Full Tilt Remissions Process Comes to an End

The saga that is Full Tilt Poker seems to finally have come to an end in the United States in regards to players being paid money due from previous account balances. Poker funds were frozen back in 2011 when Black Friday took place, a time when several online poker sites were shut down in the US, including Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt seemed to have the most trouble providing players with their money and it has taken years and a lengthy process but it seems the repayment of the funds has come to an end.

The Garden City Group was hired by the Department of Justice to work as the Full Tilt Claims administrator. Former members of Full Tilt were asked to submit a petition to claim funds they were rightfully owed. Players could complete this process online via the Full Tilt Claims site. Once submitted, players waited a long time before they received a response as to if they would be paid the amount they claimed to be owed. It took time to check accounts based on information provided by Full Tilt and the payment process would not actually begin until early 2014.

A full three years after the money was frozen, the batches of payments began. Random payments would take place throughout 2014, into 2015 and this year. The last round of payments actually took place just last month and is considered the 9^th and final round of remission payments. In total, the Garden City Group has reported that 45,180 player accounts were given a remission payment with a total of $114.5 million repaid.

In the process, there were also petitions that were denied. 1,635 petitions were not paid with 1,500 of those announced back in May and 135 during the latest update. There was no reason given for the denial but one could assume that it was due to incomplete information, incorrect info, etc. It seems that many of the denied accounts belonged to affiliates of Full Tilt along with sponsored pros. Two types of income would have been earned from these types of players, from game play and income via the business relationship. Business-related income from Full Tilt has been denied repayment.

In the process of understanding the poker industry along with poker income and business income, the Poker Players Alliance used their pull to provide the Garden City Group with assistance. In the end, the Garden City Group decided to let those who played poker receive that money but not what was earned during business dealings.

The remission process is seemingly now closed and the entire ordeal took around five and a half years. However, back in October, the Garden City Group announced they would be working with the Department of Justice to continue to evaluate appeals by players and any previously denied petitions would be paid if they were determined to be payable. There might be a new wave of payments in the future or players will be paid on an individual basis.

Below is information regarding the month of remission payment, accounts paid and amount paid to players in a given time frame.

It will be interesting to see if additional players will be paid in the future or if the payments made in November brings an end to the Full Tilt Poker remissions process.