Full Tilt Poker heeft in een verklaring laten weten dat het nog steeds druk op zoek is naar investeerders om de boel weer vlot te trekken. In de verklaring probeert de pokerroom uit te leggen wat er nou allemaal fout is gegaan rondom en na Black Friday. Full Tilt Poker ‘is fully committed to paying the players back in full and restoring confidence in our operations’. Het zou zomaar kunnen dat beide zaken nog even gaan duren.
De verklaring van Full Tilt Poker:
As is obvious from the events that have transpired since April 15th, Full Tilt Poker was not prepared for the far-reaching, US government enforcement effort of Black Friday.
The events of Black Friday came on the heels of prior government enforcement activities and significant theft. Over the two years preceding Black Friday, the US government seized approximately $115M of player funds located in U.S. banks. While we believed that offering peer-to-peer online poker did not violate any federal laws—a belief supported by many solid and well-reasoned legal opinions — the DOJ took a different view. In addition, as was widely reported, a key payment processor stole approximately $42M from Full Tilt Poker. Until April 15th, Full Tilt Poker had always covered these losses so that no player was ever affected.
Finally, during late 2010 and early 2011, Full Tilt Poker experienced unprecedented issues with some of its third-party processors that greatly contributed to its financial problems. While the company was on its way to addressing the problems caused by these processors, Full Tilt Poker never anticipated that the DOJ would proceed as it did by seizing our global domain name and shutting down the site worldwide.
Over the last four months, Full Tilt Poker has been actively exploring opportunities with outside investors in order to stabilize the company and pay back our players. At least six of those groups, including hedge funds, operators of other internet businesses and individual investors, have visited Dublin to inspect the operation.
We have recently engaged an additional financial advisor through an investment banking group to assist us in our search for an infusion of cash as well as a new management team to restore the site and repay players. While any deal of this nature is necessarily complex given the current regulatory environment, our players should know that Full Tilt Poker is fully committed to paying them back in full and restoring confidence in our operations.
De $42 die wordt genoemd als gestolen geld wijst naar betalingsverwerker Daniel Tzvetkoff, waar PokerCity ten tijde van Black Friday uitgebreid over berichtte. Hij werd vorig jaar gearresteerd voor het witwassen van geld, samenzweren om gokspelen aan te bieden en bankfraude. Tzvetkoff zou meegewerkt hebben met het Amerikaans openbaar ministerie, wat leidde tot Black Friday.
Het stukje ‘unprecedented issues’ refereert vermoedelijk aan het enorme tekort dat ontstond toen Full Tilt spelers wel krediet gaf om mee te spelen, maar niet daadwerkelijk geld kon afboeken omdat het op zoek was naar nieuwe betalingsverwerkers. Het zou eerst gaan om bijna $60 miljoen, maar afgelopen week bleek dat om $128 miljoen te gaan.
Full Tilt sprak met zes investeerders, waarvan het met drie nog serieus in gesprek is. Slechts van één van de mogelijke investeerders, Jack Binion, werd de naam bekend. Voor Full Tilt heeft het prioriteit dat iedere investeerder begrijpt dat voorop staat dat de spelers terugbetaald moeten worden.
Check voor alle nieuwsberichten over Black Friday en de nasleep ervan ons dossier.
