Tilt Poker on Wednesday fired back at the U.S. Justice Department's civil case against the poker website, decrying the government's assertion that their company ran a massive "Ponzi scheme" that allegedly bilked Internet poker players out of $300 million.
"While the government has obviously taken issue with the underlying activities of FTP, under any reasonable interpretation, the world-wide operations of the online cardroom are not a so-called Ponzi scheme," said Ian Imrich, an attorney for Full Tilt owner and board member Chris Ferguson.
The issues at Full Tilt should be likened to that of a problematic bank, rather than an illegal investment scheme, according to Jeff Ifrah, an attorney who represents the company in related litigation and is the personal attorney of Chief Executive Raymond Bitar. "A Ponzi scheme requires an investment vehicle in order to receive a certain rate of high return," Mr. Ifrah said. "None of those things happened here." Instead, he said, "maybe it was mismanaged."
The Justice Department had no comment on the attorneys' remarks Wednesday.
Mr. Ferguson and Howard Lederer, among other top poker players, started Full Tilt in 2004 and steered it to become an online giant, used by thousands of players betting billions of dollars every year.
The allegations prompted an outcry of anger throughout poker Internet forums and social media outlets from the thousands of poker players in the U.S. who had $160 million credited to their Full Tilt poker player accounts but have not been paid the money.
They are an expansion of a civil case the U.S. government filed in April against Full Tilt, other large online poker concerns and several executives at the companies alleging money laundering, bank fraud and illegal gambling. The government also filed criminal charges against the companies and some of the company's executives.
In explaining the alleged scheme, the government, in its complaint Tuesday, said that Full Tilt Poker allowed players to gamble with "phantom money that Full Tilt Poker never actually collected or possessed," according to the complaint. As a result, "Full Tilt Poker soon developed a massive shortfall between the money owed to United States players and the money actually collected from United States players," the government alleged.
Also, between April 2007 and April 2011, various owners and directors of Full Tilt collected $444 million dollars from the company for themselves, the government alleges.
The shortfall continued to grow after the company stopped operating in the U.S. in April. It continued to take money from players elsewhere even though funds to pay them back were growing increasingly slim, according to people with knowledge of the situation, as well as the government filing.
The characterization that Full Tilt's problems were a "Ponzi scheme" increases the risk that Full Tilt will permanently lose its license to operate outside of the U.S., said people familiar with the company's situation. It also has spooked possible investors that might have helped it to pay back the more than $300 million that the government says it owes poker players, they said.
fun stuff. or something from the times which is basically the above.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/poker-site-fires-back-over-ponzi-scheme-charge/
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The future must protect the clone's past.
"Maybe it's a tentacle, molesting the planet itself. - Aschen Brodel.