Pinnacle Entertainment, which happened to be one of the Epic Poker League’s largest creditors, put in the winning bids for both the heartland Poker Tour (at $4.2 million) as well as for the remaining assets of Federated Sports + Gaming including the Epic Poker League, the Global Poker Index, and roughly 100 domain names (for a$300k credit bid).

A report by WickedChopsPoker.com featured the details of the auction, including the full court documents, and how the auction itself was not without its own controversy (what else could be expected from a company that spent some $24 million in less than a year and only took in about $38,000 total) as a creditors committee filed a complaint claiming that FS+G and the HPT engaged in some pre-bankruptcy shenanigans:

“a creditor’s committee consisting of 441 Productions, Matt Savage, and others are protesting at least the second payment shipped to All In Production (parent company of HPT) for $1M, claiming it was a “fraudulent transfer” (a term of art in bankruptcy law).”

Here is a look at the winning bid per the court documents released by WickedChopsPoker:

“On June 13, 2012, the Debtors conducted the Auction in accordance with the Bid Procedures Order at the office of Debtors’ counsel (the “Auction”). At the conclusion of the Auction, PNK Development 10, LLC’s (“Pinnacle”) $4.2 million bid was selected by the Debtors as the highest and best bid for substantially all of the assets of FHI, excluding causes of action. Pinnacle’s $300,000 credit bid was selected as the highest and otherwise best bid for the FSG assets, excluding causes of action.”

Fallout from the Epic Poker League’s demise is still being felt in the poker community. Annie Duke and Jeffrey Pollack, the driving forces behind the Epic Poker League were paid over $500,000 during their brief tenures with the company, while spending millions of dollars of investors’ money and racking up some $7 million in debt. The two are basically persona-non-gratis in the poker world, and Duke was verbally accosted at the WSOP by poker pro Jason Dewitt. After complaining to WSOP staff about the insults flung her way, Annie found little support from the poker community as virtually everyone applauded DeWitt.

Another factor is the $1,000,000 freeroll the Epic Poker League used to entice players to attend their tournaments. It’s still unclear if the Palms Casino (which partnered with the EPL to host the events) will be on the hook for this tournament pursuant to Nevada gaming laws, or if the players who entered EPL events with the potential $1,000,000 in equity as a deciding factor are simply once again out of luck.

Tags: Annie Duke, Bankruptcy Law, Best Bid, Court Documents, Creditor, Creditors, Debtors, Domain Names, Fallout, Fraudulent Transfer, Hpt, Jeffrey Pollack, Matt Savage, Parent Company, Pinnacle Entertainment, S 300, S Committee, Shenanigans, Sports Gaming, WickedChopsPoker

This entry was posted on Friday, June 15th, 2012 at 11:44 am and is filed under Poker Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.