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

[Dan Druff]

posted this in another thread, but may as well link it here as well. It's Bob's explanation of this whole thing.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...7&postcount=77

Good read. Obviously, since my banishment from 2+2, I don't read as much as I used to. I'm surprised I missed this though.

As for Druff, everything I wrote was purely speculation. What you wrote makes perfect sense & is also a possibility.

Of course after reading the link Crowe provided we both may be totally off base. I don't take HV post on 2+2 as gospel though, that's for sure.

This kinda smells like bullshit.

After reading the whole thing (which was very distracting with the (OL), (WS), etc crap riddling the post), I still don't get why Haralabob agreed to assume the debt.

I see how Lindgren's degeneracy was causing a problem for the owner of the sportsbook, but not why Haralabob just decided to assume the debt himself.

[JimmyG_415]

Good read. Obviously, since my banishment from 2+2, I don't read as much as I used to. I'm surprised I missed this though.

As for Druff, everything I wrote was purely speculation. What you wrote makes perfect sense & is also a possibility.

Of course after reading the link Crowe provided we both may be totally off base. I don't take HV post on 2+2 as gospel though, that's for sure.

This kinda smells like bullshit.

After reading the whole thing (which was very distracting with the (OL), (WS), etc crap riddling the post), I still don't get why Haralabob agreed to assume the debt.

I see how Lindgren's degeneracy was causing a problem for the owner of the sportsbook, but not why Haralabob just decided to assume the debt himself.

I disagree, I THINK I have a good BS detector, and he seems pretty straight forward, and in all the shit Erick has said about Haralabob, he hasn't said he is a liar.
He says it pretty clearly, either he knocked off Erick's debt from the sales price, or he couldn't sell his illegal money maker.
That said, the OL and WS was very annoying.

I'm still shocked at these #'s, though, 500k total up #???? So you can lose 200k one week, 250k the next and not have to come up w/any of it?
Wow, I guess if he was making 250k a month that is acceptable.

[Lurker1998]

I cannot understand what the article is saying about the $2 million mistake by Full Tilt in Lindgren's favor.

As far as I can tell from the article, Lindgren suggests he did not know what to do with the "extra" $2 million, and, since communications were so bad in general, and loans flowing so freely, he just assumed the extra $2 million was an additional loan. So, his view is he got a $4 million loan from somebody?

If I recall the Lederer interview correctly, they mistake was realized, Lederer called Lindgren relatively quickly to say the extra $2 million was a mistake. Lindgren said he had the money and would send it back and then disappeared.

It seems the journalist should have said to Lindgren that Lederer says he called you right away to say the extra $2 million was a mistake not a loan and that you agreed to return the mistaken wire but then disappeared. However, it seems the journalist never asked that (or if he/she did, never got a response or at least did not report it).

All this seems to have happened a large quantum of time before the guy ended up going bankrupt. I do not know about bankruptcy priorities, but it seems to me that correcting a mistake should be absolutely top of the line. Also, isn't taking advantage of a bank mistake like this a crime? With all the criminal charges flying all over the place, why no crime here? It seems to me we read about lots of poor schmucks who keep money from a bank error and end up in jail.

Am I missing something?

[Dan Druff]

I cannot understand what the article is saying about the $2 million mistake by Full Tilt in Lindgren's favor.

As far as I can tell from the article, Lindgren suggests he did not know what to do with the "extra" $2 million, and, since communications were so bad in general, and loans flowing so freely, he just assumed the extra $2 million was an additional loan. So, his view is he got a $4 million loan from somebody?

If I recall the Lederer interview correctly, they mistake was realized, Lederer called Lindgren relatively quickly to say the extra $2 million was a mistake. Lindgren said he had the money and would send it back and then disappeared.

It seems the journalist should have said to Lindgren that Lederer says he called you right away to say the extra $2 million was a mistake not a loan and that you agreed to return the mistaken wire but then disappeared. However, it seems the journalist never asked that (or if he/she did, never got a response or at least did not report it).

