Poker News

Save for lingering complications with individual applications, it appears that the bad dream for former Full Tilt Poker customers in the U.S. that started almost three and a half years ago is about to end. Tomorrow, September 3rd, is the final deadline for anyone who still wants to get back their frozen Full Tilt funds.

The Garden City Group (GCG), which was appointed by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York to be the Claims Administrator for the Full Tilt Poker reimbursement process, announced the final deadline on August 8th, but it bears repeating since that deadline is Wednesday. Anyone who received an e-mail from the GCG can use the login information included in that communication to file a Petition for Remission on GCG’s website, FullTiltPokerClaims.com.

The filing process is quite simple, provided the login credentials are available. It essentially amounts to verifying one’s personal information, confirming the dollar amount owed, and bank account information so that a reimbursement can be sent electronically. If a person disagrees with the dollar amount provided by GCG (which was drawn from Full Tilt’s records), that person can provide evidence to show would should be paid. There is no guarantee that GCG will agree with this, but if the records are clear and concise, it is certainly worth a shot.

Unlike rounds of payments earlier on in the process, former Full Tilt Poker pros and affiliates are allowed to file claims for the funds. The catch is that any money in their accounts that was paid to them by Full Tilt Poker as part of a business arrangement does qualify for reimbursement. Only money that was earned through playing poker will be returned. For example, an affiliate cannot claim any money owed to them by Full Tilt for their affiliate business (meaning any money earned from referring other players), but can receive rakeback that they may have earned purely as a customer themselves. If pros had any special monetary deals for being Full Tilt pros, they won’t get that money, but they can still claim funds that they deposited themselves or earned through actually playing the game of poker.

Once the filing deadline has come and gone, the filing portion of the GCG’s website will no longer function, so any further questions will have to be addressed to GCG directly. Assuming other lines of communication are still available, GCG can be reached at 866-250-2640 or info@fulltiltpokerclaims.com.

Once tomorrow’s deadline has passed, payments should go out fairly quickly, as there are not many more people left to process (we don’t know exactly how long it will take, but it likely won’t drag on too long, perhaps a couple of weeks). This writer received his refund in the first wave of payments back in February; the line item to look for in one’s bank transactions will probably read something like, “DOJ POKER STARS POKERPAY01.”

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