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Much has been made of the fact that neither Phil "Poison" Ivey, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson nor Howard "The Professor" Lederer has been seen at the World Series of Poker, currently underway in Las Vegas.
The reason for their absence is understood to be their connection to online poker room Full Tilt Poker, which was busted by the Feds in April and had its customers' betting accounts frozen.
Ivey, Ferguson and Lederer are all paid spokesmen for Full Tilt Poker, and are widely believed to be part-owners of the questionably legal online poker room.
They are allegedly avoiding the WSOP this year because they don't want to be publicly confronted by gamblers whose FTP monies have been frozen and who might blame them.
But what about the other well-known poker pros who are paid flacks for Full Tilt and who also may have ownership stakes in the online room?
They've been as abundant at the WSOP as Congressman Wiener wiener photos have been on the Internet.
Gambling911.com went through the statistics for all the tournaments that have been played so far at this year's WSOP, and discovered that at least a half dozen poker pros who serve as Full Tilt Poker paid spokesmen are not only participating in this year's WSOP, they've cashed in at least one tourney already.
The pros in question are Gus "The Great Dane" Hansen, Allen Cunningham, Erik Seidel, Andy Bloch, Mike "The Mouth" Matusow and John Juanda.
Hansen, who's from Denmark but has relocated to Monte Carlo to avoid losing most of his earnings to Danish taxes, finished third in 2011 WSOP Event #2, a heads-up, no-limit Texas hold 'em tournament that had a $25,000 buy-in and 128 entrants.
He earned $283,966 for the finish.
Cunningham, from Las Vegas, finished in 26th place in Event #3, an Omaha tourney that had a $1,500 buy-in and 925 entrants.
He earned $8,191 for the finish.
Seidel, also of Vegas, finished in 32nd place in the event and earned $6,868.
Bloch, from Las Vegas, finished in 14th place in Event #5, a seven-card stud tournament that had a $1,500 buy-in and 357 entrants.
He earned $5,561 for the finish.
Matusow, from Las Vegas, finished in 20th place in Event #7, a pot-limit Texas hold 'em tourney that had a $10,000 buy-in and 249 entrants.
He earned $20,129 for the finish.
Juanda, originally from Indonesia but now a resident of Marina Del Rey, California, USA, won Event #16, a lowball tourney that had a $10,000 buy-in and 126 entrants.
He earned $367,170 for the win.
Ivey, Ferguson and Lederer are believed to be significant co-owners of Full Tilt Poker, each owning as much as 5 or 10% of the company.
The lesser pros flacking the room are believed to own 1 or 2% of the company.
By Tom Somach
Gambling911.com Staff Writer
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