All this seems to have happened a large quantum of time before the guy ended up going bankrupt. I do not know about bankruptcy priorities, but it seems to me that correcting a mistake should be absolutely top of the line. Also, isn't taking advantage of a bank mistake like this a crime? With all the criminal charges flying all over the place, why no crime here? It seems to me we read about lots of poor schmucks who keep money from a bank error and end up in jail.

Am I missing something?

Had this happened with a bank, yes this would have been a crime.

However, Full Tilt was a criminal organization (in the view of the United States government), and is not subject to the same protections as a bank.

What Lindgren did was roughly the legal equivalent to stealing money during a drug deal.

Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson were not criminally charged yet, for example, and they were involved in the theft of HUNDREDS of millions of dollars!

You are correct that the BLUFF interviewer (who is also the BLUFF editor-in-chief) did not follow up with the appropriate questions. Lindgren was let off way too easily on that one.

With that said, I don't feel sorry for Lederer/Full Tilt in this situation. Had Lindgren paid it back, the money would have been stolen by Howard/Chris/Rafe/Ray anyway, and distributed to the various Full Tilt owners. It's not like it would have still been there for the players.

It was basically a thief stealing from a thief.

[Dan Druff]

This kinda smells like bullshit.

After reading the whole thing (which was very distracting with the (OL), (WS), etc crap riddling the post), I still don't get why Haralabob agreed to assume the debt.

I see how Lindgren's degeneracy was causing a problem for the owner of the sportsbook, but not why Haralabob just decided to assume the debt himself.

I disagree, I THINK I have a good BS detector, and he seems pretty straight forward, and in all the shit Erick has said about Haralabob, he hasn't said he is a liar.
He says it pretty clearly, either he knocked off Erick's debt from the sales price, or he couldn't sell his illegal money maker.
That said, the OL and WS was very annoying.

I'm still shocked at these #'s, though, 500k total up #???? So you can lose 200k one week, 250k the next and not have to come up w/any of it?
Wow, I guess if he was making 250k a month that is acceptable.

But I'm still not understanding why Haralabob took on such a massive liability on his own, when he didn't have to.

I understood the reasoning behind why Lindgren's actions were holding up that sportsbook's sale, but not why Haralabob had to be the one to shoulder all of the burden of it.

That's what I'm still not understanding.

Maybe I just missed it because I was so distracted by the horribly-written post and the (OL) and (WS) crap.

[JimmyG_415]

I disagree, I THINK I have a good BS detector, and he seems pretty straight forward, and in all the shit Erick has said about Haralabob, he hasn't said he is a liar.
He says it pretty clearly, either he knocked off Erick's debt from the sales price, or he couldn't sell his illegal money maker.
That said, the OL and WS was very annoying.

I'm still shocked at these #'s, though, 500k total up #???? So you can lose 200k one week, 250k the next and not have to come up w/any of it?
Wow, I guess if he was making 250k a month that is acceptable.

But I'm still not understanding why Haralabob took on such a massive liability on his own, when he didn't have to.

I understood the reasoning behind why Lindgren's actions were holding up that sportsbook's sale, but not why Haralabob had to be the one to shoulder all of the burden of it.

That's what I'm still not understanding.

Maybe I just missed it because I was so distracted by the horribly-written post and the (OL) and (WS) crap.

I'm reading it that haralabob was an owner of WS. (not sure the %, and not sure how not to use OL and WS, sorry, lol)
OL agreed to buy WS.
Erick lost the cash to OL and didn't pay, on haralabob's referral.
The owner of OL, then tried to use this to get out of buying WS,

Then it sounded to me like this was such a small percentage of the overall sale, OR the US was finally cracking down on the payment processors. So it would be stupid not to just eat Erick's debt to get whatever cash he could and get be rid of WS forever.

[Dan Druff]

But I'm still not understanding why Haralabob took on such a massive liability on his own, when he didn't have to.

