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Thread: Erick Lindgren's bad debts aren't the least bit surprising

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    Erick Lindgren's bad debts aren't the least bit surprising

    If you haven't heard the news, former Full Tilt Pro and WSOP Player of the Year Erick Lindgren appears to be in deep financial trouble. From the IRS to high stakes fantasy football players to Full Tilt itself, Erick seems to owe money everywhere.

    If you want to read more about Erick's situation, you can read this cliffs notes thread on 2+2, or you can read the original thread about the matter.

    Many were shocked and even saddened by this news. A lot of people seemed to have held Lindgren in high regard -- as an ethical, responsible type of poker pro, and especially one that would never owe people money for long periods of time while ignoring their requests for updates and payments.

    I have played with Erick Lindgren a few times. I know who he is, and he knows who I am. But that's about it. To be honest, I barely know the guy.

    But I've heard a lot about him.

    The original 2+2 thread was calling out Lindgren for owing money for losses in a fantasy football league -- in some cases amount as low as $2,800. From the text logs posted, it seems clear that Lindgren was avoiding this guy and making false promises to pay him. At one point, Lindgren calls himself "cash poor". Eventually others chimed in, all with stories of being owed money by Lindgren for fantasy football.

    While many were surprised by this news, I wasn't in the least.

    That's because I heard the exact story four years ago, and that was while Lindgren was reportedly getting some $250,000 per month in Full Tilt ownership distributions.

    In 2009, a friend approached me for advice about Lindgren's fantasy football debt to him. The debt was substantial -- something like $25,000, which was to be split among my friend and his fantasy partners. At the time, I was pretty taken aback. How could Erick Lindgren, a guy receiving a quarter million dollars per month for literally doing nothing, not be able to pay a 25k fantasy loss? I'm not going to name this friend, but many of you reading this know him, and it's someone I'm no longer friends with. You can figure it out.

    I advised this friend to be a "gentle hassle" for Lindgren. That is, don't get threatening or overly confrontational, as that would turn it into a battle of egos. Rather, I advised him to be the squeaky wheel that repeatedly contacts him, thereby likely being among the first to get "greased". In the world of poker debts, it's the persistent people that always get paid first. My friend did just that, but for awhile it did no good. I advised him to step up the pressure, telling him to send messages to Erick implying (but not directly threatening) that he'd take this public. While Erick at first responded angrily in a "I don't care what you do" sort of manner, my friend got paid shortly thereafter. I'm not sure what changed for Erick. Perhaps he hit a big score in some form of gambling. Perhaps one of his many stakehorses hit it big. Perhaps he decided it was finally time to use some of that Full Tilt money to pay off his fantasy debts. Whatever the case, my friend finally got his money.

    Erick Lindgren's situation is surprising to many for a few reasons.

    First, he is seen as successful. He has well over $8 million in tournament cashes.

    Second, he is known to be one of the biggest stakers in the tournament scene. Erick has been known to have provided generous 6-figure stakes to other tournament players, including ones that don't seem to be producing. This would imply that he would never be a risk to welch on a $2800 debt.

    Third, his character has been built up in the media by respected people like Daniel Negreanu. While Negreanu has very publicly denounced unethical members of the community such as Annie Duke, Howard Lederer, and Chris Ferguson, he has heaped nothing but praise upon Lindgren. Even Phil Hellmuth had wonderful things to say about Lindgren.

    Finally, while Lindgren's tendency to gamble with wild prop bets was no secret, this was viewed by the public as more of a "fun" part of his personality, rather than the symptom of a much larger gambling problem. Erick comes off as straightforward, mature, and clean-cut. You just don't picture him as financially irresponsible.

    However, the reality was very different. Lindgren was long rumored to have a crippling mega-stakes sportsbetting habit, and his free-spending ways in other areas (such as backing lots of high stakes tournament players) was a recipe for disaster, even with lot of poker winnings and $3 million per year in Full Tilt income.

    Erick Lindgren no longer has that Full Tilt income.

    And then there's this, which was uncovered by a wannabe internet detective on 2+2:

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    Suffice to say that these fantasy players won't be seeing their money any time soon.

