Mention the name of former payment processor Daniel Tzvetkoff (33) in online poker circles and you’re likely to get negative responses on the young entrepreneur who built the Intabill group, reportedly accrued a personal fortune of A$87 million…and then saw it all destroyed in 2010 when he was arrested by the FBI on an ill-advised visit to Las Vegas (see previous InfoPowa reports).
He subsequently turned state’s evidence, ensuring a lighter punishment on a slew of charges that included illegally processing hundreds of millions of dollars in online gambling transactions, and it is widely believed that his assistance to the FBI played a key role in events that led to the demise or exit from the US market on Black Friday of three major online poker groups in April 2011.
In what it claims is his first interview since his release and return to Australia, the newspaper Courier Mail this week carried an extensive interview with Tzvetkoff – now apparently a reformed man with more regard for building an enterprise than the flashy houses, boats and cars for which he was once infamous.
Contrary to popular belief that he had millions squirrelled away, Tzvetkoff claims that he lost everything but discovered a better approach to life, leading to his new enterprise Stacked Farm, a hydroponic vegetable, herb and flower farming company located in a Gold Coast industrial warehouse.
Set up at a cost of under A$100,000 with a 30 percent partner and start-up help from his family, Tzvetkoff grows 25 different products for sale to local restaurants and shops. It’s a simpler but more satisfying life for him, his wife and two young children.
“I think my priorities have changed a lot,” he said, noting that Intabill had been a good learning curve that taught him exactly what not to do again.
The interview is extensive and covers much of the Intabill debacle – it can be accessed here: