Is Full Tilt Poker Bankrupt?

In recent weeks there has been much speculation as to the financial state of the three big online poker sites that had their dot.com domains seized on the events of Black Friday in mid-April and US Department of Justice (DoJ) indictments brought against their owners and founders.

Full Tilt Poker's two biggest competitor in the US market; Absolute Poker and PokerStars suffered the same fate at the hands of the federal authorities but have since reached agreements with the DoJ to release their dot.com domains and allow them to refund US players' funds.

PokerStars has already returned $100 million to US players, but there are poker players who believe there is no way of knowing how many more millions of US poker players funds are held by the poker companies.

Full Tilt Poker is yet to release any US players funds and being the second biggest poker room, after PokerStars, to serve the US market, it is estimated that it holds anything from $100 to $150 million of US players' funds.

The news that no release of funds has yet to occur is puzzling in light of recent news that the DoJ released an Irish bank account connected to Full Tilt Poker and belonging to Raymond Bitar one of Full Tilt founders and the CEO of its software and marketing company Tiltware.

The bank released bank account is rumored to contain at least a third of the money owed to US players but the only thing that Full Tilt Poker seems to be releasing so far are reassuring statements and apologies but no money.

Now many players think that Full Tilt might be bankrupt, in spite of its issuing statements to the contrary and assuring players' refunds are coming.

This has angered Phil Ivey, one of the most respected professional poker players in the world and a Full Tilt Poker sponsored player. Ivey released a statement on his Facebook fan page stating that he is ashamed and angered that monies have yet to be refunded and that he is sitting out this year's WSOP in protest.