This is a discussion on How do I stop losing? Within the online poker forums, in the General Poker section; Ahh. Where do I begin. Well, I didn't watch poker on ESPN or get influenced by any. Poker News Patrik Antonius, former Full Tilt Poker Pro claimed in a recent interview that he has nearly $5 million at stake at Full Tilt Poker. If the company goes bankrupt, and players won't be paid, he is bound to lose all his money. The Finnish poker pro Patrik Antonius might be in serious trouble in many ways.

1. Full Tilt Poker
2. Full Tilt Poker Site
3. Full Tilt Poker Play Money
4. Lost Money On Full Tilt Poker Free

After a little less than three years the wait is finally over for most US based poker players who had money stuck on Full Tilt Poker.

On January 23rd the news broke that players were going to get repaid on TwoPlusTwo, where PPA Executive Director John Pappas said the following: “I spoke with AFMLS/DoJ staff today and they informed me that they have approved approximately 30,000 undisputed player claims totaling approx $82 million dollars in remissions.”

On February 24th the following message was posted on FullTiltPokerClaims.com, the website used by the Garden City Group for communication purposes in regards to repaying player funds, “All other Petitioners who have been approved for payment in the first round of distributions and whose bank account information has passed the preliminary testing process will be sent an email notice on Monday, February 24 or Tuesday, February 25 with the amount of their payment. The first round of payments is scheduled to be issued on Friday, February 28.”

Today, on February 28th, Twitter blew up with the hash tag #GreenFriday and many players posted joyful messages about getting paid what they’d been owed for so many years. We reached out to some players who received funds today and they were happy to answer some question regarding the subject. Kane ‘Nascar_1949’ Kalas, Josh ‘LitleBastrd’ Tieman and Josh Brikis received their funds, but the same cannot be said for former Full Tilt Poker Red Pro Ryan Daut.

Huge Payout For Tieman and Kalas, Brikis Relieved
“I had $440,000 on Full Tilt and when I saw the money actually hit my bank account, a really big smile came over my face,” Tieman said, “I guess I felt relief more than anything. It had been such a long wait with a lot of ups and downs over the last few years. I was definitely optimistic over the last few months, but still always a bit worried about getting my hopes up. I had written off the money as lost after the first year as a way to just try and prepare myself for the worst. It was somewhere around 20-30% of my net worth, so I was still ok financially, but it was definitely a lot of money, and I was no longer earning near what I used to, so this was a big deal for me,” Tieman said.

Kalas was also severely affected and he said the following,“I received an amount of money in the six figures so, as you can imagine, I was very relieved to find it in my account today. After getting the run around from the DOJ regarding the date of payment for the past three years, I must admit I was skeptical that the funds would arrive today as promised. For me, it felt like a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders. It was similar to the feeling you get when you lose your cell phone and then find it, only, in this case, it would be like if you had lost a cell phone made of gold.”

Ivey Poker Pro Josh Brikis also received his funds today and he said the following, “I have been checking my bank account every day since it was announced a few weeks ago that we would get paid by the end of February. I was pretty anxious and really happy this morning when it finally happened! I don't have near as much as a lot of friends and other pros do but it is 5 figures and much needed!”

Here are some Tweets from other pros that were repaid today as well.

Incase you all were wondering. FTP MONEY!!!!!

Finally got my Full Tilt money!!!!

No more sweats. Ty @PokerStars

Selling and Buying Full Tilt Poker Funds
During the Black Friday aftermath many players were involved in selling off funds, as some believed the money was never to be seen again while others believed it was still possible.

“I did not, thankfully, and I really wish I bought it all up!” Brikis said, and Kalas confirmed he choose not to as well. “I was actually considering buying Full Tilt funds from others when the price was around 50 cents, as I thought at the time that the price was too low but I was already so highly exposed that I decided against it,” Kalas said.

Tieman explained that buying up Full Tilt Poker funds never crossed his mind as he already had so much on the line, he did not sell of any of the money he had tied up himself.

“No, I didn't sell any,” Tieman said, “During the first few months after Full Tilt closed I always assumed they'd have no problem covering everyone's balances. Full Tilt was seen as such a reputable company that everyone trusted them as much as a bank account myself included. In the beginning the price people were getting for their full tilt money seemed fairly low to me. I think a lot of people sold somewhat cheap, just to fund a poker bankroll on other sites, or just to cover day to day expenses.” Tieman said.

