For the last two weeks, the poker world has been on edge, especially the American players, who have suffered greatly from the complete shutdown of Full Tilt Poker due to the legal proceedings by the United States government against the site. Since the Alderney Gaming Control Commission revoked the Full Tilt license, only to be followed shortly by French licensing group Arjel doing the same, things have looked bad for the site, which was formerly one of the top three online poker sites. Due to a mysterious group of still as of yet unnamed European investors, however, things may have turned a corner for Full Tilt.
According to Jeff Ifrah, a lawyer for Full Tilt Poker, the investors have already entered into discussion with both the AGCC and Arjel and are likely to reach a settlement with the United States Department of Justice as well.
The deal with the European investors, he says, is centered around the idea of paying back the players who have had money frozen in their Full Tilt Poker accounts, which means that Full Tilt is hoping to get the class action lawsuit that has been filed against them by disgruntled US players dropped. He further goes on to assert that the interested parties are not one of Full Tilt’s competitors, sweeping in to save the day and get a larger margin of the market, but a team of individuals from the financial sector who are new to e-gaming but see it as a lucrative investment.
Rumours abound about the potential purchase of Full Tilt Poker, and it’s hard for the public to sort out what is and isn’t true. One news source reported that Ray Bitar had been removed from his position as CEO of Full Tilt, a rumour which ruined his day when he came in to work and read the (untrue) news. The FTP lawyer denied this rumour outright.
Because of Black Friday, which severely impacted two businesses that not only do a lot of business world-wide but are also located within the purview of UK legislation, we can expect some changes to UK online gambling legislation to come out of all of this chaos. Online poker is particularly hard to legislate, due to its ability to cross borders and the tendency of many operators to try to find loopholes in the payment/access methods, such as e-wallets and proxy servers. The United Kingdom’s legislative and regulatory bodies are reconsidering their previous stance of letting overseas companies run rampant, as the tactic of trusting local authorities to successfully regulate the companies within their jurisdiction has severely backfired.
Since Black Friday caused the majority of American poker players to lose their online places and therefore sponsorships, the majority of players from the United States who are taking part in this year’s World Series of Poker have come without patches demonstrating their loyalties and backers; Full Tilt patches, which in previous years were omnipresent, are nowhere to be seen now. Full Tilt Pro Phil Ivey is sitting out this year’s WSOP in protest, due to the event’s associations with Full Tilt.