Gowen files amended complaint against Full Tilt
In the latest development in Clonie Gowen's lawsuit against Full Tilt Poker et al., the pro poker player has filed an amended complaint against the online poker company.
Her amendment follows the defendants' motion to dismiss her lawsuit, and adds two defendants and seven causes of action. It also states additional facts on which her claims are based.
The defendants had sought to have her case dismissed in its entirety, or to have the court order that she amend her complaint to allege additional facts and drop certain existing allegations.
Rather than filing an opposition to the defendants' motion to dismiss, Gowen's attorneys elected instead to simply file the amended complaint, which they were allowed to do as a matter of right without the court's permission.
Gowen is suing Full Tilt Poker, its related companies, its CEO/CFO Raymond Bitar and 13 individual members of Team Full Tilt.
She claims that the defendants breached their agreement to pay her 1% of Full Tilt's profits in exchange for her agreement to become a member of Team Full Tilt and a "celebrity representative, promoter and spokesperson" for the Full Tilt brand.
Key phone call
Although the nature of the lawsuit remains the same, in order to address the defendants' argument that her allegations were not specific enough in her original complaint, Gowen has added some details surrounding the February 2004 telephone conversation she had with Bitar.
It was during that conversation, Gowen claims, that Bitar entered into the agreement at issue. Gowen asserts there was not much in the way of negotiations during that call - Bitar made the offer and she accepted.
Finally, Gowen alleges that Bitar made this agreement not only on behalf of Full Tilt, but of the other defendants as well.
Gowen also added new claims for an accounting, promissory estoppel, specific performance, declaratory relief, right of publicity, quantum meruit and negligent misrepresentation.
She also continues to maintain her "minority oppression" claim - which refers to a breach of fiduciary action brought by a minority shareholder against the majority - against the other members of Team Full Tilt.
Gowen also tinkered with the amended complaint to include additional legal elements, such as alleging that the defendants had superior knowledge of the companies and that Gowen placed her trust in them and relied on their statements to her.
Pocket Kings, Tiltproof added as defendants
Rounding out her changes, Gowen added Pocket Kings Consulting and Tiltproof as defendants. Pocket Kings Consulting is alleged to be a subsidiary of Tiltware that performs the same services as Tiltware and Full Tilt Poker. Tiltproof is claimed to be the customer support center for Full Tilt as well as the processor of all financial transactions for the companies.
Gowen continues to assert claims against individual members of Team Full Tilt Howard Lederer, Andy Bloch, Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, John Juanda, Phil Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman, Mike Matusow, Allen Cunningham, Gus Hansen and Patrik Antonius.
Gowen's amended complaint does not address some of the issues raised in the Full Tilt defendants' motion to dismiss.
She does not make any specific allegations against the individually named defendants, other than Lederer, except to state that the remaining individual defendants were directors and shareholder members of the Full Tilt companies and that all actions taken by Full Tilt were done with their authorization and consent.
The defendants have another 30 days to file their response to Gowen's amended complaint. That response can be either an Answer or another motion to dismiss.
Based upon the allegations made by Gowen concerning the purported breach of contract, however, it is unlikely a court would dismiss the case in its entirety.
As the case proceeds beyond this first stage, the pleading phase, it moves to the discovery phase, where both parties will take depositions, ask written questions (interrogatories) and request documents which will reveal many more details of this dispute. Stay tuned.
Related Articles:
- Defendants file motion to dismiss Gowen suit
- Gowen vs. Full Tilt: Next steps
- Clonie Gowen files suit against Full Tilt
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Comments
11Michael Dea
2011-04-03There so called collection agency on our deposits into our Poker accounts had fallen behind on collecting the money from are banks, Anyway 2 months later they started to apply those deposits to my Bank and I noticed they were charging me at least I counted a half a dozen extra charges to my bank that I did not make or in anyway request them, I sent them several E-mails asking them if they would Please investgate on what could of happen with those extra charges, They refuse to respond and on top of it I tried to log-in to remove all my information in my Personnel file, Name, Address, E-mail, and most important my Bank Account number, They shut me down from logging in. What can I do?
kelly
2010-11-11my account was closed and i lost my whole bankroll, but iam welcome to open a new one
cant get a reply by email, and they have no live support or phone number. just take it up the u know what, cant do nothing. FULTILT IS A SCAMMER SITE THEY WILL TAKE YOUR MONEY. AVOID FULTILT, TRY TO CASH OUT BEFORE IT HAPPENS TO YOU!!!
mingolou
2010-06-14I have a few interesting fact. I am by profession a mathematician. If you are in a hand and have a pocket pair the probability of at least 2 other pocket pairs in the same hand is 87%. Of the pocket pairs the highest hand will win 3% of the time. The lowest pocket pair will win 68% of the time. This is happening 93% of the time so next time you are playing remember this comment and you will be amazed as I have been for the past 2 years. Happy pokering.
YaRight
2010-05-13But seriously...do any of you believe FT is actually poker? If you do then you deserve to have your money taken from you. You will never see the kind of bad beats and crazy hands in a real life. Not at your friend's house, not at the casino, I mean yes the hands will come but nowhere near the frequency they do on FT. Most casinos have jackpots for bad beats, but not FT. That would take some of their earnings from them. they could never let that happen...
Do you not know that they have players and software that can see the cards at the table? Most people say "why would they do that on any table but high dollar tables?" If you think it through, you begin to understand that getting a live cheating person on a simple dollar table is not that hard to do if you set up shop where you can pay people $4/hr. or less. They can play a minimum of twenty tables per hour. That is a lot of money and easily covers all of the overhead with a very nice profit for the dishonest corporation.