Daut was not able to join his peers in today’s celebration. Daut has not received any money from Full Tilt and it remains unclear for him if and when this is going to happen.

“It’s been kind of a rollercoaster as a red pro. We went from expecting the money to come in soon after receiving our PokerStars balances 2 weeks after Black Friday, to treating the money as gone after the deal with Group Bernard Tapie fell through, to expecting the money to eventually come after PokerStars purchased Full Tilt, to being told six months ago that we were not going to receive any money due to being pros. Now we are being given hope again because the GCG says they are doing a review on the former Pros. I really want the money back because it’s a large amount but I’m tired of being toyed with,” Daut said.

“Getting the Full Tilt money back would be huge. Of my total net worth, it’s probably around 10%, but I don’t use the majority of my net worth for poker. So in terms of liquidity it would more than double what I have right now. I would play more live tournaments, more big online tournaments, be able to buy more action of players and would be able to take shots in bigger cash games that I never feel all that comfortable in,” Daut said as he remains in the dark about what’s going to happen with his case.

“I didn’t sell any FTP money, but I actually bought some more. In 2011 I bought another $10,500 full tilt for $4,500, so I will be receiving that from a player who received an e-mail that he will be in the first batch of payouts. I also luckily bought some action on 2p2 for the 2011 WSOP, which I sent on FTP so the players that get money back can send me what I sent them. So at least I don’t have to watch people getting money while I’m completely left out in the cold,” Daut said.

Changed Views on The Poker Industry
While many players maintained their usual grind it’s not the same for family man Brikis, who told us he ventured into “other avenues of income” because of Black Friday and what happened in the aftermath of that chaos.

Online poker does not enjoy the same status, as before Black Friday and it has definitely changed the way people look at this multi-million dollar industry.

“The problems surrounding Full Tilt have changed how I trust companies. If someone told me what Full Tilt was doing in early 2011 before Black Friday, I wouldn’t have believed it. It just wouldn’t make sense for a company in a position to make so much money to steal from its customers. But I would have been very wrong, so nowadays I try to limit my exposure by never having too much in any one site besides PokerStars,” Daut said.

Tieman expresses similar feelings, as most of the trust seems to be gone forever.

“The post-Black Friday developments have definitely changed my views on online poker. Looking back I trusted poker sites way too much, often leaving way too much money in accounts for the stakes I played. I was blind to how shady some of the sites are and overestimated how much they were making. After Black Friday, and hearing about several other poker sites withholding payments, I have little trust for any poker site other than PokerStars. I would still play on them, but would cash out religiously and maybe not even bother playing ultra high stakes since I would have to keep so much money on the site. There's just little visibility into how financially sound most sites are, and especially for U.S. facing sites, they can hide behind the excuse of how difficult it is to pay out players. It seems like an educated guessing game, where you’re hoping not to get burned,” Tieman said.

Tieman continued by saying that Black Friday had a much larger affect on him, not just financially.

“I think all the problems lately in the poker industry have definitely contributed to me growing to dislike the game in general. I used to love playing online poker, now I have to worry how safe my money is and choose between living in the U.S. or playing poker. I was making a lot of money and pushing myself to play higher stakes before Black Friday and I haven't played very much the last couple years. I'm sure the games are harder than they used to be now so I wouldn't be playing as high as I used to and it feels like I would be taking a big step back from where I was on Black Friday as a player if I tried to play seriously again. I've felt a bit burned out on poker for a long time too, it's gotten a bit monotonous and repetitive for me and with all the current problems with poker, it seems like a good time to step away. I'm pretty uncertain about my future as a full time poker player currently,” Tieman said.

Josh Tieman's PTR graph up until Black Friday

Daut’s Doubts About Past Decisions and Future Income
As a former Full Tilt Poker Red Pro Daut still remains in limbo and he expresses the toll it has taken him.

“The whole process has sucked, it’s amazing how many of the stages of grief you go through in a process like this. I relocated to Canada in August 2011 and part of me blames myself for not relocating before June. Had I moved in May before Full Tilt went offline, I would have been considered a ROW player and received my money already. Of course with the WSOP coming up, most people were planning on relocating in August or later. It makes me think of how things would’ve been better if I had made a few different decisions. Should I have sent my bankroll to a European or Canadian friend? If I had, I would have received it all 18 months ago,” Daut said.

