One Month Left Until Fate of Full Tilt Poker Is Likely Decided

Published on 2011-08-15 19:03:00

One month from today (at the latest), the world will almost certainly know the fate of Full Tilt Poker.

Will the world's second largest online poker site (at least as of June 28th) be resurrected by a still-unnamed "European investor"? Will the site go bankrupt?

Between June 29th and now, Full Tilt Poker's customers have had to just sit and wait. At the beginning of the ordeal, there were a few "leaks" that buoyed the hopes of the online poker world. As a matter of fact, the Los Angeles Times reported on July 1st that "Full Tilt Poker was to be sold to European investors". This still may end up being the case, but the story was premature.

Over the past few weeks, the "leaks" (which seemed to be coming primarily from attorneys working with Full Tilt Poker) have slowed to a trickle. Nobody seems to be talking. Full Tilt Poker isn't talking, their attorneys aren't talking and the "European investors" certainly aren't talking.

The entire thing has been an excruciatingly frustrating experience, especially to those who have substantial sums of money locked up on the site. Full Tilt Poker has obviously done an exceedingly poor job of communicating to their customers - based on some of the search engine referral traffic that this site gets, many of Full Tilt's customers are just now finding out that the site has been shut down. A "the shit has hit the fan, but we're working on it" email to customers might have been nice.

The "good" news? By September 15th, we will very likely know the fate of Full Tilt Poker. On July 26th, the AGCC elected to adjourn the Full Tilt Poker hearing until "no later than September 15th" in order to allow FTP to negotiate a refinancing deal that would save the company.

It's hard to imagine that the AGCC would adjourn the hearing once again, and it's also hard to imagine that Full Tilt Poker would be able to keep operating much past that point with zero revenues coming in.

So, after much waiting and hand-wringing, the online poker community will almost certainly know the fate of Full Tilt Poker just 30 days from now. Will we be talking about their rebirth, or will we will writing their eulogy? Who knows..

--

The only interesting piece of gossip/news/speculation that I have seen as of late came from Harry Demetriou on TwoPlusTwo earlier today. Demetriou is a professional poker player who reportedly "stormed" out of the Full Tilt Poker hearing in July.

Anyways, this is what Demetriou said earlier today on TwoPlusTwo:

"One big obstacle has been overcome in that agreement between Potential Investor, FTP and DoJ regarding fine for FTP is on the verge of completion. (Still does not mean an overall deal has been agreed though regarding player refunds)."

and

"As for my source(s) I will only say they are from deep inside the FTP camp."

This would obviously be big news.. let's hope that it's true..

--

Filed Under: Poker Room News