Is Full Tilt still down?

So is Full Tilt still down in the US? I heard Ivy dropped his law suit, but I dont really know much about whats going on. Apperently the Feds seized their bank accounts and wont pay you out now? The article I read said they didnt have enough money in their accounts to pay out all players... By regulation, dont they have to keep enough money to pay out everyone? Then again, I guess financial leveraging is the way all the banks work, so why hold FT to a higher standard than say Goldman Sachs? And instead of seizing their accounts which makes it impossible to pay out players, why havent they bailed out FT so they can pay everyone out?

So, the US government will pay billions to failed financial institutions that were literally gambling with our economy, but when a poker site mishandles its funds, they put the hammer down? Gotta love American politics.

Sorry for the rant, I guess Im just venting here. Still wonder if FT will ever be back up.

Despite my s/n (nothing to do with anything, I just made it up when I was younger, and stuck with it), I have never played for real money on Full Tilt. I almost did at the end of last year; I tried to get an account set up, through various methods, but could not succeed. Now, I'm very happy that I did not get the account set up.

I do like to play the play money games on Full Tilt. I've noticed that lately, they are performing "system upgrades" and it is not currently functioning. I suppose that if they can't make money in America that maybe they just won't offer anything to any players, whether it's for fun money or not.

It's hard to believe that the online poker sites will be down forever. Like prohibition, people find ways of beating the system and will jump to new venues and ways to play. From what I've read, Full Tilt mismanaged players money, combining "operating expenses" with reserves.

Quote: vegaslooksfun

By regulation, don't they have to keep enough money to pay out everyone?

That's part of the problem; there is no regulation in the US that forces this to be the case. Most (ALL?) US states that offer gambling/wagering must have enough money to cover every dollar in play. I think part of the issue the US is having with the sites is that since it's not regulated in our jurisdiction, there is no way to assure that (and to collect taxes on said revenue). There's the moral argument and others, but this is less about bailing out Full Tilt and more about punishing people for not paying taxes on generated revenue, in my opinion.

I removed the FullTilt.net software from my machine, so I can't check.

Quote: vegaslooksfun

So is Full Tilt still down in the US? I heard Ivy dropped his law suit, but I dont really know much about whats going on. Apperently the Feds seized their bank accounts and wont pay you out now? The article I read said they didnt have enough money in their accounts to pay out all players...

Full Tilt is still not accepting real-money bets from US-based players. On "Black Friday" (April 15, 2011), the FBI seized both the domain names of FTP (essentially breaking the service from a technical standpoint) and the financial accounts known to belong to FTP along with PokerStars and Absolute Poker/UltimateBet. A few days after the seizure, each poker site made an agreement with the Federal government. The agreement allowed the sites to regain control of their own internet names with the conditions that American players not be allowed to place bets. The idea is that the government was forcing the sites to let the American users log in and process withdrawals so they could recover their money. Speaking to the big picture, PokerStars had an adequate reserve of funds kept aside to represent the players' deposits. Full Tilt did not have these assets - either fully liquid or via some fractional reserve system*. To this day, there are people who have not been paid by Full Tilt.

Quote: vegaslooksfun

By regulation, dont they have to keep enough money to pay out everyone? Then again, I guess financial leveraging is the way all the banks work, so why hold FT to a higher standard than say Goldman Sachs? And instead of seizing their accounts which makes it impossible to pay out players, why havent they bailed out FT so they can pay everyone out?

So, the US government will pay billions to failed financial institutions that were literally gambling with our economy, but when a poker site mishandles its funds, they put the hammer down? Gotta love American politics.

Full Tilt Poker was never registered with the FDIC, SEC or other banking/investment regulatory agency. In fact, Full Tilt Poker was never even an American business. It is registered in Alderney. This appears to be a tiny island in the chain of Channel Islands. It is a British Crown dependency. The island has it's own gaming commission (with a great domain name) that was specifically created to "regulate eGambling" on behalf of this tiny state. The service was also regulated by the French ARJEL (Autorité de Régulation des Jeux En Ligne - Online Games Regulation Authority) organization. I take a dim view about the US Gov't bailing out the American i-banks (I'd have loved to see them fail, but that would have made things worse), but the American government has about absolutely no authority over the operations of a foreign-held company.

That said, the company did have accounts at American banking institutions. It is these accounts that were frozen by the US Government. It is entirely plausible (and there's enough conspiracy theories out there about this) that FTP simply had their player's reserve in a different bank and simply chose not to convey this to the American government or anyone else. FTP is currently in talks to the sell the service to a handful of European investors.

Quote: vegaslooksfun

Sorry for the rant, I guess Im just venting here. Still wonder if FT will ever be back up.

FTP has had it's licenses revoked by both the state of Alderney and the nation of France. So, right now, it's more or less dead in the water. If the company sells its operations to this investment group, it will probably be predicated on a deal from the American Department of Justice and assurances from the certifying agencies that the licesnes will be reinstated. Until that goes through - I wouldn't expect much.



* Fractional Reserve banking is a system where the bank keeps a certain percentage of deposits in liquid cash. The rest is used to fund investments to earn the bank profit. The idea is that so long as everyone doesn't want to get their money at the same time, everybody will have access to their funds when they want it, since the bank will have time to replenish the cash reserves if someone makes a large withdrawal. If everyone wants their money back at once - like when the Feds say you can't play poker any more - it creates a 'run' on the bank. The bank is forced to liquefy its investments - usually at a loss - and sometimes, there isn't enough money to pay off everyone's deposits. In FTP's case, they either suffered from poor investments that lost value or simply never maintained the proper reserves in the first place.

I recently wrote up a bit on the UIGEA and the high-level events surrounding "Black Friday" here. Feel free to check it out for more detailed information.