I understood the reasoning behind why Lindgren's actions were holding up that sportsbook's sale, but not why Haralabob had to be the one to shoulder all of the burden of it.

That's what I'm still not understanding.

Maybe I just missed it because I was so distracted by the horribly-written post and the (OL) and (WS) crap.

I'm reading it that haralabob was an owner of WS. (not sure the %, and not sure how not to use OL and WS, sorry, lol)
OL agreed to buy WS.
Erick lost the cash to OL and didn't pay, on haralabob's referral.
The owner of OL, then tried to use this to get out of buying WS,

Then it sounded to me like this was such a small percentage of the overall sale, OR the US was finally cracking down on the payment processors. So it would be stupid not to just eat Erick's debt to get whatever cash he could and get be rid of WS forever.

Okay, I think you understood it a little better than I did.

But I thought that the story seemed to imply that Haralabob only owned a small part of WS, therefore making Erick's debt possibly worth more than his part in the company?

That's what I don't get.

Maybe he owned a big piece of WS and was playing it down.

[Lurker1998]

I cannot understand what the article is saying about the $2 million mistake by Full Tilt in Lindgren's favor.

As far as I can tell from the article, Lindgren suggests he did not know what to do with the "extra" $2 million, and, since communications were so bad in general, and loans flowing so freely, he just assumed the extra $2 million was an additional loan. So, his view is he got a $4 million loan from somebody?

If I recall the Lederer interview correctly, they mistake was realized, Lederer called Lindgren relatively quickly to say the extra $2 million was a mistake. Lindgren said he had the money and would send it back and then disappeared.

It seems the journalist should have said to Lindgren that Lederer says he called you right away to say the extra $2 million was a mistake not a loan and that you agreed to return the mistaken wire but then disappeared. However, it seems the journalist never asked that (or if he/she did, never got a response or at least did not report it).

All this seems to have happened a large quantum of time before the guy ended up going bankrupt. I do not know about bankruptcy priorities, but it seems to me that correcting a mistake should be absolutely top of the line. Also, isn't taking advantage of a bank mistake like this a crime? With all the criminal charges flying all over the place, why no crime here? It seems to me we read about lots of poor schmucks who keep money from a bank error and end up in jail.

Am I missing something?

Had this happened with a bank, yes this would have been a crime.

However, Full Tilt was a criminal organization (in the view of the United States government), and is not subject to the same protections as a bank.

What Lindgren did was roughly the legal equivalent to stealing money during a drug deal.

Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson were not criminally charged yet, for example, and they were involved in the theft of HUNDREDS of millions of dollars!

You are correct that the BLUFF interviewer (who is also the BLUFF editor-in-chief) did not follow up with the appropriate questions. Lindgren was let off way too easily on that one.

With that said, I don't feel sorry for Lederer/Full Tilt in this situation. Had Lindgren paid it back, the money would have been stolen by Howard/Chris/Rafe/Ray anyway, and distributed to the various Full Tilt owners. It's not like it would have still been there for the players.

It was basically a thief stealing from a thief.

Dear Mr. Dan Druff,

Thank you for you courteous and informative response. However, I still feel a little at a loss here.

First of all there is the second issue -- how is the mistake $2 million handled in the Lindgren bankruptcy. Put aside all the people involved in this, if my company accidentally wired $2 million to somebody -- I would expect that money back right away with no issues. If that person happened to go bankrupt, I would assume that correcting the mistake would have the highest of the highest priorities in that person's bankruptcy....way higher than all the other debtors out there. I would assume I get my full $2 million back before any other debtor gets one penny. Imagine if Lindgren actually just stole money from somebody. I would assume if you are a crime victim, you can show up in the person's bankruptcy and get a higher priority than somebody who accepted the risk of lending to this fellow. If not, then something really stinks in the bankruptcy laws. The article already touched on that Lindgren prefers to pay this fellow with the greek sounding name absolutely last, but the article does not touch on who gets paid absolutely first. I would assume that people who lost money on Full Tilt have a very big interest in seeing the money go back into full tilt so that they may get their money back with less risk.

