Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Ponzi Scheme Busted!


http://news.yahoo.com/u-calls-online-poker-global-ponzi-scheme-185228376.html

10 comments:

  1. http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/21/lawyers-file-appeal-to-stay-troy-davis-execution/?npt=NP1

    Not Dead Yet

    In 1989, Troy Davis was convicted of murdering Mark MacPhail (a savannah police officer). He is to be executed on Wednesday, September 21, 2011. Because of protestors the execution has been delayed until Supreme Court can reach a verdict.

    In truth, I have never given thought about our criminal justice system and its usage of the death penalty. If scientists could prove that a person was truly “evil” then I would be more inclined to say, “hell yeah to the death penalty.” In the period of Enlightenment it was decided no more “cruel and unusual punishment.” With this in mind, I ask myself, “is death a cruel and unusual punishment?”

    In the case of Troy Davis I consider two things: the possibility of a bias opinion and time. Since it was the death of a fellow officer I can assume apprehending the culprit was top priority. Also in Georgia, racism is still an issue making Troy Davis an easy target. It has been 21 years since Troy Davis was convicted. Seven of nine witness either recanted or contradict their first statement. This gives me the impression of faulty evidence as well as a slow system. However, our “slow” system may be a blessing to Troy Davis if he is truly innocent. If Davis turns up innocent I wonder how he will cope in society after being so close to death.

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  2. i just found out from BBC News that Troy Davis's last appeal was rejected

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  3. There is something that is funny about a poker site being a Ponzi scheme. Personally I don’t play poker because you are just giving your money away; which is the same thing with a Ponzi scheme. Should the people who created this mess be punished, yes they should. But people who would trust their money with a poker site should not be shocked to find it missing. To me gambling is just a way to lose your hard earned money, not many people make it rich off of gambling unless you’re the one who owns the casino or in this case the website.

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  4. I agree with Shana in this instance. Paying to play is a part of the game. Paying your way in if you want to win or lose, just like everyone else. However, when you play in a real poker game – you have a chance at recovering your lost funds to the buy-in if you can defeat the other players. But, in this case the money won went straight to the owners of the company instead of in the player’s pockets. This is not much a surprise to me though, that online poker companies are defrauding their customers. Anyone that wants to put their hard earned currency onto a computer screen and gamble with it deserves to lose it in my opinion. This case is probably the easiest scheme in the world because of all the people addicted to online poker/gambling. I’m surprised this information has not come to light sooner.

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  5. Another fine example of capitalism at its "best"! How in the world can you own a gambling website and the winners not get paid? But in all actuality, its the gamblers own fault if they trust people enough to send their money to them over the. In a way, I feel bad and in another way I don't. These guys are crooks to the 10th power.I agree with Nick 100%

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  6. I would agree with that fact that these people shouldn’t join a poker site planning to win money much less as their way of employment, but at the same time these same people have the right to think that their money is safe. I myself love to play poker, and have been following the World Series of Poker for a long time and many of the top rated players wore clothing to endorse this business, which gave it a sense of legitimacy. During commercials, these ads for Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars and various other poker sites were endorsed by the very people you were watching play poker, and gave the common person a chance to play them personally on this site. I can understand the appeal that many people had to these sites, and am very surprised to hear that this was a Ponzi scheme and not a legitimate business. I feel these people should be held accountable for their criminal actions, and should have to pay back the people who legitimately won on their site. I am still shocked at the amount of money they were able to “steal”, but also shocked about how long they were able to get away with such a scheme.

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  8. Ahh, Greed! These guys need to be insurance agents. They take your money betting something will not happen so they can keep your money, while convincing you to bet against yourself that tragedy will strike and you are its next victim. What’s the difference, gambling is gambling. The only problem with this plan is they had no underling to pass the buck too. Their network was too small not to be able to shuffle funds around enough to confuse even the most accomplished financier, rather like the shell game. Gambling is a scam anyway, and in the end the only winners in this case will be the lawyers.

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  9. I have to totally agree with Wallace, “How in the world can you own a gambling website and the winners not get paid?” And then, of course, I have to agree with Nick, “Anyone that wants to put their hard earned currency onto a computer screen and gamble with it deserves to lose it in my opinion.” Both Wallace and Nick are onto something here, these people who chose to play should have informed themselves better and should have done some research. It never fails to amaze me how easily people will be fooled/scammed/manipulated into “investing,” their hard earned money for the possibility of making a, “quick buck,” and in this particular case, nothing at all. Seriously, these players, had nothing to win, and everything to lose, and yet, they chose to take part in this gamble. And as far, as the website owners are concerned; here is another case of greed, dishonesty, and carelessness.

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  10. I have a friend who had a gambling problem and had "investing" quite a bit of money into an online poker game as well. He told me that how they got people to put in more money was to make it look good and easy to win. You would get excellent hands dealt and for some time you will keep winning. After a certain amount of time or money, you start to get ridiculous cards where there's no winning no matter what. On these online poker sites, you don't know if you're really playing with someone else, or if you're playing with the computer that created all these people. They are definitely running a scheme because he also tried to withdraw his money and the site happens to "go down" and he got a letter saying that there's a credit on file for him to continue playing at another site. It's unbelievable how many people actually sit there day in and out playing poker online to get back what they've lost.

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