Full Tilt announced today that French businessman Bernard Tapie has agreed to buy the company and all of its assess. The agreement is subject to a variety of conditions, including a positive resolution with the U.S. Department of Justice, but if allowed to go forward would include the repayment of funds to players. In an interview with iGamingFrance, Tapie acknowledged that there was a "still a long way to go" before the deal is done but hoped that he would have the site reopened by January 2012.

The announcement comes a day after the Alderney Gaming Control Commission revoked the gaming license that had previously been suspended since late June. A consensus feeling was that the revoking of the license would significantly harm the chances of an agreement going forward; this was echoed by Full Tilt's own lawyer, Jeff Ifrah.

Bernard Tapie is a former government minister, sports tycoon and an actor. It is unclear whether prior legal troubles in the 1990's will hurt the deal going through or the ability of the new company to acquire a gaming license. The executive director of the AGCC noted yesterday at the time of revoking the Full Tilt license that "the revocation of the license does not prevent a reactivation of the business new ownership and management."

In the iGamingFrance interview, Tapie suggested that the DOJ would have to play a part in refunding of players. “We have shown that we have the funds necessary to repay player debts. We want to find ways where we don’t have to put in all the money and will be talking to the US Department of Justice next week." The Department of Justice currently has approximately $331 million of Full Tilt player funds that were held in accounts belong to Full Tilt Poker.

The Full Tilt Poker brand would not be changing, according to Tapie. "“The brand is not in question, it’s a well-known brand and the technology is widely recognized as being possibly the best in the industry. The management of the company is being questioned and it will be changed (should the takeover be concluded). "

This will certainly be a hot subject over the coming days and weeks. PAS will be sure to keep you updated with news and commentary.

Tags: full tilt poker

Categories

‎ Uncategorized

Editors Note: I have introduced myself in the forum, but it was suggested that maybe I write something a bit more detailed here. As I got into writing this “introduction” post it swelled beyond my expectations, so I have divided it into three parts. It’s basically a bit of the history of the industry and my very small part in it. I hope you find it interesting.

My real name is Craig, but my online moniker is Gonzo. Please don’t ask about the name; it’s boring. But just know that I am neither Mexican nor a Hunter S. Thompson fan. I joined Poker Affiliate Solutions in May as a Content Specialist. I have now spent 7 years in the online poker industry and as I write this, I wonder where all the time went. I think I may be one of the few remaining people online who doesn’t have a blog or who has never written a blog post (is that a cliché thing to say for a first blog post?), which is further shocking due to the fact I have probably written and posted over a million words on the internet.

I first started playing poker in 2001 or so at Paradise Poker. Prior to that, I had played at a few online casinos when I discovered that there was money to be made in casino bonuses. Unfortunately, it didn’t really dawn on me truly how great those bonuses were back then but I did end up making a few bucks. Once I played a few hours of blackjack at an online casino, poker seemed like a natural progression. Playing online casinos was fun in its own way, but I’ll never forget the rush of playing against other people. This was before the online poker boom, so a lot of the action was still Stud. I gravitated towards this game at the time because it was the closest thing I remember to the game I played occasionally as a kid. Anyway, I think I managed to win a couple hundred bucks or so playing relatively small stakes at a game I basically knew little strategy. Of course, I eventually lost it all. Being relatively cheap, I decided I had enough and moved on.

Forward to 2003, a good friend of my mine who I have known since middle school, Jek187 (some may remember him from BW or 2+2), who also played around with me at those Paradise Poker tables, encouraged me to give poker another look. Jek has a great analytical mind and always tries to optimize many parts of his life. He is the type of person that when he gives advice, especially backed with statistics, you listen and don’t argue. By this time he had read up a lot on poker, and was playing a lot at the local poker rooms and online. He suggested I purchase a little book called “Hold’em Poker” by David Sklansky and start checking out the 2+2 forums. Man, what great advice! I began studying the starting hand charts, learning which hands to raise and fold, how to semi-bluff and the relatively simple math of pot odds.

Around this time, Jek launches a site called BonusWhores.com, a very basic looking site straight out of the late nineties that was a collection of information he had gathered through his experiences playing poker online. The site name was based on a term he and a few other fellow 2+2 posters created, called "Bonus Whoring," which is essentially the practice of taking maximum advantage of promotions — primarily bonuses — that poker sites offer to players (all perfectly legal under the site’s terms and conditions). The site turned out to be one of the first sites of its kind. Not only did the site provide honest details on poker bonuses, but also other objective information that players were concerned about at the time, which was especially helpful given players’ hesitance to put money into what were unknown offshore poker sites.

My poker playing was just starting to get rolling when Jek informed me of his new site. He had his rooms organized by traffic size, so Party Poker was at the top of the list. Since I had last played, they had taken over the lead from Paradise Poker. Chris Moneymaker had won the World Series of Poker and the WPT was becoming extremely popular on the Travel Channel. A poker boom was underway. And Jek had just created a great way to inform players about the murky world -- to many -- of the top online poker sites.