    But can you really feel that sorry for them? Surely they've known about his questionable ability/desire to pay since this has been going on since at least 2009.

    Expect to hear a lot more stories like this in the coming months.

    Poker players are typically as bad with money as most NBA players. And just like many NBA players at the end of their careers, many poker players that were surviving on sponsorship or site ownership money are going to be facing a very different lifestyle very soon.

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    Bronze mtnDew's Avatar
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    i wouldn't be surprised to see one of the fallowing

    him getting taken out

    or

    him killing himself

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by mtnDew View Post
    i wouldn't be surprised to see one of the fallowing

    him getting taken out

    or

    him killing himself
    Or his wife bailing on him....

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by mtnDew View Post
    i wouldn't be surprised to see one of the fallowing

    him getting taken out

    or

    him killing himself
    I don't think either will happen. Lindgren now has TJ Cloutier-like borrowing power, and even these "outing" threads on 2+2 won't stop that. Plenty of average Joes in poker will still be dying to stake Lindgren, especially ones that have no clue about his debts.

    I also don't see anyone taking him out. There are so many people in poker these days that owe collective 6 and 7 figure sums. This includes people you've never even heard of.

    Nobody ever seems to get killed over this stuff. You'd think they would, but I guess we've all been watching too much TV.

    The only murders I know of in the poker community were ones where two different dudes killed their parents for inheritance money, and various muggings-gone-wrong outside of ghetto LA-area casinos.

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JoyMillersMeatCurtains View Post
    Or his wife bailing on him....
    That's a lot more possible.

    Gotta think Erica isn't going to put up with this forever.

    I don't know Erica very well, either. I will say that I was impressed with her in the few interactions we've had.

    I expected her to be an stuck-up, full-of-herself, princess type, but she wasn't at all. She was quiet, shy, and down-to-earth. Seemed like a genuinely nice girl -- or at least that was my read.

    She stayed with Benyamine during HIS financial problems, as well as his astronomical weight gain. Yes, she eventually left him, but she stayed a lot longer than you'd expect of most girls in her situation.

    I have a feeling she's sticking by E-Dog for now, but I've gotta think that trading up for a guy without all of this baggage might be on her mind, especially knowing how many dudes would be dying to be with her.

    Of course, they have a kid together, so that makes it MUCH harder for her to just get up and leave.

  6. #6
    I obviously don't know how true this is but read on 2+2 David B still owns his house valued at 1 mil. Guys her age are more likely to have their old children so I wouldn't see that as much of problem. Not to mention she's what the hipsters refer to as a MILF and I'd have to agree.

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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by JoyMillersMeatCurtains View Post
    I obviously don't know how true this is but read on 2+2 David B still owns his house valued at 1 mil. Guys her age are more likely to have their old children so I wouldn't see that as much of problem. Not to mention she's what the hipsters refer to as a MILF and I'd have to agree.
    She was still hot last time I saw her.

    I don't see her as a MILF, because she's 6 years younger than me.


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    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Looks like I found another bug -- the picture attachment stuff. Not even sure why that's appearing twice.

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    Platinum Lord of the Fraud's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    That's a lot more possible.

    Gotta think Erica isn't going to put up with this forever.

    I don't know Erica very well, either. I will say that I was impressed with her in the few interactions we've had.

    I expected her to be an stuck-up, full-of-herself, princess type, but she wasn't at all. She was quiet, shy, and down-to-earth. Seemed like a genuinely nice girl -- or at least that was my read.

    She stayed with Benyamine during HIS financial problems, as well as his astronomical weight gain. Yes, she eventually left him, but she stayed a lot longer than you'd expect of most girls in her situation.

    I have a feeling she's sticking by E-Dog for now, but I've gotta think that trading up for a guy without all of this baggage might be on her mind, especially knowing how many dudes would be dying to be with her.

    Of course, they have a kid together, so that makes it MUCH harder for her to just get up and leave.

    to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

    Hi Druff. Good effort on the site. Need to sort them smilies out though, there a bit shit tbh

  11. #11
    8.5 million in tourney winnings, 250K/month from FTP, in the hole 4 million to FTP, can't pay a 2800 debt.... Not quite AI but damn that's just sick. Anyone who would ever prop bet with this dude again better have the money placed in escrow or he's just free rolling.

