According to a report by Gaming Intelligence on January 24th, Full Tilt has finally comes to terms on the forfeiture agreement with the US DOJ. With this agreement in place, the assets owned by Full Tilt would now be in possession of the US Department of Justice who have an agreement in place to turn around and sell them to the Groupe Bernard Tapie for $80 million. Conceivably once the funds have been transferred, the Groupe Bernard Tapie would be in control of Full Tilt.
In the report by Gaming Intelligence, Laurent Tapie said that there is still a long way to go to complete the deal however they are getting closer. After indicating that they hope to re-brand Full Tilt and launch by March 1st, Tapie said that GBT is now in negotiations with the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) to resurrect FTP’s license which was revoked back in May because the company misled officials about its financial operations.
The entire saga of Full Tilt poker has dragged on for 9 long months in which it’s been a roller coaster ride the entire time. Although many believed that this roller coaster would end in disaster, with US poker players and those around the world being out millions of dollars due to the mismanagement of funds by the previous Full Tilt management team. With the Bernard Tapie Groupe coming in as potential saviors and investing roughly $230 million ($80 to acquire assets from the US DOJ & $150 to repay non-US players) in a company that has been offline for months. The group must believe that the player database along with the software has good value and worth the risky investment.
It will be interesting to see whether poker player will give this new company a chance. On one hand they’ve been out their Full Tilt balance for 9 months, on the other hand it’s new management who essentially saved these players. Only time will tell and hopefully for all players around the world, they do eventually have access to their funds.
