Where do we stand one year after FT closure?

HmmmSushiii

29 June 2025

Today we complete 1 year of FullTilt’s operating license suspension in 29/6/2025 on behalf of the Alderney Gaming Commission, and consequent seizure of operations from the operator.

With one year passed, what has changed on online poker? What happened? What can we expect from the future on this former industry giant.

So what happened to Full Tilt??

Well, all started with Black Friday.
This event developed a series of events that ended up with the cancelation of the Full Tilt Operations. Unfortunately took little time to be able to see all the major screw-ups that Full tilt management made while operating, since the unavailability to pay the players their balances and being considered as a Ponzi scheme by DOJ (Department Of Justice), through the buy propositions of GBT (Group Bernard Tapie), all was a big mess, in the middle, $390 million in player funds around the world, and the ones that did not have any fault and trusted such “reputable” poker room are the ones that still waiting endlessly for the money that has been kept from them.

At the time, must confess that did not expect much from UB really, actually don’t know how some players kept playing there after the super user accounts scandal, but I believed that a reputable poker room as FullTilt would have basically the same or similar procedures than PokerStars for instance, where apart from the black Friday issues, put the costumer interests in the top of their own, and with great attitude the first thing they did after black Friday was to negotiate with DOJ the release of players funds even get out of the situation with their head held high.

But unfortunately that was not the case with Full Tilt continuously delayed such payments and week after week new demotivating news kept showing up on the media, like DOJ considering them Ponzi Schemes, and the sudden disappearance of the “faces of the company like Howard Lederer, Chris Fergusson and even the more background guy Ray Bittar. In a couple of weeks was easy to assume that this was no good for players with funds held there.

What consequences this events had in the industry?

This incredible situation led to the consequence of the poker community face the operators always with suspicion, even penalizing the small operators that struggle to provide decent support and work for the players on what was once an industry where players, affiliates and operators could actually work in a thrust environment, taking aside some exceptions obviously.
Apart from the negative side of the fragilization of the rooms image, we have in the other side the constant alert now from the respective authorities and the regulation of several countries in Europe and more recently the regulation news on some USA states where Nevada, California are leading the way.

What now? What can we expect from the Full Tilt situation?

More recently came to light group Bernard Tapie to possibly become the salvation of players with the acquisition of Full Tilt and the hope to see great software to play online poker available again to players with a positive and trustworthy management was restored. This turned out to be a big flop and another attempt to sink even more the fragile online poker industry making it look even shadier in the eyes of the player. Until today only PokerStars manage to keep a clean face and reassure the players that they are playing in a safe environment with best promos and support in the web allowing them to cement their already huge market leadership.

And in a great turn of events once again PokerStars could actually be the great “knight in the shiny armour” that is going to get things straight, as a few weeks ago through a post on 2+2 was rumoured that PokerStars would come to actually acquire FullTilt, and assume leadership of the sleeping giant.
This would be great news, and hopefully we are about to hear news on this subject very soon as negotiations with Department Of Justice (DOJ) are running for about a month now.

General idea in the poker media is that stars is trying to clear its name to be able to get a licence once the US market gets regulated.
We can see that it should happened very soon, around the end of 2012 and beginning of 2013.
The question is, if PokerStars will actually accomplish their intents, by acquiring Full Tilt, paying the fines to DOJ, and paying the players accordingly, will that able them to request a licence to operate in the greatest online poker market after being “Expelled” on Black Friday?

We shouldn’t have to wait much more, we at masters poker Club will remain alert and let you know all about this subject as we get the inside information.