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    DAN DRUFF SFO.

    Blowing up MyCon's spots already. Fucking awesome.

    LOL at 3 mirrion in tax liens.

  13. #13
    Actually Micon posted about this yesterday (DD radio thread) before Druff opened the forum.

  14. #14
    There's probably more outstanding debt in the poker community than there is actual money.

    I'm glad that people are calling out Negreanu for staying silent on this Edog issue when he's been calling out others for the same type of shenanigans.
    Joe Sebok has a Micropenis.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
    Looks like I found another bug -- the picture attachment stuff. Not even sure why that's appearing twice.
    I just had to reset my password because the one I created the account with did not work.

    Emailed the customer service department earlier.

  16. #16
    Almost zero chance DN calls out Edog. Which is pretty hypocritical.

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    On the controversial side. If you were/are a degenerate gambler (Ivey + Edog) then suddenly find a cash cow (FTP) which send you a never ending supply of money and multiplies your net worth by 10 (assuming you sold your share) is it not natural that instead of gambling 10k on a college football game you will start gambling 100k. Equally a 100k crap session becomes a million dollar one for the same buzz?

    I mean its unlikely we will ever know the reality of what went on behind the scenes at FTP but I genuinely think only a few of the top guys were privvy to knowing what a mess the site was in, and the others were just loving the checks arriving every month.

    It will be interesting to see how Ivey comes out of this.


    Also BOB (voulgaris) posts this, which is pretty damning of how bad a gambler Edog was...

    Originally Posted by coltranedog
    I have gone over whether or not I should post in this thread for the last few days now, and although I am still conflicted and am not prepared to share everything I just want to say the following.

    I think with the exception of a few really "green" newbies to the gambling world. Nearly everyone who has had any dealings with Erick and is deciding now to post is a hypocrite.

    And because I am now posting, that includes me.

    We all knew that Edog was pretty much a piece of **** when it came to settling gambling debts. But as long as the Full Tilt money train was chugging along paying distributions, nobody wanted to speak up.

    Now that its pretty clear that FTP is done, and so are any prospects of Erick being able to pay anyone back. Everyone is very quick to talk about what a horrible person he is.

    And so here I am.

    Erick, well he isn't such a nice guy.

    If some of us (especially me) would have spoken up a long time ago a lot of the little guys who did business with him could have been spared.

    I am not going to go into all the details, but I have known Erick since around 2004. From 2005-2006 he owed me a really large figure. I gave him a year to get his stuff in order and he was supposed to pay the whole amount off in 2006.

    He didn't.

    We then agreed on a payment plan of sorts but that never really took shape either.

    From 2005-2007 I primarily kept my mouth shut about Erick, only told a few other sports gamblers here and there about how they needed to be careful doing business with him etc. The response I got from nearly everyone was, oh I know he's bad news. He owes me $$ as well.

    After awhile I pretty much gave up on being quiet about the amount he owed me and ended up telling a few more respected poker players as well.

    I even went as far as to ask FTP to intervene and direct some of his distributions to me, i had emails from Erick that confirmed that he promised to send a payment of X amount monthly from FT up until the debt of Y was resolved.

    One of the main board members at FTP told me that they could never do this because it would be highly illegal and they didn't have the jurisdiction to do so or get involved. I understand how they wouldn't want to break any more laws seeing as how they were busy laundering money and buying banks to mask their financial transactions.

    Erick still owes me a big figure its still probably one of the bigger amounts he owes. But its not nearly as big as it was in 2005. To his credit he has paid off around 80% of it -

    To his detriment only about 10% of it came when he actually offered up the money. The other 70% came from;

    Flying around the world hanging around some of his horse's final tables trying to scratch and claw to grab some money.

    Coaxing the guys at matchbook to send me some of the money he had requested as a w/d directly to me.

    Pestering, harassing him via email and text to get some payments sent my way.

    Finding out he had agreed to sell / loan 1% FTP in exchange for a big payment and then confronting him about it and having him send me an amount then.

