Having already passed the 4-year anniversary of the now-historic Black Friday of Online Poker, some ex-members of the old Full Tilt Poker site are still awaiting reimbursement. According to a new announcement from the GCG, approximately 2,000 more players have been approved to receive $4.3 million in remission.
The Garden City Group (GCG), placed in charge of handling the remission process for all Full Tilt Poker claims, published an update on the FullTiltPokerClaims.com website on Thursday. According to the apprised information, once this round of payments is sent out, 87% of all petitions will have been fulfilled.
Who is Getting Paid?
Former members of Full Tilt Poker who can expect to receive their payment in the near future – no exact date or timeline was given – include three categories.
- Petitioners who disputed the original amount owed to them when the remission process began.
- Petitioners who confirmed their FTP account balances
- Petitioners deemed “Professional” poker players by the US government.
“GCG has been informed that the Department of Justice Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section has approved a new round of payments, which will include payments to Petitioners who have disputed their FTP Account Balances, Petitioners who confirmed their FTP Account Balances and Petitioners designated by FTP as “Professionals”,” read the latest update on the Full Tilt Claims Website.
An estimated total of $4.3 million is approved for disbursement between approximately 2,000 players. The GCG went on to say that, “After this round of payments, we will have paid approximately 87% of all Petitions filed.”
As for the remaining 13%, the GCG said it “continues to work with the Department of Justice (the “DOJ”) to evaluate the balance of the Petitions that have been filed. Petitions that are found to be valid will be paid in upcoming distributions. GCG and the DOJ expect to distribute additional payments by the end of the third quarter of 2015.”
Road Ahead for Full Tilt Poker Claims
Note that the last part of that statement refers to “additional payments” being made by the end of Q3 2015, but does not reference a timeframe for the finalization of the Full Tilt Poker remission process. That would indicate, to me, that the next round of payments (after this $4.3mm distribution), isn’t likely to be the last.
GCG is still dealing with petitioners who have submitted “no or insufficient documentation” to support their filed petitions, or documentation supporting a contested amount by petitioners who have disputed their claims.
The group said that emails will go out soon to these Full Tilt Poker claimants, and that “responses will be required within 20 days of the date of the email.” Unpaid petitioners are urged to check their email, including spam and junk folders, to ensure they receive any and all messages sent by GCG.
The Full Tilt Poker remission process has been ongoing since early 2014, when the federal government first started reimbursing players who were ripped off by the old Full Tilt Poker site. According to federal investigators, FTP owed Americans $159 million when the site was shut down on Black Friday. To date, approximately $104 million has been returned via GCG’s Full Tilt Poker Claims.