However, coming back to the main point, it seems to me absolutely wild that this behavior of keeping a mistaken bank wire is somehow excused because the party that made the mistake happens to be a thief. The action of maliciously taking advantage of the mistake seems pretty bad to me regardless of the character of the victim. If Lindgren had raped Ferguson, would it have all been okay because Ferguson is a thief? Something just seems morally wrong here. It is not like Ferguson stole from Lindgren and then Lindgren was "stealing back". From what I can tell, Ferguson and Lindgren were in cahoots (whatever cahoots are). If Lindgren thought he was stealing from a thief when he stole from Full Tilt/Ferguson, then isn't that an admission that he thought he himself was a thief (he was a shareholder in the criminal operation and he freely took dividends from it)? If stealing the bankwire is excused, then doesn't that mean Lindgren should have bigger issues since it means his dividends were all criminal proceeds? Something doesn't smell right in the analysis of this to me. Maybe I am too dense to understand what is really going on here.

Sincerely,

lurker1998

[BCR]

I'm reading it that haralabob was an owner of WS. (not sure the %, and not sure how not to use OL and WS, sorry, lol)
OL agreed to buy WS.
Erick lost the cash to OL and didn't pay, on haralabob's referral.
The owner of OL, then tried to use this to get out of buying WS,

Then it sounded to me like this was such a small percentage of the overall sale, OR the US was finally cracking down on the payment processors. So it would be stupid not to just eat Erick's debt to get whatever cash he could and get be rid of WS forever.

Okay, I think you understood it a little better than I did.

But I thought that the story seemed to imply that Haralabob only owned a small part of WS, therefore making Erick's debt possibly worth more than his part in the company?

That's what I don't get.

Maybe he owned a big piece of WS and was playing it down.

What seems hard to believe is that a small operation that took max bets of $1000 would be so valuable that HV would assume millions of debt and that it would still be a profitable decision for him personally. Even if he owned a huge piece. My guess is he put the chance of a Lindgren default at like 10% given how well FT was doing, and with that probability, it was a profitable scenario. As a poker player he also probably valued the friendship of an owner of one of the world's largest sites.

That had a lot of intrinsic value in that time period. He underestimated how sick and immoral Lindgren was in matters of paying back debts and got burned for it. I just don't think it likely that he snagged like $10 million in profit for a small recreational player book where eating $2+ million wasn't a deal breaker. That just seems unlikely. So I agree with you Druff that the story is more complex than HV's version. I'm sure he liked Erick, and thought him likely good for the money, but I don't think he went to all this trouble setting it up for entirely altruistic reasons. I think he knows relationships with important people have significant value, Hv is a very smart guy, but he didn't foresee how low his character was, and how in time Lindgren wouldn't be an important person worth knowing.

[Hockey Guy]

Okay, I think you understood it a little better than I did.

But I thought that the story seemed to imply that Haralabob only owned a small part of WS, therefore making Erick's debt possibly worth more than his part in the company?

That's what I don't get.

Maybe he owned a big piece of WS and was playing it down.

What seems hard to believe is that a small operation that took max bets of $1000 would be so valuable that HV would assume millions of debt and that it would still be a profitable decision for him personally. Even if he owned a huge piece. My guess is he put the chance of a Lindgren default at like 10% given how well FT was doing, and with that probability, it was a profitable scenario. As a poker player he also probably valued the friendship of an owner of one of the world's largest sites.

That had a lot of intrinsic value in that time period. He underestimated how sick and immoral Lindgren was in matters of paying back debts and got burned for it. I just don't think it likely that he snagged like $10 million in profit for a small recreational player book where eating $2+ million wasn't a deal breaker. That just seems unlikely. So I agree with you Druff that the story is more complex than HV's version. I'm sure he liked Erick, and thought him likely good for the money, but I don't think he went to all this trouble setting it up for entirely altruistic reasons. I think he knows relationships with important people have significant value, Hv is a very smart guy, but he didn't foresee how low his character was, and how in time Lindgren wouldn't be an important person worth knowing.

