My letter to ESPN regarding the Dutch Boyd/PokerSpot.com issue

[olivert]

After 3 years of ignoring this issue, I believe it is time for me to apply a little bit of pressure on ESPN regarding the Dutch Boyd/PokerSpot.com issue.

I sent the following letter to ESPN's WSOP Executive Producer on July 2 and cc:ed several "heavy hitters" at ESPN as well.

--

ATTN: Matt Maranz, Executive Producer
441 Productions
New York, New York

Dear Matt:

Controversial poker pro Russell "Dutch" Boyd has made the ESPN TV final
table of the $2500 6-Handed No Limit Hold'em World Series of Poker
(WSOP) event on Sunday July 2 with a substantial chip lead.



While ESPN Original Entertainment (EOE)/441 Productions had always glorified
Mr. Boyd as the leader of the "Crew", many people, including myself, have
been disappointed that EOE/441 had ignored Mr. Boyd's checkered past in all
past episodes of the WSOP on ESPN
in 2003, 2004, and 2005.



During the Dot-Com era of the late 1990's, Mr. Boyd ran a startup
online poker business PokerSpot.com which failed miserably.



Mr. Boyd commingled the deposits of online poker players with operating
funds of PokerSpot.com.

Ultimately, PokerSpot.com was unable to honor
fund withdrawal requests before Mr. Boyd shut down PokerSpot.com, leaving
many online poker players with substantial losses of their poker bankrolls.



In several interviews with smaller online poker websites since PokerSpot.com
failed, Mr. Boyd had indicated that he would
refund those players' deposits if he were ever in a finacial position to
do so.



Needless to say, many players in the internet poker community are still very
skeptical of Mr. Boyd's claim given that Mr. Boyd had never
refunded a single penny to PokerSpot.com customers who lost
their deposits despite Mr. Boyd's recent success as a tournament poker pro
starting with his 12th place
finish at the 2003 WSOP Main Event.



While Mr. Boyd is under no legal obligation to issue refunds to
PokerSpot.com customers in the US because PokerSpot.com was located
offshore, another poker pro who was involved in a similar situation, the
legendary Doyle Brunson, used his own personal funds to refund customer
deposits of a failed online poker room
which he had endorsed.



I would like to know what, if anything, EOE/441 Productions will do
to address the Dutch Boyd/PokerSpot.com issue in the WSOP
episode that is scheduled to air on October 10.



Thank you.



Oliver Tse
Contributing Poker Business Reporter, PokerBiz411.com
olivert@oliver-tse.com


cc: George Tobias, Editor-in-chief, PokerBiz411.com
Jamie Horowitz, Supervising Producer, ESPN Original Entertainment
George Solomon, Ombudsman, ESPN
Bob Ley, Host, ESPN Outside The Lines

[Nick B.]

You should also have mentioned how somebody wanted to buy pokerspot which would have given dutch an opportunity to refund all the players, but he refused to do so cause he didn't want to give up the software.

[Honest Iago]

A semi Dutch Boyd apologist told me that part of the problem was that the Poker Spot deposits were in a bank in the Balkans which collapsed. Is there any truth to this?

[tptbatsk1]

Unfortunately I think ESPN will bury their collective heads in the proverbial sand(cliches are cool!). This is a case where Scamboyd should pay up. His ego is too big and sorry to say I'm sure that this is all "in the past" as far as he is concerned. Scamboyd should be hung by his balls if he doesn't take care of his obligations.

[Jack Bando]

Should they mention this? Yes. Will they? I highly doubt it. They probably see Boyd and "the crew" as a marketable group that the 21 year old will see and try to emulate. Making them look bad by disclosing ScamBoyd's douchebaggery probably won't help them, so why would they?

[Willy]

He started a business. It failed. You lose. So whats so strange as to be newsworthy?

[NickMPK]

People who invest in start-ups know there are risks involved; I would think that poker players would be particularly aware of these risks.

Is it really fair to say that Boyd "scammed" players? That makes it sound like he intended on stealing their money from the outset. It sounds like his business failed, perhaps due to his incompetence, but not due to any desire to cheat his players. I'm sure there are many things he could have done to make the enterprise more successful, and you can criticize his business sense, but I don't see any criminal motive here.

If you really think this was a scam, send this letter to Congress and maybe they will try to do something about it. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[david050173]

[ QUOTE ]

People who invest in start-ups know there are risks involved; I would think that poker players would be particularly aware of these risks.

Is it really fair to say that Boyd "scammed" players? That makes it sound like he intended on stealing their money from the outset. It sounds like his business failed, perhaps due to his incompetence, but not due to any desire to cheat his players. I'm sure there are many things he could have done to make the enterprise more successful, and you can criticize his business sense, but I don't see any criminal motive here.

If you really think this was a scam, send this letter to Congress and maybe they will try to do something about it. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you also think employees pension and 401k money shoul dbe available as capital to fund a business? Players money is not capital to fund the business. It never should have been comingled with the bussiness capital. If the bussiness was hosted in the US I am sure he would have faced charges.

[legend42]

[ QUOTE ]
Is it really fair to say that Boyd "scammed" players? That makes it sound like he intended on stealing their money from the outset.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think he intended to steal money from the start, but once it started to go bad, his actions became very sketchy. He deliberately withheld information from his players about the security and recovery of payout funds, in some cases told flat-out lies about it, froze accounts and then encouraged people to re-deposit even after all the payout problems (saying those players would be paid first when the promised funds became available), issued checks that he knew would bounce, etc.

He owed me over $6K that I never received one penny of (I got one check that bounced repeatedly). I think I deposited around $800 there, but spent many hours of "work" at the tables (the 20/40 table there was the softest around). If he was honest about the whole thing while it was going on (or even AFTER it happened) or made any effort to repay the players, then I might not feel cheated. As it is, yes I feel scammed. But I'm way past it at this point, and don't really give a sh*t about the scumbag.

[heater]

[ QUOTE ]
He started a business. It failed. You lose. So whats so strange as to be newsworthy?

[/ QUOTE ]

He was using player's deposits as operating capital. You don't see anything wrong with that?