Full Tilt Poker Struggles to Begin USA Player Refunds

Players looking to get their account balances back from Full Tilt Poker may have to wait longer than they anticipated. According to a new statement on the Full Tilt Poker website, the site has yet to finalize a plan to return money in the accounts of American poker players, and does not yet have a date set for when those players can expect to begin receiving funds.

The news comes on the heels of major developments in refund efforts at the other two sites affected by the Black Friday indictments. PokerStars recently announced that they have refunded over $100 million to American players – before other sites had returned a single dollar. In addition, Absolute Poker has announced that they’ve reached the same deal with the US Department of Justice as PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker have, and can now use their domain name to help return money to USA players.

Full Tilt Poker, along with PokerStars, made an agreement with the Department of Justice just days after the events of April 15, now known as “Black Friday” in the online poker industry that would allow them to return funds to their US players – a move that helped alleviate concerns about the account balances many players initially feared might be lost.

However, while PokerStars was able to quickly begin processing refunds, Full Tilt Poker has had more difficulty beginning the process. A statement on an FAQ page for US players on the FTP website has been updated to explain the situation.

“Since April 15th and the days immediately following, Full Tilt Poker faced numerous challenges and hurdles to ensuring the smooth operation of its international business and the orderly return of US player funds,” the statement reads. “FTP has worked tirelessly to address these issues and has made significant progress on both fronts. FTP's international business operations are returning to normal while we focus on ensuring the safe and orderly return of US player deposits. We are absolutely committed to making sure that US players are refunded as soon as possible. We apologize for the delay and the fact that we underestimated the time it would take to work through these issues. We will update our US players when we have more specific information to provide.”