Discussing Red Pro Deals with Poker Agent Nick Ferro

We haven't heard much at all from the Red Pros at Full Tilt Poker this week, so we caught up with a poker agent who negotiated a lot of sponsorship deals with Full Tilt Poker to discuss this week's developments.

Team Full Tilt

In the aftermath of the latest developments in the Full Tilt Poker story, a lot of the sites stable of 'Red Pros' have remained particularly tight-lipped about this week's news.

This week we caught up with Nick Ferro, a poker agent with Check Raise Management, who has negotiated Red Pro deals with several players including James Bord, Andrew Feldman, and Roberto Romanello.

Ferro shares his thoughts on working with Full Tilt management and the rumours surrounding them:

"I expected contracts and long meetings, but that never happened."

PokerStrategy.com: Most people would expect negotiating a sponsorship deal between a major poker room, a poker player, and an agent to be quite a complex legal arrangement with lawyers and contracts, was that the case at Full Tilt Poker?

Nick Ferro: Not at all, they operated more like a family and would sign Red Pro deals based on recommendations. When I first did a deal with them I expected contracts and long meetings, but that never happened, most of the negotiations were just outlined in emails. Because I came from a professional background in other industries, it felt very strange.

The reason they gave for this was that they said they only worked with people they trusted and were a very family orientated company - once you stepped out of line, the trust would be broken. It was much more like a gang, a group of like-minded individuals, if you were a good guy, a friend of a friend, and a skilled player, that was it.

PokerStrategy.com: In hindsight do you think this was to reduce a paper trail?

Nick Ferro: At the time, having no paperwork to deal with felt quite good. Being the company they were, you never worried about it. You always got paid on time, they were very generous, and very fair. From our point of view it suited us, there was no red tape.

I'm sure that higher up with the top-end deals there must have been lawyers and contracts, but when a player is snapped up from obscurity and offered $250k a year or 100% rakeback, they are not going to question it. If they were willing to do a deal quickly, you wouldn't question it, you knew they were a cash-rich organization with millions being processed daily.

PokerStrategy.com: Full Tilt Poker had the biggest roster of sponsored players, about 250 just before Black Friday. Did you ever question that this was sustainable with the deals they were all on?

Nick Ferro: Most people know the standard Red Pro deal was 100% rakeback and $30 an hour. On top of that they got a lot of incentives to really push the brand and get exposure. For example, you could expect $3-$5k for every TV episode you made wearing a FTP badge.

Most of the players were contracted to a minimum of 10 hours a week table time. The thing that always surprised me was that you never saw many players, other than the nosebleed players, putting in many more hours than this.

10 hours a week wasn't much, and given what they could make, it seemed odd that you didn't see more of them at the tables. So if everyone was playing as much as they could have, you could have questioned whether it was sustainable, but they never did.

PokerStrategy.com: There was a rumour going around that players could 'buy' a red pro account for $50k, have you ever heard of this?

Nick Ferro: I heard some rumours after Black Friday, but never saw it actually happen.

"The landscape of sponsorship is changing dramatically, I am sick of trying to put a bright spin on it, the fact is it is going to be really tough."

There were over 250 Red Pros before Black Friday

PokerStrategy.com: There are also rumours that some Full Tilt Poker Pros were warned about Black Friday and told to get their money out. Were you aware of this?

Nick Ferro: I have a good feeling that certain people did know, people higher up the food chain. Our pros, and some of the staff and management team at Full Tilt Poker never saw this coming, they had no prior warning.

Our players had roughly $300k between them on the site which has obviously disappeared, so they got very hurt financially.

One thing that I did notice happening just before Black Friday, and I might be being cynical here but it is what makes me think that some people were in the know, is that some players started paying other players money they owed very quickly through Full Tilt Poker.

Lots of players were offloading money on Full Tilt Poker instead of dealing in cash, so the person receiving couldn't withdraw it right away but they knew they had been paid back.

It might be a bad analogy, but it is a bit like when someone in the mafia would borrow money from someone they knew was about to get killed.

PokerStrategy.com: Where does this scandal put poker agencies and sponsorship in the future?

Nick Ferro: The landscape of sponsorship is changing dramatically, I am sick of trying to put a bright spin on it, the fact is it is going to be really tough. I can't see some of the existing agencies carrying on, and those that do will have to find new revenue streams.

There has been so much bad press recently with this and cheating scandals, I think background checks and contracts will be called upon for all future dealings. The agency industry has taken a massive hit, I realised this at the WSOP, it will take a long time for it to recover.

by Barry Carter