All this shit happened in 2004-2005 long before there was any disbursements(250K/month for Lindgren's) being paid by FTP. Disbursements didn't happen until 2007 if my memory serves me correctly from the Lederer Files.

[BCR]

What seems hard to believe is that a small operation that took max bets of $1000 would be so valuable that HV would assume millions of debt and that it would still be a profitable decision for him personally. Even if he owned a huge piece. My guess is he put the chance of a Lindgren default at like 10% given how well FT was doing, and with that probability, it was a profitable scenario. As a poker player he also probably valued the friendship of an owner of one of the world's largest sites.

That had a lot of intrinsic value in that time period. He underestimated how sick and immoral Lindgren was in matters of paying back debts and got burned for it. I just don't think it likely that he snagged like $10 million in profit for a small recreational player book where eating $2+ million wasn't a deal breaker. That just seems unlikely. So I agree with you Druff that the story is more complex than HV's version. I'm sure he liked Erick, and thought him likely good for the money, but I don't think he went to all this trouble setting it up for entirely altruistic reasons. I think he knows relationships with important people have significant value, Hv is a very smart guy, but he didn't foresee how low his character was, and how in time Lindgren wouldn't be an important person worth knowing.

All this shit happened in 2004-2005 long before there was any disbursements(250K/month for Lindgren's) being paid by FTP. Disbursements didn't happen until 2007 if my memory serves me correctly from the Lederer Files.

Well, HV said this:


In March of 2005 I went to Erick and asked him what he intended to do about paying off his debt to (OL). FTP was taking off and doing extremely well and some people thought that 1 share of FTP was worth about what Erick owed, possibly more.

Erick told me that he would have the debt paid off in one year, and if he didn't then he'd sell a share (or I would take ownership of that share). I asked him point blank if he intended on paying or not, to be honest I had tired of being caught in the middle of (OL) and his deal to purchase (WS). I had also tired of dealing with (OL) specifically as he was being abnormally difficult.




That pretty clearly indicates that HV thought he was fully capable of covering the debt, hence why he likely felt comfortable that there wouldn't be a default. Regardless of when the disbursements started, the kid held a major asset worth millions and growing.


Voulgaris also was asked to invest in Full Tilt in '04 and met with Lederer and Bitar. He ended up declining to buy 2%-3% because the cost was already marked up well over what it cost the original investors and he was uncomfortable with Bitar. Even after Black Friday, he expressed regret about that decision as he estimated that it cost him $10-$12 million, even at the marked up price.

So in '05, it's even possible that Voulgaris would have preferred that Lindgren continue to get stuck if it meant he could get 1% of a company that he wanted to be involved in, but didn't want to pay premium for. He may have viewed it as win/win. He either gets paid back, or he gets a piece of a company he already wanted a part of. Lindgren owned I believe somewhere in the 2-3% range.

[JimmyG_415]

I'm reading it that haralabob was an owner of WS. (not sure the %, and not sure how not to use OL and WS, sorry, lol)
OL agreed to buy WS.
Erick lost the cash to OL and didn't pay, on haralabob's referral.
The owner of OL, then tried to use this to get out of buying WS,

Then it sounded to me like this was such a small percentage of the overall sale, OR the US was finally cracking down on the payment processors. So it would be stupid not to just eat Erick's debt to get whatever cash he could and get be rid of WS forever.

Okay, I think you understood it a little better than I did.

But I thought that the story seemed to imply that Haralabob only owned a small part of WS, therefore making Erick's debt possibly worth more than his part in the company?

That's what I don't get.

Maybe he owned a big piece of WS and was playing it down.

