Full Tilt Poker has license suspended

Has anyone got money in a Full Tilt account? They had their license suspended today and it's dubious whether we'll see our money again. I had a fcuking gorilla in my account and to think I might not get it back, well, currently i'm a bit devastated.

any reason why its been suspended?

The Alderney Gambling Control Commission has suspended the licence and operations of Full Tilt Poker, which has headquarters in Cherrywood, Dublin.

The commission issued a statement saying that suspension notices were given to Vantage Ltd, Oxalic Ltd, Filco Ltd and Orinic Ltd, which collectively trade as Full Tilt Poker.

This suspension comes after an investigation in which the commission discovered that Full Tilt Poker was operating contrary to Alderney legislation.

"The decision to suspend the e-gambling licence was in the public interest and, because of the seriousness and urgency of the matter, it required that immediate action be taken ahead of the regulatory hearing," said the commission.

The Irish Independent reports that a hearing will take place on 26 July in London.

The Journal reports that, in April, Full Tilt Poker CEO Ray Bitay was one of 11 charged by the FBI for illegal online gambling and bank fraud. This resulted in Full Tilt Poker's US operations closing down, however, it continued to operate in Europe.

Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara said the defendants in this case "concocted an elaborate criminal fraud scheme, alternately tricking some US banks and effectively bribing others to assure the continued flow of billions in illegal gambling profits."

Bharara also said the defendants engaged in "massive" money laundering to circumvent gambling laws.

Full Tilt Poker has between 600 and 700 employees in Cherrywood and it is unclear how this action will impact staff.

Services on the site are currently down, with a message stating maintenance is in progress

jesus glad im with party poker!

Hows this: I'm with Full Tilt, PokerStars, PartyPoker, PKR Poker, 888 Poker, Titan Poker, Bodog Poker, Celeb Poker, Cake Poker, Mansion Poker, and TonyG Poker yet the only one I have funds in is FullTilt for fcuks sake.

US prosecutors allege Intabill processed $US500million in online gambling funds in just over a year
With its founder %u2013 27 year old Gold Coast resident, Daniel Tzvetkoff %u2013 now behind bars in the US, there is some doubt there will be a public examination of directors of his failed Australian Internet payments business %u2013 Intabill.

And without a public examination it may never be known what happened to the estimated $500million or more that US prosecutors allege was processed by Intabill, the business trading name of Australian incorporated BT Projects Ltd.

John Park, a partner at the official liquidators %u2013 Korda Mentha, told eCommerce Report that Tzvetkoff's arrest last week on money laundering and fraud charges %u2013 had clearly complicated matters.

Park confirmed that the liquidation of Intabill, which was a payment gateway business, processing credit-card transactions for at least two big online poker companies, has so far returned nothing at all to creditors.

"There has been nil asset recourse in the liquidation to date" he said.
"There are numerous loan account entities involved and disputed payments that we're investigating."
He said that a complicating factor in the investigation was that Intabill had numerous offshore banking accounts.

These accounts were with various international banks, and not with any Australian bank or financial institution.

Park confirmed that his investigation includes the sale of all Intabill's intellectual property and software assets to a new company known as Payovation Ltd just weeks before the collapse of the business last year.

"That's one of the matters that we're investigating" he said, adding that "we haven't yet formed a view" as to whether the buyers paid "fair market value."
But he confirmed that as liquidators Korda Mentha had the power to overturn or reverse the transaction if it concludes a fair market price wasn't paid.

"We've certainly tracked where the proceeds have gone" said Parks.
The Payovation transaction is arguably the main issue involved in the liquidation because Payovation effectively bought the Intabill business and indeed continues to promote it via the web-site www.Payovation.com.

Certainly its chief executive Michael Hui and other key staff were former Intabill employees.

Moreover international online media reports have suggested that one of Intabill's main debtors, - Kolyma Corporation AVV, operators of the leading online poker business %u2013 Full Tilt Poker, financed the acquisition.

Kolyma's legal action against BT Projects Ltd in the Australian courts early last year, seeking to recover a claimed $50million in funds owed by Intabill, was one of the first indications that all was not well with the business.

But prior to then, Tzvetkoff had a high public profile on the Gold Coast, attracting considerable media acclaim as a home grown IT whiz-kid and apparently successful entrepreneur.

A $27million mansion, a black Lamborghini with custom number plates, car-racing sponsorship, huge motorboat, and the Zuri nightclub saw Tzvetkoff and his business partner, lawyer Sam Sciacca, feted and celebrated in local media.

Indeed, at its high point, early last year, the business even attracted two senior Australian payments and banking industry executives on board.

It announced that Andrew Pipolo, former chief executive at PayPal Australia, and a senior Westpac executive, John Lilley had joined the staff as business development executives. As we have previously reported, however, the business collapsed completely in April and May last year, with all 120 staff in the company's Brisbane offices losing their jobs.

Since then the partners have fallen out with Sciacca taking legal action against Tzvetkoff alleging he spent at least tens of millions of the company's money without authorization.

Tzvetkoff also initiated a legal action late last year against his erstwhile partners and the National Australia Bank over the forced sale of his Hedge Rd mansion.

Surprisingly, it wasn't until January this year that Tzvetkoff announced he was filing for bankruptcy.

Perhaps no less surprising is that Tzvetkoff's trustees in bankruptcy gave him the OK to travel to the US to attend an Internet billing conference in Las Vegas.

He is said to be earning a living as a consultant and it may be no co-incidence that a Costa Rica headquartered company is now operating a new Intabill business at www.intabill.com

Even so, for Tzvetkoff personally, going to the US was a bad mistake. He was arrested there last Friday morning and the indictment is said to charge him with bank fraud, money laundering, conspiracy to operate and finance an illegal gambling business, and processing electronic fund transfers in violation of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.

Allegedly, Intabill processed more than $US500 million in the 13 month period between February 2008 and March 2009.

Most of this is believed to have been credit card payments made by US online poker players.

But because online gambling is illegal in the US, the online poker sites have a problem in getting the card payments processed.

Payment gateway businesses like Intabill provide the service that enables the transactions to be processed, often using foreign banks, and charging very steep merchant commissions.

Remarkably, such operations appear to be legal, or at least unregulated in Australia.

Certainly, Tzvetkoff's Australian Intabill business appeared to need no special approval, permits or licensing from Australian banking, corporate or financial sector regulatory authorities to conduct its payments business.

phil ivey ,jesus ,etc great players , but all those pros are crook and pro scammers for endorsing these poker money laundering scams .sorry to hear about your cash vicelife ,i reckon you will get it back though!!!!! maybe !!!



watch this!!! some reason it wont embed

Thanks for the words mate, fingers, toes and testes are crossed! (It embedded just fine mate!)

.....I had to turn it off after 2 minutes

YES mate i was playing a 6 handed NLHE $2.20 rebuy last night and was in the top 15 players out of 200 odd and it cut out mid game on me just before the cash stage...I was pissed off bigtime and emailed them straight away and got a reply saying the were down for a short period that was 8pm last night!now i know why they still arn't on the thieves

It's totally s hit!

Do you know if it's the same for POKERSTARS cause i can't get that up either

If you cant get pokerstars open, go to the pokerstars.com site and re-install it. Thats what I had to do and it works fine except that all my frigging money is on Full tilt!

It might be best though to get your money out of PokerStars for now. im hearing rumours its not safe.

ffs

I reckon. I'm gutted.

Sounds like you ran over a black cat Vicey..good luck with it all matey

Cheers mate. Have been recently talking to a guy who plays for a living and also has funds frozen with FullTilt. He now seems more confident that we will eventually get access to our funds. He's just not sure when.

Update from AFP Today in newspaper,
International online gambling site Full Tilt Poker stole $440 MILLION from players around the world in a Ponzi scheme used to pay lavish fees to board members, US prosecutors say.
In a classic pyramid scheme, gamblers were given the impression they still had money deposited and were allowed to keep gambling, even when all that remained were "phantom" funds.

Did anyone see that episode of Insight on online gambling/wagering. Adds merit to the argument that they should offer Poker in Australia to prevent situations such as these occurring.