Dedicated online poker investigative journalist Haley Hintze is at it again. She just released an eye-opening five-part piece regarding the Poker Players Alliance (PPA) and their attempt to lobby on behalf of SunFirst Bank of St. George, Utah, which was at the center of the April 15, 2011 "Black Friday" online poker busts.

Part 1: http://www.flushdraw.com/news/ppa-li...t-1-backstory/

Part 2: http://www.flushdraw.com/news/ppa-li...g-elite-debit/

Part 3: http://www.flushdraw.com/news/ppa-li...sful-lobbying/

Part 4: http://www.flushdraw.com/news/ppa-li...irst-collapse/

Part 5: http://www.flushdraw.com/news/ppa-li...and-questions/


This lobbying was orchestrated by Full Tilt and Pokerstars, both of which had gotten on board with SunFirst to process its payments. Chad Elie, who appeared on PFA Radio in November, pled guilty to being part of this scheme, and is currently serving prison time for it.

The interesting element to this whole thing is the fact that the PPA got so involved in lobbying on behalf of Pokerstars and Full Tilt to get them a working "legal" payment processor. The presumed goal of the lobbying was to get favorable legal status for SunFirst's payment processing in the eyes of the state of Utah, thus lessening the legal blow (or eliminating it) when the federal government would eventually come knocking to investigate.

If you recall, the PPA's mission statement from their website is as follows:

The PPA’s mission is to establish favorable laws that provide poker players with a secure, safe and regulated place to play. Through education and awareness the PPA will keep this game of skill, one of America’s oldest recreational activities, free from egregious government intervention and misguided laws.
Basically, the above claims that the PPA's mission is to get US laws changed to where online poker would be legalized and regulated in this country.

So why were they doing work to help Pokerstars and Full Tilt establish a stable payment processor?

It really makes it look like the PPA was devoting a lot of their time, money, and energy to work for Pokerstars' and Full Tilt's interests-du-jour. Why was the PPA getting involved at all in the area of payment processing?

The obvious reason is their source of funding, which Rich Muny admitted on last week's interview was primarily from those two sites. He would not give a percentage, but seemed to strongly imply that those sites contributed far more than the member base did.

This is a whopper of an article, and I wish I knew about this at the time of the debate I had with PPA Vice-President Rich Muny.

I will post more of my comments on this article shortly.