“I get angry again, because I realize that one of my horses sent me his entire FTP balance of $23,000 right when the notices went up. Had he kept it in his account he would be receiving that money today, but since he sent it to me its now frozen in my account. Should I have sent it back?” Daut questions his own actions almost three years after it happened.

“Then there’s the part of me thinks I don’t deserve all, or even any of the money. I was a full tilt pro for 2.5 years. I received a little over $100,000 in 100% rakeback plus $35 an hour payments over that time, which is similar to the amount of money I have frozen on the site. But then you start bargaining with yourself and saying ‘It’s okay if they take the $35 an hour, but I at least deserve to keep the rakeback because other players are getting their rakeback!’ but then you bargain further ‘well maybe they can just allow me to keep 35% of the rakeback since that’s what most rakeback players were receiving from affiliates,” Daut continued.

“I’m tired of feeling like I need to blame myself and or that I don’t deserve money that I was counting on having. I made life decisions based on the expectation that I could withdraw that money at any time and now I’m being told I possibly can’t have that money when the DOJ was given more than enough to pay out all balances. Everything feels unfair, but at the same time this was all mentally written off a long time ago and I’ll have to find a way to accept anything that happens,” Daut said.

The Lost Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet Money
While there’s finally good news about Full Tilt Poker many people tend to forget that Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet were also indicted on Black Friday. Some players we spoke to were also affected by their mismanagement and they all feel like that money is long gone.

“I had $4,000 on Absolute on Black Friday, lost a few thousand messing around in the following days when the site was still running, but I have completely written off the remainder,” Daut said.

Kalas, with over six-figures tied up on Full Tilt Poker, had more than Daut on Absolute and his faith in ever getting that money back has also been reduced to zero.

“Unfortunately I have an amount tied up on Absolute Poker similar to what I just received from Full Tilt. While on the subject, if you know anyone interested in buying Absolute Poker funds, send them my way. Tell them I also have some swampland that might interest them in Florida,” Kalas sarcastically said.

Full Tilt Poker

Tieman was in the middle of a big downswing when Black Friday happened and he recalls that it might’ve saved him from having a ton of money tied up on the now defunct website.

“I had about $40,000 on there and it could’ve been way more. A couple months before Black Friday I had around $100,000 on UB and was taking shots at the nosebleeds, playing $100-$200 and $150-$300. I ran pretty badly and about busted my account and had to get a few transfers in. It was my biggest downswing ever monetarily, and a lot of it was on UB. If it would've gone the other way I could have had a lot more in there. Looking back it's maybe the one downswing I'm happy about. If it was $200,000-$300,000 on UB instead of $40,000 it would be a much harder loss to take. So despite the loss of UB money, there's a silver lining there for me, and getting the Full Tilt money back was the big one I was worried about,” Tieman said.

The website FullTiltPokerClaims.com submitted another update Friday afternoon which stated the following:

Make sure to tune back in with us throughout the week as we bring you continuous coverage of players getting refunded by Full Tilt Poker. Front page photo credit: ClubPoker

Contents

On April 15, 2011, the FBI seized the Full Tilt Poker .com domain. The seizure occurred due to a series of indictments against owners and employees of the website.

The indictments were a result of an investigation of the company by a federal grand jury that began on April 5, 2010. Many of these indictments were successful, resulting in jail time and financial penalties.

The most notable result of this effort was a guilty plea by the founder of Full Tilt Poker, Raymond Bitar. He pled to wire fraud, violating the UIGEA, and operating the business like a Ponzi scheme. This admission resulted in time served and forfeiture of $40 million, and it has forever tarnished the Full Tilt name.

About Full Tilt Poker

Full Tilt Poker was founded in June 2004, about two years prior to the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act of 2006. Initially, the company was privately owned by Tiltware, LLC. The original Tiltware ownership was involved in a number of legal disputes even prior to the grand jury investigation, and a pattern of exploiting customer and employees developed. The acquisition of FTP by Rational Entertainment Group was the first attempt to distance the brand from that negativity.

Most recently, the Amaya Gaming Group, which is based in Canada and a publicly traded company, acquired the Full Tilt Poker brand through its acquisition of Rational Entertainment Group. Almost immediately, Amaya rebranded Full Tilt Poker as Full Tilt and expanded the offerings beyond poker to slot machines and other casino games.

Is Full Tilt Poker Rigged?

