Since it opened in June 2004, Full Tilt has been the online poker site of choice for thousands of budding poker players and professionals alike. Its excellent software, vibrant graphics, and innovative games made it extremely popular with players around the world.
When it first launched, Full Tilt Poker US customers were welcomed with open arms and they flocked to the site in droves for the reasons stated above, but also because the company was fronted by the likes of Howard Lederer, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Mike Matusow, and Phil Ivey, all of whom had become household names due to televised poker shows.
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At Full Tilt Poker, USA residents could do exactly what the sites tagline suggested, “Learn, Chat and Play with the Pros,” and they did in massive numbers, helping to propel Full Tilt to. Once one of the largest and most popular online poker sites, Full Tilt was a place to play real money poker games, owned by professional poker players. The brand was an inescapable presence in the poker industry during it’s heyday from 2004-2011.
At Full Tilt Poker, USA residents could do exactly what the sites tagline suggested, “Learn, Chat and Play with the Pros,” and they did in massive numbers, helping to propel Full Tilt to second place in terms of real money cash game players, trailing only the mighty PokerStars in regards to traffic. Business was booming, tournament prize pools were swelling, and everything was rosy.
Then came what is known in the poker industry as “Black Friday.” Aptly, on Friday 13 October, 2006, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIEGA) came into force, which essentially made it illegal for banks and other financial institutions to process payments to gambling websites offering their services to residents of the United States.
While some online poker sites, such as partypoker, immediately withdrew from the U.S, others like PokerStars and Full Tilt continued to operate on American soil. It was a decision that paid off handsomely for PokerStars, but it was the beginning of the end for Full Tilt.
Poker sites had to be creative in order to process payments, thinking outside of the box for ways to have their players deposit and withdraw funds from the site. Unfortunately for Full Tilt Poker, US payment providers proved troublesome, which combined with some serious mismanagement by Full Tilt’s backroom staff, resulted in a huge black hole of funds.
Full Tilt continued to credit players’ account with the amounts they had attempted to deposit, but sometimes never received those funds from the payment provider. Its management team continued to do this for quite a length of time until the problem came to light and a figure of $300 million in “lost” funds was made public. This $300 million figure was what the American Department of Justice (DOJ) claimed Full Tilt had defrauded out of its customers, although former owner Chris Ferguson’s lawyer suggested the issue was most likely the result of mismanagement and not malice.
Full Tilt Poker Online Chat
After the wheels fell off Full Tilt Poker, USA customers could no longer play on the once thriving site, in fact nobody could because Full Tilt was taken offline, seemingly lost forever, along with hundreds of millions of Full Tilt customers’ money.
US Players And Full Tilt Poker In 2015
This remained the case until July 2012 when the DOJ and PokerStars reached an agreement that saw PokerStars pay the DOJ $225 million up front and a total of $547 million. PokerStars also made $184 million available to refund all non-U.S. players within 90-days of signing the deal. Full Tilt Poker US customers are still to this day receiving their fund back from the DOJ, despite PokerStars making their balances available immediately.
On Tuesday 6 November, 2012, Full Tilt relaunched its real money operations, although Full Tilt USA was no more, the door slammed shut on them, just as it had for PokerStars’ American customers.
To this day, Full Tilt Poker US operations are non-existent, but that could be all set to change because PokerStars reentered the U.S. market on Wednesday 16 March, 2016 with a soft-launch, albeit only in the state of New Jersey. PokerStars has spent heavily in lobbying for other states to allow online poker, which if successful, could open the gates for a return of Full Tilt Poker US.
However, a full return of the original Full Tilt USA friendly site is actually unlikely because in February 2016, PokerStars announced its intentions to merge Full Tilt and PokerStars traffic during the Spring of 2016.
Although Full Tilt Poker US is no more, there are a number of alternatives for Americans wanting to play online poker in the USA. Currently, players can choose to head to 888poker, partypoker, PokerStars, and WSOP when they are in New Jersey, or WSOP.com when in the state of Nevada.
In short, Americans cannot play at Full Tilt unless they are prepared to move to a country where Full Tilt currently operates.
It’s about time
For the last several years, Full Tilt Poker has been like Dr. Malcolm Crow in The Sixth Sense, an online poker room that didn’t know it was really dead. On Thursday, finally, the once-great poker site will stop wandering aimlessly, a ghost with no home, and accept that it passed away years ago. PokerStars has announced that Full Tilt will be no more.
As Full Tilt has been part of the PokerStars network since 2016, not much will change for the few people who still played on Full Tilt, aside from the cosmetic look of the site. Their accounts will be automatically transferred to PokerStars, including account balances and preferences. In fact, Full Tilt Poker players already had the ability to login to PokerStars using their Full Tilt credentials if they so desired. They will just be forced to do so started February 25 and that Full Tilt login info will officially be PokerStars login info.
Explaining why it is doing this, PokerStars explained in a FAQ on its website:
Our commitment to improving PokerStars software and the PokerStars customer experience in recent years has limited the amount of focus and resources we could apply to the evolution of Full Tilt. We feel it is time to consolidate brands so that everyone has access to the newest features and most innovative games which are available exclusively on PokerStars.
This was a long time coming, but it makes sense. In fact, it is surprising it didn’t happen earlier. The Full Tilt Poker name can’t have much value anymore and not only was it just a skin of PokerStars, it was operated by the company, so it’s not like an affiliate or other operator provided any benefit or marketing dollars.
Full Tilt used to be the belle of the ball
As readers of this site likely very well know, Full Tilt Poker, founded in 2004, was once one of the behemoths of the industry. It was unique when it launched, as it had fast software with bright, cartoony avatars, and was founded by well-known poker pros. It’s slogan, “Learn, Chat and Play with the Pros,” was quite true – the first time I played on the site, I played in a micro-stakes game with Perry Friedman, who was very nice to all of us noobs.
The site developed into the place to watch pros play and became famous for the nose bleed stakes cash games. When multitudes of poker rooms left the US market after the passage of the UIGEA in late 2006, Full Tilt jumped in stature even more, as it stayed in the market, along with PokerStars, UltimateBet, and Absolute Poker.
Full Tilt never got as large as its arch rival PokerStars, but it in its heyday, it was a very strong second.
A site that will live in infamy
But then Black Friday came along on April 15, 2011, when indictments were unsealed against principals from the aforementioned poker rooms, charging them with money laundering, fraud, and other violations related to the UIGEA. UltimateBet and Absolute Poker disappeared completely, making off with players’ money.
Full Tilt, though, was weird. When the feds froze the site’s accounts, it was discovered that Full Tilt did not have enough money to give players their deposits. There were two main problems. First, because Full Tilt was skirting the law, it was using a network of payment processors to avoid having its payments to customers detected. Millions upon millions of dollars ended up frozen/seized in between Full Tilt and the payment processors and the payment processors and customers. Second, and this is what really did in Full Tilt Poker and making it a shameful example of what can happen with no regulation, it was found out that executives, including Chris Ferguson and Howard Lederer, took millions in payments from the company, using player funds. Thus, when the money flow stopped, Full Tilt was underwater and couldn’t pay players back.
Full Tilt Poker Online Chat Sites
Fortunately, PokerStars came to the rescue. In its whopping three-quarters of a billion dollar settlement with the US Department of Justice, PokerStars agreed to acquire Full Tilt’s assets and make its customers whole. The process took years, but most players did get paid back.
Full Tilt Poker Table
PokerStars operated Full Tilt as a separate poker site at first, but players had little desire to return, so it made Full Tilt a PokerStars skin in the spring of 2016. Since then, most poker players didn’t even know Full Tilt still existed.
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