I thought we’d already seen the big news for Full Tilt Poker when we discovered that the Alderney Gaming Control Commission had suspended their license pending a review on July 26th. And I left work yesterday thinking I’d check in on Full Tilt next week to see if there were any updates. Guess what? There’s more news. But it’s somewhat confusing news and has taken some investigation to, well, become more confused.
So, Full Tilt had its license suspended in Alderney and the online poker room displayed a notice that its site was down for scheduled maintenance. I’m still seeing a “System Update” notice on the site Fulltilt.net. Fulltilt.com being blocked to US players. But there is news that Full Tilt has started routing its web traffic through the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, a Canadian gambling regulatory area. Now early on Full Tilt had sought licensing through Kahnawake but moved to Alderney where the process worked more in their favor. Now it looks like they may be moving back to Kahnawake.
And Full Tilt may also have been sold to European investors. Now, this part may be good news for US players with money in Full Tilt Poker. And by that I don’t mean investment money but money stuck in their player account. If the rumors are right (and I hope they are), the investors have agreed to fund the payback of US players and in return they receive a majority stake in Pocket Kings — the company that owns Full Tilt.
So, the world of online poker continues with enough twist and turns to make a player dizzy.