Chris Ferguson keeps waiting for his money as Full Tilt makes a move. Image from Fulltilt.com
Checking back in this morning with news from the Full Tilt fringe, where a piece released a few days back by subscription site Gaming Intellegence has affirmed forward-moving action on the sale of Full Tilt’s assets to French conglomerate Groupe Bernard Tapie in a process that should have a Europe-only version of Full Tilt up and running in a few months.
Those Euro players — or, more accurately, all non-American Full Tilters – are expected to have their previous balances restored as playable bankrolls on the site. What remains for the deal to be completed are the final details of the deal between the DOJ and Groupe Tapie to be hammered through, along with the signing of an $80 million check by Tapie.
That money goes into the DOJ coffers, and from there, whence? No one really knows for sure. The DOJ continues to make noise that it will attempt to facilitate payments to American players, but the old bugaboo about paying balances rather than returning deposits still seems to be in play, meaning that of all American Full Tilt players, the ones with the most to worry about are that small percentage of players who were big winners. One could even float the theory that a contributing reason for the DOJ issuing the statement essentially legalizing online poker in their eyes is that it would remove one legal hurdle, and allow the DOJ to properly refund balances instead.
It’s nice when you can reinterpret laws according to your own immediate needs, and no one can seriously challenge you. A good gig if you can get it.
This is, of course, given the caveat that the DOJ plans to undertake a repayment program to affected US players, and that can’t be given a 100% guarantee, either. Whichever form any repayments might take — and this is assuming a big if in that the DOJ will greenlight payments to US Full Tilters, there still seems to be a cash shortfall. It’s alleged that the total owed to American Tilters is about $150 million, while the amount coming over from Tapie is well established at $80 million.
This would suggest a payment of roughly 50 cents a dollar if the DOJ doesn’t find more funds. Some of those could come from frozen accounts, but those are being attacked from several quarters and can generally be considered in limbo, and even then, the Full Tilt portion wouldn’t completely cover the $70 million shortfall.
This seems to be why efforts to force civil settlements with defendants including Howard Lederer, Chris Ferguson, Rafe Furst and (one would presume) Ray Bitar are ongoing. It’s also not surprising that the civil lawsuit brought by Todd Terry and three other players against Full Tilt was dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, which doesn’t mean a similar action couldn’t be filed if all the other stuff falls through. Right now the Terry suit had to be considered an unnecessary thorn in the side of the process, and if a reason to dismiss could be found, the action was going to be deep-sixed. If that sounds less than idealistic about the real nature of the American justice system, so be it.
So the players still wait, and that’s the real bottom line. They wait, but with a slightly brighter prospect than existed prior to the Christmas holiday. Right now the odds are good that players will get a large percentage of their funds returned, and who knows? It’s not impossible the DOJ will help coerce enough funds to make a full repayment possible.
