Security Fraud at Poker Room

June 8, 2009

Martin Graham Tyson, Sr. and his son Martin, Jr. have found themselves in a whole heap of trouble in Texas. The Tyson’s are the heads of the Marble Falls based Panorama Global Realty Group and are currently facing charges of Securities Fraud based on their online poker business.

The Tyson’s developed an online poker room and their investors say that they were not aware of the risks of the development of the room when they invested. According to the Texas State Securities Board, their investors are angry because they say that they were misled in the creation and operation of the poker site.

The poker room investors say that the men did not notify their investors of an “ongoing civil fraud suit against the company” and that they did not tell them that online poker was basically banned in the United States due to the passage of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, or UIGEA.

The online poker room backers say that they lost almost $300,000 in the scheme and they want their money back. The state says that the men took their investors’ money and didn’t tell them what they were doing with it. Not only that, but they did not actually set up the poker room. They were going to set up a poker room called LetsPoker.com which would give access to US players, but they never actually created the site and put the money into another venture instead.

Their attorney says that they did start the poker room, they just did it before the legislation went through. He says that it was generating revenue, but it had to be shut down.