An official statement has just been released by the Alderney Gambling Control Comission (AGCC) stating they have ”revoked the licenses of Vantage Limited, Filco Limited and Oxalic Limited, trading as Full Tilt Poker (FTP), with immediate effect”.
The reasons for these actions were also given:
“At a hearing held in London over six days, it emerged that FTP had fundamentally misled AGCC about their operational integrity by continuously reporting as liquid funds balances that had been covertly seized or restrained by US authorities, or that were otherwise not actually available to the operator. Serious breaches of AGCC regulations include false reporting, unauthorised provision of credit, and failure to report material events”
This is clearly a shocking blow for many players within the international poker community, who had their fingers crossed over the last number of days that a takeover deal would be confirmed by a French Investment group, which had specified that the takeover would require the licenses to be re-instated by the AGCC:
Jeff Ifrah: “The investor’s position is that if Alderney revokes the license, they won’t go through with the deal because it makes things too difficult.”
However, the latest statement by the AGCC does go on to say that: ”It is important to note that the revocation of FTP’s licences does not, as has been suggested, prevent a reactivation of the business under new ownership and management.”
So hope still remains, but the chance of this deal actually going through seems ever more unlikely after today’s decision by the AGCC.
In other news, it seems likely that the current trend of poker players flocking to other safe online poker sites, such as Betonline Poker, will continue, with Betonline seeing a consistent increase in poker traffic over the last number of weeks.
Note: The AGCC did go on to provide a document explaining the reasons for invoking Full Tilt’s licenses, found here.
Update: 29/09 – 15:24 GMT
After having further time to read through the full determinant notice released by the AGCC, a particularly interesting sentence stands out:
“The licence of Orinic Limited, a recently added geographic sub-division of the FTP poker room, remains suspended.”
Whether this is a loophole that has been introduced to allow the French investment group to obtain a new license, while allowing the AGCC maintain the public image of being tough against Full Tilt Poker and the allegations made against it, remains to be seen. More updates will come as we hear them.
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