The new Full Tilt Poker has landed quite literally, server racks and equipment that make up the Full Tilt Poker servers were flown from Guernsey to the Isle of Man in anticipation of FullTilt’s 6th November relaunch date.
The server equipment was too large to fit onboard a regular aeroplane, so the new owners PokerStars opted to transport the 30 tons of hardware via a massive privately chartered Hercules Aircraft which touched down safely on Friday.
PokerStars head of corporate communications Eric Hollreiser mentioned in an interview with Isle of Man News – MTTV that all outstanding issues with the DOJ had been resolved and that PokerStars are committed to reopening Full Tilt Poker within the 90 day period ending on 6th November 2012. The equipment landing plays a significant role in ensuring that Full Tilt Poker opens in time.
The long awaited question of when will Full Tilt Poker open has finally been answered, add 6th November 2012 to your calendar as the date that Full Tilt Poker will officially reopen and be ready for action once again as an online poker room.
Full Tilt Poker will this time however be under totally different management and all player balances will be restored except for US and regulated European regions.
The newly formed Full Tilt poker management team will be independent of PokerStars and based out of Dublin, Ireland meaning they will not follow the mould of Pokerstars in terms of promotions, marketing, and tournaments but will instead be left to create their own brand to compete with Poker Stars.
USA players will look to the DOJ to repay their outstanding balances and will no longer be permitted to play at the re-launched FullTilt site.
Players from France, Spain, Belgium, Italy, Estonia and Denmark the European regulated regions will be assisted by their regulators with plans in place for those regions to allow transfers of Full Tilt Poker balances to a PokerStars account in the region.
Luckily for all players who were owed money by FullTiltPoker, PokerStars reached an agreement with the US DOJ that grants all Full Tilt Poker assets to PokerStars. Part of the agreement reached includes the payment of all Full Tilt Poker players worldwide within 90 days.
Most online poker players are already aware that Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT), the French investment group is currently working on taking over Full Tilt Poker and in the process making sure that all players’ bankrolls worldwide are repaid. GBT has been in discussions with the US DOJ and have reached a signed agreement with them which includes the purchase of the Full Tilt Poker for $80 million provided that certain conditions are fulfilled.
GBT has subsequently been investigating the financial inner workings of Full Tilt and have uncovered that several former pros owe large sums of money to the company totaling $16.5 Million. Considering the purchase price of $80 Million, the $16.5 Million in outstanding professional player debts to Full Tilt Poker is significant and could potentially put the deal in serious jeopardy.
To date GBT has been quiet about the deal for the most part, preferring to hold closed meetings keeping issues encountered private, however in this case Groupe Bernard Tapie have made the issue public regarding several pro’s outstanding debts in order to apply pressure to those owing money to the company and possibly to educate the public that those implicated are not all as guilt free as they claim to be regarding players getting their money back from FullTilt.