Over the years, much of the focus on the trustworthiness of Full Tilt Poker has concerned the manipulation of money to cheat clients and employees. Nevertheless, there has been a prevalent and persistent belief among the online poker community that FTP has rigged or at least “tuned” games. Interestingly enough, there are even a number of videos on YouTube that demonstrate some rather fortunate, or unfortunate as the case may be, card deals over an extended period.

Video evidence like this can be evocative, but it is important to note that bad beats and great fortune are all part of the game. Although we feel a bit dirty defending FTP in this regard, the truth is that video of a random event like dealing playing cards can be used to support any position. What people must ask themselves is what FTP has to gain from rigging games. An online poker room is not like an online casino. The house makes money from the rake. It never loses, and the rake is the same regardless of which players won or lost.

Does Full Tilt Poker Cheat Players?

Let us put all the cards on the table, so to speak. One of the reasons Full Tilt Poker owners were indicted was operating the company as a Ponzi scheme. What this meant to the average FTP player was that the money expected to be in their accounts never actually was. The company achieved this by shuffling money around, a shell game of sorts. This shell game could only go on for so long until someone had to pay the piper. This is about the time that FTP began using unscrupulous practices to withhold winnings. In one notable case, poker pro Lary Kennedy sued FTP because the company had seized $80K of her winnings and provided only a baseless excuse.

For the average player, this kind of cheating is the main concern. If a person deposits $100 into their Full Tilt Poker account, they can expect that money to be there regardless of the shell game for playing purposes. But what happens when the player wins and expands that bankroll beyond the initial $100? Now, some will defend FTP by emphasizing that these actions were performed years ago by people who are no longer involved. Nevertheless, FTP has a long history of this kind of behavior, and there are still lawsuits and complaints filed against this brand today.

Keep in mind that despite settling with the U.S. Department of Justice, Full Tilt Poker and all other Full Tilt services are still prevented from operating within the U.S. for the purposes of real money games due to the UIGEA. There are exceptions, such as in New Jersey and Nevada, states that have state laws that override the UIGEA and legalize online gambling.

Amaya Gaming Group

Full Tilt Poker is a company headquartered in Ireland, which is now owned and operated by a Canadian company, Amaya Inc. Amaya also owns the PokerStars brand. Click here to find out if PokerStars is a scam or legit.

Amaya recently altered it’s long standing affiliate relationship with it’s marketing partners to no longer pay commissions on referred players older than two years, an abrupt and massively damaging change that has turned away many long standing partners. Previously, marketing affiliates were compensated based on the life of the player.

So not only do customers have to worry about getting paid, so do their business partners.

Amaya also quietly added a 2.5% foreign currency exchange fee when depositing or withdrawing funds, without letting any of their customers know, and increased the rake on most of their poker games.

But probably one of the most ridiculous things about the management team at Amaya, is that they hired Paul Legget as the Head of Online Gaming in 2013! Paul Leggett was the COO of Tokwiro Enterprises – the company that owned and operated UlitmateBet/UB Poker and Absolute Poker!

Along with Full Tilt, UB and Absolute Poker operated the biggest poker scams of all time. UB and Absolute Poker had a superuser account capable of seeing all the hole cards, so the owners and others with access to these accounts were cheating players out of millions of dollars.

And when these two sites were shut down, players and affiliates lost all their funds.

Paul Leggett has since stepped down from his position at Amaya only because no legitimate jurisdiction would license the poker brands while he was in charge.

Is Full Tilt Poker Trustworthy?

Amaya Inc. is trying to rebrand Full Tilt as a brand that we can all trust, and the company is positioning itself to provide services throughout the U.S. based on expectation that online gambling will soon be legalized.

However, Amaya’s unscrupulous money-grab has alienated its online marketing partners so the online community is backing away from their poker brands. And we cannot shake the distrust of Full Tilt Poker which has had a pervasive culture of corruption, criminality and disregard for its customers. How anyone could ever trust Full Tilt Poker again is beyond us.

Full Tilt Poker is a scam – stay away.

We recommend William Hill which offers a fair and popular poker room. You can read our William Hill review here.

Leave Us Your Opinion

How were your experiences with Full Tilt Poker? Let us know.

