2011 September |

Archive for September, 2011

New Hearing Scheduled for Full Tilt Poker

Saturday, September 10th, 2011

The Alderney Gambling Control Commission announced that it has rescheduled a hearing for Full Tilt Poker, with the new date being September 19th. Besides being four days later than the previously decided-upon date, the new hearing will be held at a different agenda – the Riverbank Park Plaza Hotel on the Albert Embankment in London. The reason for the change of venue, said the AGCC, is because it would be able to accommodate more interested parties – leading to higher expectations that the hearing will be open to the public, as the previous one was supposed to be, and not behind closed doors as demanded by Full Tilt’s legal team in the last hearing.

A hearing scheduled for July 26th was meant to enable representatives of Full Tilt Poker to explain to the AGCC why it could not pay back its players since an FBI indictment against 11 executives in the online poker industry. The Commission wants Full Tilt to prove that it can protect its player’s funds and pay them out under any circumstances – something that the poker room has been unable to do.

Full Tilt was hoping that by the time the rescheduled hearing’s date came up, it would have good news regarding an acquisition deal, which would have allowed it to start paying back its players. Unfortunately, nothing concrete has happened between July and now, and analysts believe that the Alderney Gambling Control Commission will not be so quick to re-license the online poker room.

Full Tilt will have to come to the new hearing with better news and a full explanation of how it plans to pay back the millions owed to its players. If not, the chances of the group receiving an operating license by the AGCC are slim.

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Full Tilt Poker Releases New Statement

Tuesday, September 6th, 2011

Full Tilt Poker released a new statement to the industry this week, detailing why it has been unable – since April – to pay its members the millions of dollars owed to them. This is the most detailed statement issued by the beleaguered online poker room since Black Friday, when the US Department of Justice seized its domain name.

In the statement, the online poker room blamed the government for seizing its funds repeatedly over the years.

“As is obvious from the events that have transpired since April 15th, Full Tilt Poker was not prepared for the far-reaching, US government enforcement effort of Black Friday. Full Tilt Poker never anticipated that the DOJ would proceed as it did by seizing our global domain name and shutting down the site worldwide.”

In April, the group managed to reach a deal with the Department of Justice with the objective to help its players access their funds, however this never came to fruition and players are still left frustrated that they haven’t been paid out yet. The group claims that the money seized over the years by the government meant that $115 million was lost. It also claimed that one of its payment processors stole $42 million from the company, leading to more financial woes.

“Until April 15th, Full Tilt Poker had always covered these losses so that no player was ever affected,” said the group. It also said that it had “unprecedented issues with some of its third-party processors that greatly contributed to its financial problems.”

Fill Tilt said that its Dublin heaquarters has received visits from around six investment groups who expressed an interest in investing in the online poker site. It has also hired a financial advisor, not named in the statement, “to assist us in our search for an infusion of cash as well as a new management team to restore the site and repay players.”