If I recall correctly, Party Poker had a 25% up to $100 sign-up bonus back then. The thought of depositing $400 at a poker site seemed to be a bit crazy but Jek did it and now he had a site devoted to it, so hey, it must be ok, right? So I took my $400 deposit to the Party Poker tables in October of 2003 and started to apply my new poker prowess to the $0.50/$1.00 Limit Hold’em tables. Within a few hours of play, I was up $100 or so and had cleared the $100 sign-up bonus. It was incredibly exciting, but I tried to look at it rationally – I had also won money initially at Paradise a couple years prior and that didn’t turn out so hot. So I played again the next day, and the following day, and then next day. Soon my sessions were getting longer and I was thinking about poker all the time. I also started playing 4 tables, then 8, then 16. This seemed absolutely insane at the time, but by some miracle from the heavens, I was winning. And the more I played, the more I won. I remember in my early naive days, actually feeling bad for the players I was playing against and also feeling bad for the “easy” money I was receiving from the poker sites. I wasn’t even winning that much by comparison to the higher stakes players, but it seemed like a lot to me at the time.

Granted, I wasn’t winning every session. I wasn’t even winning every day, but I could tell by the quality of the play at the tables that I was superior to the people I was playing against and that I was not simply getting lucky. When I did go on a losing streak, I had the Party Poker reload bonuses to help ease the pain. With my winnings and frequent deposits, the money I had online -- which I would have previously been horrified by -- I now didn’t give a second thought to.

Stay tuned for Part II next week

For many affiliates (and players for that matter) the Boss Network is generally not the first site that is discussed or recommended when you are talking about rakeback. This is despite having fabulous well known brands on their network including fine PAS partners such as Paradise Poker (one of the first online poker sites in existence) Interpoker, Fortune Poker, and Poker Heaven (which all have great established reputations). The omnipresent Virgin Group has even got a poker room on the network.

I’m sure a big part of them not being a “top tier” rakeback location has to do with the fact they don’t accept USA players and that they aren’t a top traffic site. Still they are ranked number #9 for real money cash traffic, according to PokerScout. This is higher than sites/networks such as Cake Poker, Everest Poker, the 888.com Network and Entraction.

The Change

For much of the time they have offered rakeback, Boss has had a stipulation for rakeback players that they must generate €100 during the month to qualify for rakeback – something that surely puts off many new players and low rakers (casual players). Fortunately, this is all changing on September 1st, as the Boss Network is lowering the MGR (Monthly Gross Revenue) requirement from €100 to €10. They still have a cap, but for the overwhelming majority of players, this is effectively a negligible amount. So will this new change have a significant impact on the network, or even on a smaller scale, will it have any more than a slight effect on a player’s decision where to play?

According to a newsletter release from Paradise Poker, they are going to try this new idea for the remainder of 2010 and will reanalyze it at the beginning of next year. Is the new scheme going to be effective for both the network and players, and should it be something that should be implemented in 2011 and beyond?

Why It Matters To Players

For many players, raking €100 is not an extremely easy thing to do. First of all, many online players are what we would call “casual” and don’t play a lot. In addition, many of the players that may play a bit more, play the lower limits. I recently gathered some real money cash game data from the lobby of the Boss Network during peak times. What I found is that around 75% of players at the most popular online cash games (No Limit Hold’em) are playing at 0.25/0.50 -- any currency -- and below. At full ring, a player would maybe have to play around 25 table hours -- 25 hours playing 1 table or 12.5 playing 2 -- at 0.25/0.50 full ring to reach €100 in rake. This is a little over 5 hours per week playing one table. Obviously, this is not a lot for many grinders but when you think about the guy who may play a single table for a few hours on Friday night after the kids go to bed, this could be standard.

As you go further down in stakes levels (where many beginners start) it becomes even more difficult to reach €100 in MGR. Again, to many players, especially those that are experienced, this isn’t going to seem like a lot. But the traffic indicates that for whatever reason, players prefer the lower stake levels, especially new players who may be timid about playing with money online.

For tournament players or SNG players, the €100 cap becomes even more unappealing. A player who likes to play €10+€1 Sit N Gos or tournaments would have to play 100 during the month; a player who moves up in stakes to the €20+€2 level would have to play 50. How many “casual” or new players do that?

My View

My personal opinion is that this is good for everyone, although a drastic change to the Boss Network probably still isn’t likely. Side note: I’d love to know the percentage of players who stick to their first site they ever play or at least make it the primary site they play. It seems there is a ton of value in being a player’s first site, but that’s a subjective opinion.

So I’m pleased that a larger number of players are now able to give Boss a more serious look. Too much of the possible player base was effectively restricted from rakeback by the MGR requirement. These days, poker sites are doing more to attract brand new players to their sites -- especially with growth stabilizing -- and this will certainly be one more thing that makes new players seeking rakeback more welcomed. Granted you certainly could argue that many casual or new players don’t know about rakeback, but I’m sure there has been more than a few players looking to sign-up for rakeback that have skipped Boss -- or quit playing there -- once they realize that they have to rake €100 during a month to qualify for rakeback.

I think this is just one of those moves where everybody wins. The Boss Network becomes that much more appealing to new players and low rakers to give them another viable option to take their online play. More new players are brought to the sites that generate rake, feed the games and quite possibly become life long customers to one of the Boss Network skins. As affiliates which enable players to receive rakeback and exclusive promotions, sending these new players to the sites is also our gain as well. Everybody wins.