It has been more than two weeks since Black Friday, the April 15th date that shocked the online poker world. Just days after the government crackdown both PokerStars and FullTilt Poker domains were returned to their site owners in order to begin facilitating withdrawals. The first breakthrough occurred last week as news of PokerStars processing cashouts left Americans playing at other sites optimistic about receiving their funds. It now appears FullTilt will be the next room to begin paying out player balances.
While Americans have not been able to cash out from FullTilt, the world’s second largest online poker room has been processing funds to players from other countries. This past week FullTilt added a US FAQ section to their website stating “Full Tilt Poker is diligently working on facilitating the withdrawal of funds for US Players. This is our top priority and we’ll have a further update in the week commencing Monday, May 2nd.” It appears the next few days should hold a lot of answers for those with money frozen on FullTilt.
There have been concerns about FullTilt’s liquidity. As FlopTurnRiver reported last week FullTilt pulled its sponsorship of a televised poker tournament in the UK at the midnight hour. There were six FullTilt sponsored professionals on hand who could not pay the $20,000 entry fee FullTilt had promised them.
The FAQ answers many other questions including whether or not Americans can continue playing from out of the country and how tournament tickets, tournament money, and other promotional items will be converted to cash. Again, none of this has actually been processed but it seems likely to happen in the near future.
A FullTilt representative on another leading poker forum also explained the lack of response by FullTilt over the last two weeks:
“This was the advice given to support by our legal team, so their hands were tied. We’re trying to get more clarity here as soon as possible as to what exactly they can and can’t say (as opposed to the current “don’t say anything” approach) so that support can be more helpful to US players. I do apologize for the length of silence coming from Full Tilt. It’s a sensitive situation and I think we probably were a bit overly cautious here.”
FullTilt seems to be handling this situation better as of late, keeping players updated and being more forthright in their responses. Be sure to check back here throughout this week for any breaking news on FullTilt and other Black Friday updates.