    The latter was extremely frustrating because I have no doubt that if I hadn't found out about the loan / sale he never would have brought it up to me and I never would have gotten any money out of him.

    Further he acted all indignant when I confronted him stating that the deal wasn't done and it may not get done so that was why never told me about it.

    I am fairly certain that this was a load of bs.

    I think at least one other transaction had gone down where he has sold a pct of his FT stake and I didn't hear about it and thus didn't get paid.

    I'd also like to add that, if Erick really wanted to have paid off all his debts. He could have basically laid in bed / slept for a year or two and just paid everyone off.

    His FT distributions were that big and he could have easily lived on a modest (sarcasm) 20-30k a month stipend and made everyone whole.

    But that was never good enough, he was too busy popping off on sports or the big games on FTP.

    I feel like a pretty big hypocrite for writing this now because there have been so many times over the years where I wanted to post about this earlier. I just didn't want to give Erick an excuse for slowpaying me even more.

    I am a lot different nowadays. I used to get so tilted reading articles, blog reports or the famous Ryan Daut post where he talks about what a boss Edog was, all the while knowing that this guy owes me a bunch of money and for the most part didn't have the decency to try and bring the figure down.

    The dude has owed me money for 6 years.

    I don't really see much hope of getting paid off in full. Erick sent me an out of the blue email a few weeks ago stating how bad things were for him and that he is in real rough shape.

    I am guessing that the impetus of that email was the fact that he was getting threatened by the fantasy sports dudes and he wanted to do some damage control ahead of time.

    I like Daniels blog posts and video's a lot, I wanted to get this out here in the public before Daniel says something that downplays the whole situation.

    I also sent Daniel a PM (a draft of one I meant to edit but didn't before sending) but I figured I was better off just posting here.

    Its not merely a bunch of fantasy sports nits that are owed money, its a bunch of people spread all around the gambling world.

    I'd also like to add that this isn't an example of new vs old -

    I am about the same age as Daniel and Erick, I have been involved in gambling (mostly sports) for as long if not longer than these guys.

    I have never met anyone who was as big a prick about paying off his debts as Erick. I have went bad in the past, have sold property, borrowed from family and friends and basically done whatever I could to make sure that my gambling debts were paid off in time.

    Not paying a debt as soon as I could is simply not the way I or any of my close friends who gamble for a living were raised (and I was raised by a degenerate gambler who ended up going busto).

    I have done business with people who went busto and couldn't pay. I have done business with people who basically said **** you I am not paying.

    But I have never met a guy who was guaranteed as much money as Edog was from his FT investment, who spent money as lavishly as he did, who was basically allergic to paying his debts.

    I remember reading the Dane Cook quote and thinking, must be nice to have all the money in the world, but not have the time nor inclination to pay back the people you owe.

    If the whole thing wasn't as irritating as it is, it'd actually be quite sad.

  18. #18
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  19. #19
    Apparently I missed the fact Brandon Adams posted this prior to DN

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  20. #20
    Owner Dan Druff's Avatar
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    Wow. Crazy stuff.

    Now the bigger names (Daut, Negreanu, Adams) are coming out after Haralabob dropped the bomb.

    Always liked Haralabob. The guy was always willing to speak his mind regardless of who he pissed off, and he was usually right.

    Negreanu is already starting his spin. He obviously can't defend Lindgren at this point, so instead he's resorting to, "I feel really bad for his victims, but addiction is something that's very hard to control." I always hated people that used addiction as an excuse for unethical behavior. Even if the addiction somewhat played a part, it doesn't absolve you of responsibility, nor is it a valid excuse for hurting others.

    Brandon Adams' post was kind of annoying, as well. While he's not directly saying it, he's telling us to find some forgiveness in Erick, since he took "the underdog position" in his gambling spots. Kinda like we should accept that this was inevitable since people were constantly taking the best of it versus Erick.

    At least Daut's post offers somewhat of a mea culpa for giving Lindgren too much credit in the past, and admits this was based on very little actual information.

    I just wonder if Negreanu's sticking by Lindgren is out of a feeling of loyalty or just a need to protect his own reputation. You know... a "the company you keep is a reflection upon you" sort of thing.

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