Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson settled his civil case related to the indictments from Black Friday. The main dollar figure related to the settlement is that Ferguson has 30 days to pay $2.35 million. This is a far cry from the $42 million that the DOJ was originally seeking, along with civil money laundering charges.
Ferguson was not included in the original Black Friday charges by the DOJ against Full Tilt poker, but rather he and Howard Lederer were added to the charges about 5 months later in May of 2025. Although the $2.35 million isn’t close to the original $42 million, he does have to surrender the ‘Ferguson Bank Account’ which could have untold millions.
Here are the main details of what Ferguson has agreed to:
- Pay the DOJ $2.35 million dollars
- Surrended an undisclosed amount from a Citibank Account, referred to as the ‘Ferguson Account’
- Not be employed by any US gambling site that isn’t licensed (basically don’t break the law again)
- Not to seek compensation for the $14 million that he claims Full Tilt still owes him
The settlement for Ferguson comes a couple months after his fellow board members Rafe Furst and Howard Lederer settled back in May and May respectably. Considering that Ferguson was apparently earning close to $10 million per month prior to the Black Friday indictment, it appears that he’s getting off pretty lightly (unless all those funds are in his Citibank account). Also consider that ex-CEO of Full Tilt Raymond Bitar is still being held by the DOJ and is also facing criminal charges. It looks like the DOJ didn’t want to make an example of the Full Tilt pros.
The full legal documents that were released on February 19th, 2025 can be found here. A few quotes of interest that we picked out were that: Ferguson contends that he was unaware of any wrongful activity at Full Tilt or that the company had become unable to satisfy its player account liabilities;. It is also interesting that in the legal document where it outlines Ferguson cannot work for an illegal gambling operation that Ferguson made a specific point that he believes Poker is not illegal.
While Ferguson maintains that poker does not constitute gambling, Ferguson specifically agrees not to work for, or derive money from, either directly or indirectly, any business offering internet poker in the United States without such business having first obtained the appropriate authorization, as necessary, from all relevant governmental regulatory authorities in United States.
This closes another chapter for one of the indicted individuals from Black Friday. Although poker players will probably read this with some interest or anger, there’s no doubt that American poker players cannot wait until the day that they are refunded the balances that they are entitled too.
