Charity Poker Players Allege Full Tilt Never Paid Prizes

Apparently, some of the issues plaguing Full Tilt Poker have expanded beyond the virtual world and onto the live felt. A recent report by PokerNews.com alleges that Full Tilt Poker failed to pay prizes to many winners of a 2011 charity tournament, leaving their winnings in Full Tilt accounts that are now inaccessible.

The incident involves the Montreal Open, a charity tournament that was held to benefit the Miriam Foundation. The tournament had been run successfully every year since 2005, with the majority of proceeds going to the foundation, which works with children with learning disabilities and provides programs for both children and their caregivers.

In the Montreal Open, the top 30 finishers won prizes, and then competed for 10 seats in the World Series of Poker Main Event. According to the report, thirty players were indeed chosen, and ten were selected to win the WSOP seats and the associated trips and spending money.

However, getting awarded those prizes was another story entirely. The prizes were to be paid out by Full Tilt Poker directly, and as the months wore on – the Montreal Open had been held in March – players began to question when or if they would receive their prizes. According to the report, FTP finally sent an email to the Miriam Foundation on June 2, 2011, telling them that the money had been paid to players by having the funds placed in their Full Tilt accounts.

However, with those accounts inaccessible, both the foundation and many of the winning players believed the prizes had been fraudulently withheld. While some tournament organizers suggested that the foundation should provide prizes in the absence of FTP – there have even been suggestions of suing the Miriam Foundation over the issue – it appears that the players who were quoted by PokerNews did not wish to sue the foundation, even as they were frustrated by the nature of the incident.

It is worth noting that despite the issues surrounding paying players, the Miriam Foundation did receive the funds that were supposed to be allocated to the charity from the tournament. Around 1,500 players paid buy-ins of $275 each (a portion of which went to the charity), and many also purchased $125 rebuys and add-ons (which were donated to the charity in their entirety). There is still an outstanding legal issue between the Miriam Foundations and several tournament organizers, who organized a new charity event – the Montreal PartyPoker Classic – which raises funds for the Jodi Lazarus Fund for Hereditary Breast Cancer in place of the old event.