Venetian CEO Poker Tournament Main Event Furor

[AngusThermopyle]

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As I said in my other post in this thread, I didn't play the CEO. But I'm wondering if any of you who did have emailed the Venetian?


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Or called? Or walked in and talked to some High Mucky-Muck?

[doublejoker]

Why would the Venetian staff take an additional 9% out of this particular tournament and only 3% out of their daily Deep Stack tournaments be reasonable. Also, who gets the write off for the $30,000 donation to the charity?

[Dynasty]

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As I said in my other post in this thread, I didn't play the CEO. But I'm wondering if any of you who did have emailed the Venetian?


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Or called? Or walked in and talked to some High Mucky-Muck?

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I e-mailed Kathy Raymond yesterday and linked this thread.

[UtzChips]

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Mr. Friedman,

I am the President of CEO POKER TOUR, and I can assure you that as required by the Gaming Commission, we do not take a percentage of the buy-in, we are provided a flat fee for holding the event at the Venetian, just like a WPT, or other tournament.

The charity was approved by the Gaming Commission to receive a percentage of the buy-in, and a percentage of the buy-in went to Venetian.

I want to make sure that rumors do not start on the Internet that are not true about CEO POKER TOUR or the Venetian.

The CEO POKER TOUR co. abides by all gaming rules and regulations. We pride ourselves on holding successfull events and try to give back to the players as much as possible.

The charity component raised badly needed funds for the children of Nevada and will help a VERY special group that is not always remembered or considered by many.

I hope that this response addresses your concerns and if you have any additional comments that you would like to send on directly to me please feel free to email ceopokertour@aol.com.

Have a great night.

Maria Gomez
President
CEO POKER TOUR

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Looks like Tony Soprano's relatives have the best when it comes to attorneys.
EXCLAM on hiding it all in fine print!
And keeping it quiet!! You must have put the fear of HELL into your employees to be able to keep that one quiet.

I guess we either not frequent the place, or bring along a magnifying glass. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

Another example of the big fish eating the little ones.
Well done boyz! You've come a long way from Waste Mgt down in FL.

[Spook]

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At the tournament itself. The floorpeople insisted that of the 9% fee the CEO Poker Tour charges 6% for sponsoring the event and that the Venetian takes its standard 3%.

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Awesome. Previous posts were vague, and I just wanted to make sure this wasn't a rumor. If you can remember any floor staff names, that is even better. No need to post them.

[UtzChips]

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Why would the Venetian staff take an additional 9% out of this particular tournament and only 3% out of their daily Deep Stack tournaments be reasonable. Also, who gets the write off for the $30,000 donation to the charity?

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What do you think the chances are that the Venetian and the CEO Poker Tour didn't match the 30k that regular joe's ended up donating to some charity they never heard of?

[OPportunist]

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Subject: charity inquiry
To: info@nvccf.org

Hello, I would like to confirm that a Poker tournament, which claims
to be giving 5% of it's entry fees to your charity, is actually doing
what it says.

It's the CEO Poker Tournament at the Venetian. They seem to have taken
down (from their site) the Word document where they claim 5% of their
tournament fees are going to your charity. But we have copies of it
scattered around. This amount should be somewhere in the $7500-$10000
range.

I would very much appreciate it if you could at least confirm for me
some involvement with CEO Poker on this tournament. There have been
some accusations of shady marketing of this tournament and quite
franky CEO Poker doesn't come off as very credible. So I thought I
would try to confirm with you that they at least did give some money
to charity.

Thanks for your time,

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You have given them a half-baked out here. If they were just scamming the Human Fund cash, expect the charity you emailed to receive a donation in the exact amount you suggest in the next couple of days.

[PokeReader]

I received a reply my PM of Ms. Gomez finally. Essentially it was entirely unsatisfactory, and did not respond to any of the questions posed since her last post. She did state that she had posted about the "missing" structured sheets online, that were changed, but I must have missed that somehow. I suggest if she is indeed so concerned about "rumours" that she post publicly, and continue to do so until she has answered all questions to the satistisfaction of this community.

[KurtSF]

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You have given them a half-baked out here. If they were just scamming the Human Fund cash, expect the charity you emailed to receive a donation in the exact amount you suggest in the next couple of days.

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Also, Maria stated in this thread that the gaming commission "approved" this percentage of the buy in to go to the charity, so even if the charity hasn't heard about it beforehand, the gaming commission should have.

[PokeReader]

My response to Ms. Gomez' PM

Ms. Gomez,
I am confused in that you stated you had posted on the forum to respond to the changes that different indivuduals found when downloading the structure document at different times, however I did not did any post about this from you? Perhaps you intended to post publicly but forgot to? I will I urge to to respond to the questions about the direct passing through of costs of the "site fee" and whether this is indeed the same 6% the players paid. If so, your stating that you were not paid out of the prize pool is a technicality at best. You do not address that most players did not receive a structure sheet at the event, and thus had no chance to learn even about the 5% going to charity, let alone about the additional 9% that you claim went to Venetian staff, when we both know they received 3% and the additional 6% was refunded back to you as a site fee. If players were not advised of this when they signed up, and were in fact advised it was a $2500+100 event, meaning $2500 to the prize pool, and $100 to the event costs, you are legally bound to hold to this contract. I firmly suggest for the future good name of you organization that you post publically on these matters, and continue to post until all this community has been satisfied.

Sincerely,
PokeReader