To avoid using any unsavory language, I’ll simply describe the Full Tilt Poker situation as a disaster. And this disaster is getting to be a contagion. The situation has now infected a most unlikely victim, a charitable foundation for children with learning disabilities called the Miriam Foundation. They have filed a lawsuit and may even face a lawsuit in the wake of a charity tournament gone completely wrong.
All of this centers around the 2011 Montreal Open, which was sponsored by Full Tilt and organized (most notably) by Morden “Cookie” Lazarus in order to raise money for the charity. The prize pool was “guaranteed” to be a $250,000 value, including a trip to Las Vegas for 30 players to compete against each other for 10 seats for the World Series of Poker Main Event. The tournament took place from March 27th-March 30th with 1,500+ players showing their generosity by bringing in almost $700,000, giving themselves terrible expected value on the prize pool.
And the biggest prize went to the most important participant, the Miriam Foundation themselves, who netted the entirety of the ~$700,000. Full Tilt, as the sponsor, covered the prize pool, and the 30 top players were off to Vegas with chances at a WSOP-ME appearance dancing through their heads.
Or at least that was the plan. Unfortunately, FullTiltPoker.com was seized by the US Department of Justice within a few weeks, and the winners of the Montreal Open were added to the long list of former FTP account holders who are still waiting on their rightful winnings. Full Tilt defended themselves back in June by saying that they paid the players in full in their poker accounts, but whether that is true or not seems a terribly moot point when players cannot access those funds.
One of the event’s main organizers Cookie—maybe wisely recognizing that going after FTP for any funds is futile—has called for the Miriam Foundation to take the $250,000 owed out of their net from the tournament. Though it may seem harsh to demand $250k be taken away from a charitable organization, Cookie pointed out in a statement that since they have sole control over the buy-ins, rebuys and add-ons, they have “the legal and moral obligation to pay the winning players the proceeds of the ‘Prize Pool.’ As advertised and represented by the Foundation.”
But the Miriam Foundation has their own gripes against Cookie. He has organized a spinoff of the Montreal Open with a different sponsor, PartyPoker, and a different recipient of the proceeds, the Jodi Lazarus Fund for Hereditary Breast Cancer. Miriam, in fact, has filed a lawsuit to claim the rights to the name and domain to the Montreal Open. Though Cookie claims that he never intended to call this event the “Montreal Open” (it is going by the name of the Montreal PartyPoker Classic), he is still disputing the rights to the name.
While the issue about the payout is the much more interesting and much more controversial issue to the poker community, the argument over the name is the only one that is currently being heard in the court of law. Cookie and many of the players who are still owed money, though, are strongly considering changing that.
In the meantime, the Montreal PartyPoker Classic is set to kick off the last week of March. Trying to move past the still-open wounds of last year’s debacle, the 2011 winners have been invited as VIP guests. If they will at any point receive more than this is still very much up in the air.