Don't be fooled, FT is a scam from start to finish, you may win a table here or there but all of your accounts save a select few will slowly have their money taken from them. I am a pro and I do very well outside of FT and I have kept my account at about the same amount I opened it with. I can play my very best poker and still not increase it much...
Ever tried to take money out? Good luck! Join the plethora of people I have talked with personally, other professional poker players and they gave up on FT long ago. Sorry, but if you want to play poker don' play online. I know poker is fun but when you can't learn and play fairly and your money is basically being stolen what is the point?
Rush games and Steps are just two new ways to scam you faster. Do the math, look at the odds and winnings through the Steps process. Then look at how many people win and how much they get paid at the end. Huge huge scam!!! It puts so much money in the pockets of the FT stakeholders it is almost a chargeable theft.
The only thing I can suggest is play real poker with a shuffled and not-stacked deck so you can actually learn the game of poker, not just how to play on a specific system, because they are very different. Do your own research or throw your money away, it is up to you.
Look at these people above in the comments who are fighting so hard to sway your opinion in the favor of FT. They have a team of low paid people who go out and try to dispel any rumors about their company.
These are facts and the day of reckoning is soon approaching. I will be interested to see what my colleagues do when the dung hits the fan. I will bet they will claim ignorance but do not be fooled. They have the knowledge and they collect a part of your winnings. If you are going to be a spokesperson you have no excuse for not understanding the product you support. There will be no excuses. I turned FT down because I had been playing on their software and I could clearly see it for what it is.
teresa fritts
2009-11-09I too will never use Full Tilt Poker again. As long as you play and you don't win its okay. Once you win, its all over. When I tried to cash in my winnings (not much), my account was deleted. I sent emails asking for an explanation. I have never received an explanation of why my account was deleted.
I did receive a reply stating, to claim my winnings I had to send a
A) Photo copy of my drivers license with date of birth, issue & expiry.
B) Copy of front of my credit card.
C) Copy of bank statement showing transaction to full tilt poker.
I replied by letting them know that under no circumstances would I ever copy my personal information and send it on line to anyone. My drivers license has my SS# and home address on it. My credit card has the entire card number on the front of the card. The bank statement has the name of the bank and their address on it. They must think I'm stupid.
I finished by explaining that I have always paid my account with my credit card at the end of the month. They have never had a problem with me paying them. The problem started when I wanted to cash my winnings in. My opinion is this is a con and they will take advantage of as many people as they can before their gig is up.
I wonder how much all of my personal information would have made them!!!!
Be careful of this site!!!!!!
edward
2009-10-08i challenge u to look at my hand history and tell me that that many bad beats are possible i would like all the money i put on full tilt pokerback i dont care if i get banned from all poker sites i know that it is not possible to resieve that many bad beats in a row if i called heads in a coin toss 100 times this poker site basickly tells me i would loose 100 times in arow wich is highly impossible if this poker site isnt a rigged site send me the program that u wrote for this site if not then give me my money back u r rip off artist without any consiquences i under stand that i see twice as many hands plying online than in live action games but evan with that siad it is impossable to be beat on the rier that many times so send me my money back and make it impossible to ever get on any poker site ever again
John
2009-09-25First of all Full Tilt is a business. Business are around to make money any way they "legally" can. Second there is no such thing as randomness in computer programming which is why there are algorithms. Third there are no laws concerning poker algorithms. These three things can make lots of money for businesses who are not moral. Why should they be moral when greed is much easier?
Daniel Bailey
2009-05-29Full Tilt Poker stole 200 dollars from my account! I asked them to send me a spread sheet, showing where all my money went to , and what tournaments they went to! They can't even prove where the money went. They want me to take their word for it. This is very rude, on their part. They will not even attempt to show me where 200 dollars went. I keep getting the run around! They have called me ignorant, i have saved every e-mail they sent. Yet the will not prove to me where the money went! I am going to e-mail the news stations. Since they can't prove their case, i will do it for them! It is going to cost them alot more money, once i expose their corrupt ways. I have asked time and time again for them to prove to me where my money went and which tournaments the money went, yet they can't do it. I am tired of being put off, cuz they made an error. I am not going to lay back and let them take advantage of me! i have much more proof i could show, but i will save that for the news stations. I want this website shut down, for disrespecting me. This is no threat, this is a promise. i will do whatever it take to shut down full tilt website- GUARATEED!
Good for Clonie
2009-05-04Dear KC,
That is what you took out of Mr. Wade's comments? You cherry pick that one items when Full Tilt has behaved so dishonestly. Well, it is easy to see what side your bread is buttered on. Why don't you focus on the issue of Ms. Gowen getting screwed out of her money, reputation, etc.
Why don't you fill us in as to your position or interest with FTP? True evil is knowing that something is wrong and convincing yourself it is justified.
KC
2009-05-03Mr. Wade,
Exactly how did Full Tilt steal your money? Those are pretty strong allegations. I assume you have some sort of proof that it was Full Tilt that stole your money and not just poor poker playing. Please fill us in as I'm interested to hear this.
KC
Roy Wade
2009-04-10I have no doubts that FullTilt Poker did try to cheat Ms Gowen and that her so called friends are right in the middle.
Why else would these poker players turn them selves into walking billboards for these poker sites? Not for the love of the game but for the love of their money!
I use to think theses poker players on the fulltilt team were honest., now I know they are part of a larger scheme to cheat the average poker players who are just out to play the game and not be steered to a site that will steal their money!
Shame out you guys ( TEAM FULLTILT ) you have ruined the game of poker and brought shame on your selves!
You are nothing but salesmen to the site that pays you the most money for your name so they can cheat hard working men and women out of their hard earned money.
This Is the way I see the whole shamefull thing!!!!!!!
Roy Wade