Full Tilt Poker Refund Update
According to Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance John Pappas, Full Tilt Claims for $5.7 million will be sent to players during the next weeks. Sep 02, 2014 The Garden City Group has issued refunds to over 30,000 former Full Tilt players. Some former players have still been waiting for further updates before filing for refunds. On April 16, the claims administrator stated that it needed approval from the Department of Justice before issuing payments for professional poker players. Additionally, Chase and PNC account holders on TwoPlusTwo reported being reunited with their funds for the first time since Black Friday, nearly three years ago. Garden City Group, the appointed Claims Administrator for Full Tilt Poker, announced earlier in the week that it had begun testing the bank accounts of petitioners and that the first round of repayments was slated for Friday. The Garden City Group issued an update that the Remission (claim filing) process is now underway and has already sent over 1.4 million email notifications to Full Tilt Poker players. It has so far received 23,500 petitions through its online filing system. All poker games. It would take all day to talk about all the online poker games we offer at Full Tilt, that’s time you could spend more wisely by getting started on your Full Tilt poker odyssey today. But when you’re ready check our Poker Games page for the lowdown on.
It’s been more than five years since the US Department of Justice shut down the major online poker sites operating in the US. Black Friday in 2011 caught American online poker players completely unaware and cut off from their online poker accounts at Full Tilt Poker.
For 97 percent of complainants, the fight to reclaim that money is now over, including another 1,000 people who received the good news that their remission claims had been approved just six weeks ago.
The latest round of Full Tilt claims
In October, the Garden City Group (GCG) — selected by the DOJ to handle the remission process way back in 2013 — announced the ninth and likely final wave of refunds to affected players. These most recent payments total approximately $2.7 million.
As the remission process dragged on, and fewer and fewer people waited for their refunds, the poker community’s attention waned. This latest update would have likely gone unnoticed if not for Haley Hintze over at Flushdraw.
According to an announcement on the GCG website:
“All Petitions have been reviewed and, with this round of payments, approximately 97% of Petitions will have been paid and 3% have been denied. Accordingly, the Petition for Remission process is now closed and filed Petitions will no longer be accepted.”
This brings the total number of refunded players up to around 45,000, and the total amount of money refunded to roughly $114 million. That is roughly 72 percent of the total amount believed to be owed ($160 million) to US poker players by Full Tilt Poker.
The money paid back for Full Tilt so far
Most of the money was sent in the first wave on Feb. 28, 2014, when GCG sent more than 27,500 players more than $76 million.
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The subsequent rounds of payments have been on a much smaller scale, but altogether total a hefty $38 million:
- April 1, 2014: 2,200 players were sent $5 million;
- June 12, 2014: 3,200 players were sent $14 million;
- Sept. 25, 2014: 600 players were sent $1.8 million;
- March 31, 2015: 3,500 players were sent $2.5 million;
- June 4, 2015: 2,000 players were sent $4.3 million;
- Oct. 5, 2015: 1,900 players were sent $5.5 million;
- March 11, 2016: 1,180 players were sent $2.6 million;
- Oct. 28, 2016: 1,000 players were sent $2.7 million.
At the end of the remission process, any unpaid money will be split between the Department of Justice and Garden City Group.
Unfiled Full Tilt remission claims
The total number of players owed money by Full Tilt Poker isn’t known. However it’s likely substantially more than the number of former Full Tilt customers who filed claims.
It’s widely believed that the significant difference between the money owed to US players and the amount repaid during the remission process has to do with a significant number of accounts with small balances that never filed a claim with the GCG, for any number of reasons, including:
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- Not wanting to deal with the hassle of the claims process for such a small amount of money;
- Dormant accounts that were unaware there was a remission process;
- Dormant accounts that were unaware they had any money in FTP accounts.
But these small balance accounts don’t account for the entirety of the $46 million or so dollars still unpaid.
Outstanding Full Tilt claims and appeals
There is still a possibility that GCG and DOJ could approve more of the roughly 1,600 remission claims that have been denied by GCG.
“GCG will continue to work with the Department of Justice to evaluate appeals, and any previously denied Petitions that are determined to be payable will be included in an upcoming distribution,” the GCG Full Tilt remission website states.
How to win blackjack without counting. Many of the denied accounts are believed to be sizable, as denied claims were mainly sponsored professionals and large affiliates, along with claims with informational errors.
However, after several rounds of appeals, spanning a period of nearly three years, it’s unlikely many of these claims will suddenly be approved.
In March, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New Yorknamed the Garden City Group (“GCG”) as the Claims Administrator chosen to oversee the repayment of Full Tilt Poker players based in the United States set forth in both the civil money laundering and forfeiture action United States v. PokerStars, et al. On the first day of August, the GCG updated players on calculation formula that will be used and the start of the claims process the via their dedicated website, www.FullTiltPokerClaims.com.
Here is what the update said:
GCG, working with the Asset Forfeiture Unit of the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York and the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section of the United States Department of Justice, has completed the review of data provided by Full Tilt Poker ('FTP'). It has been determined that the calculation formula to be used for the Petition for Remission process will be based on players' final balances with FTP as of April 15, 2011 (the 'FTP Account Balances'). The claims process will begin shortly. Once the process begins, GCG will email instructions on how to complete an online claim to all potentially eligible claimants identified by GCG utilizing data supplied by FTP. Account balances from online poker sites other than FTP are not included in this remission process. Petitioners must also meet all other requirements outlined in 28 C.F.R. § 9.8 to be considered eligible for remission.
If you do not receive an email notice and you believe you are eligible to participate in the remission process, you may file a claim online using the directions that will be provided on this website.
If the forfeited funds available for distribution equal or exceed the aggregate FTP Account Balances for all eligible Petitioners, each eligible Petitioner with an approved claim will receive the entirety of his or her FTP Account Balance. If the aggregate FTP Account Balances for all eligible Petitioners exceed the funds available for distribution, payments shall be made to eligible Petitioners on a pro rata basis.
The poker community has long anticipated an update regarding the repayment of players after PokerStars settled with the DOJ and forfeited $547 million to the United States government in August of last year. By doing so, PokerStars acquired Full Tilt Poker's assets (which they relaunched in November) and admitted no wrongdoing in the alleged bank fraud, wire fraud, money laundering, and illegal gambling offenses.
PokerNews will be following the FTP repayment saga as details emerge. For more information, visit fulltiltpokerclaims.com.
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