"in 2000 (after my Laker series bet) I invested in a startup sportsbook (WS) and ended up doing a lot of work for them. in 2003 the legal climate had changed considerably and the owners and investors of the company all wanted to sell."


OK, I thought he owned more of a percentage than he looks like he did.
So there is no percentage or dollar amount mentioned, but they had to sell regardless, because payment processing was no longer a gray area.
So getting out of this (now illegal) enterprise and getting paid would be good. Even if he had to take on Erick's debt, it was still worth it. Plus Erick promised he was not bailing on the debt.

[Hockey Guy]

All this shit happened in 2004-2005 long before there was any disbursements(250K/month for Lindgren's) being paid by FTP. Disbursements didn't happen until 2007 if my memory serves me correctly from the Lederer Files.

Well, HV said this:


In March of 2005 I went to Erick and asked him what he intended to do about paying off his debt to (OL). FTP was taking off and doing extremely well and some people thought that 1 share of FTP was worth about what Erick owed, possibly more.

Erick told me that he would have the debt paid off in one year, and if he didn't then he'd sell a share (or I would take ownership of that share). I asked him point blank if he intended on paying or not, to be honest I had tired of being caught in the middle of (OL) and his deal to purchase (WS). I had also tired of dealing with (OL) specifically as he was being abnormally difficult.




That pretty clearly indicates that HV thought he was fully capable of covering the debt, hence why he likely felt comfortable that there wouldn't be a default. Regardless of when the disbursements started, the kid held a major asset worth millions and growing.


Voulgaris also was asked to invest in Full Tilt in '04 and met with Lederer and Bitar. He ended up declining to buy 2%-3% because the cost was already marked up well over what it cost the original investors and he was uncomfortable with Bitar. Even after Black Friday, he expressed regret about that decision as he estimated that it cost him $10-$12 million, even at the marked up price.

So in '05, it's even possible that Voulgaris would have preferred that Lindgren continue to get stuck if it meant he could get 1% of a company that he wanted to be involved in, but didn't want to pay premium for. He may have viewed it as win/win. He either gets paid back, or he gets a piece of a company he already wanted a part of. Lindgren owned I believe somewhere in the 2-3% range.

Okay, I gotcha. I thought you meant because he was receiving monies from FTP as disbursements. You're saying he appeared to have some decent collateral & I agree.

Even saying this, HV couldn't have felt too good since it seems EL had already leveraged some of his stake in FTP(1%) as collateral for other gambling debts. This was all happening when he was the WPT player of the year & hottest player on the tournament circuit & should have had money coming out the ying yang. Alarm bells should have been going off & I believe they were.

There's more to this story than what HV posted on 2+2.

[snake_in_the_ass]

the name of Haralabos Voulgaris sportsbook was wagerstreet.com

that is why he used the (WS) in that 2+2 post. His alias was Bob Sugare (Director WagerStreet.com)

[snake_in_the_ass]

and they were bought by Olympic which = (OL) from 2+2 post
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/05/prweb236395.htm
The Greek bought out Olympic

[Dan Druff]

Thanks, that totally makes sense.

I knew that "OL" sounded familiar.

LOL @ lame abbreviations that basically give away what books he's talking about if you know the industry well.

[BeerAndPoker]

Lindgren sighting. He's playing the WPT World Championship at the Bellagio.

Currently at the time of typing this he is 16 out of 17 left and 15 spots pay with first over $1.1 mil.

http://www.worldpokertour.com/Live_U...g_List.aspx?q=

Is E-Dog on his way to paying people back? I'd say:

[Dan Druff]

Looks like he is going to be the bubble boy, and his chances of winning at this point are tiny.

But what about Chino?! He is the chip leader!

Does he pay people if he wins?

[Dan Druff]

BUMP

Confirmed Erick and Erica divorced, in February 2014:

[BeerAndPoker]

I wonder who Erica is sleeping with now?

If I had to guess Eric's debts put a damper on their relationship.

They do have at least one child together.