Full Tilt Poker Relaunches Real Money Play Under New Ownership

After more than sixteen months of being dark, Full Tilt Poker relaunched today for real money play in non-US markets. As part of a monumental settlement agreement between PokerStars and the U.S. Department of Justice, PokerStars acquired the assets of the failed Full Tilt Poker companies and spent the last 90 days preparing to relaunch the site for play under new ownership.  After the original Full Tilt Poker site was charged with violating various gaming laws by the US DOJ in April 2011 (Black Friday), the company was unable to repay their customers’ account balances of over $ 330 million.  The acquisition of those assets by PokerStars and the relaunch of the website under new ownership and new management provides that non U.S. players will have the opportunity to regain their cash balances totaling more than $ 184 million. Today’s relaunch of the website of the new Fulltiltpoker.com will begin the process of allowing those players access to their funds, while providing them with a new improved online poker site to play on. Pending legalization of online poker in the US, US players will be permitted to wager only play money chips on the site. Per the agreement with the US DOJ, US players that still have outstanding account balances owed by the old company, estimated to be in excess of $ 150 million, will have to apply to the US Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section of the D.O.J. for reimbursement of their funds.  That process has not yet begun.