Full Tilt Poker Site

Playing PlayMoney Texas Holdem. I was looking for a place to help me learn the game. Of course you need to be sure the RNG is legit. Otherwise you can learn all wrong. On FullTilt, When you first start playing everything seems normal. It really feels even. For me once I started to win a lot of play chips...they shifted me to a lose algorithm. And example would be that out of twenty hands I would be dealt a Jack and Low Kicker on about ten of those hands. It was shocking. Here I am receiving all these Jacks but the board shows A,Q,T,K,8. It would happen again and again. You get tired of folding and eventually you play wildly because you are pissed that they system is putting you in a corner. Once you lose a good amount it would take me off the algorithm and allow me to play normal until I started to win a lot again. When I hit a million chips in account without buying any...they really put me on the fucked algorithm. So instead of getting better after playing all that poker...I lost lost lost. Weird stuff like I would not be given a hand to play for ten hands. Then when they finally give me a good hand to play...I lose on the river by one card number. I had the Qhearts and the other guy got a Khearts on the river and that gave him the win. Weird stuff like that. To me it is so obvious it is rigged. I just want a place to play where there is a true RNG. If anyone knows a place please email me.

Full tilt is rigged..... I started with the 12,500 play chips they give you...and I now have it to over 11 billion chips. My point is I've experienced a ton of success, I'm not here to complain. Their cards are not random.....they create action. More action means more rake, more rake means more idiots spending cash to buy 'play' chips. The draws get there too frequently, therefore creating more action( therefore maximizing the rake). It also allows bad players to survive longer......bad players who get there with their draws are enabled to endure longer and not get crushed. This allows them to stay in the game longer, therefore the rake stays longer, therefore the overall chips dwindle, so people can buy play chips more often. Full Tilt has no shame. The continuous 'hand over hand', rivered flush over set, set over set, flush over flush,..... oh and the ever popular top pair, top kicker vs bottom set. It's absolutely pathetic. It's painfully obvious to anyone who knows poker that the site is not RANDOM. Anyone who buys play chips is a fool.
Don't help fund these scumbag scammers

Really do not like the new rules...no more $1k buy in and now you have to wait an hour or more to get play chips. Time to find a new place to play online poker...

I always knew there was some fish going on with FTP. The sleek ads and nice look of the game could not hide that there were bad things going on in the background. I once had about $500 bucks on my account and it didn´t go smooth to withdraw the funds. Quite the opposite. First there were 'technical delays' then someone emailed me to excuse the delay and I was to give my bank credentials via phone. After I declined saying that they already have everything they need it took weeks again before I heard. In the end I got some $395 bucks back with processing cost and withheld 'state tax' which is BS. So I stopped playing with FTP. Now I know why. Bigtime scammers!

Full Tilt Poker Play Money

DO NOT JOIN FULLTILT. They overdrew my credit card by $200 and refuse to return the funds. STAY AWAY...let my bad experience be a lesson for you.

Tried their european roulette. Betting either red or black, I lost 15 times IN A ROW. The probability is 0.51^15=0.000041=0.004%

Dont ever go anywhere near this casino as it is most certainly rigged. Deposited over $5000 in the last couple of months and the pattern is always the same you are always chasing a loss and regardless what game you play it will never give you a decent win. when i complained i get the same crap answer that it is random however you get the same results regularly
which are lose lose lose. Avoid at all costs there are hundreds more sites out there far superior to this rubbish

Lost Money On Full Tilt Poker Free

I believe zzxas to be working for Full Tilt poker. His/Her username is irrelevant because they could easily change it if suspicions arose.
Full Tilt Poker Game #36157582834: Table San Pablo (6 max) - NL Hold'em - $5/$10 - 19:56:47 ET - 2015/12/23
Seats: 6
Seat 1: Joeylurrrve ($1,068)
Seat 3: fabtel ($449.90)
Seat 4: Drew_2036 ($931.20)
Seat 6: zzxas ($1,000)
Joeylurrrve posts the small blind of $5
fabtel posts the big blind of $10
The button is in seat #6
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Drew_2036 [Ac Ad]
Drew_2036 calls $10
zzxas calls $10
Joeylurrrve calls $5
fabtel checks
*** FLOP *** [5c Td 4c] (Total Pot: $40, 4 Players)
Joeylurrrve has 15 seconds left to act
Joeylurrrve checks
fabtel checks
Drew_2036 checks
zzxas checks
*** TURN *** [5c Td 4c] [2c] (Total Pot: $40, 4 Players)
Joeylurrrve checks
fabtel checks
Drew_2036 checks
zzxas bets $24
Joeylurrrve folds
fabtel folds
Drew_2036 calls $24
*** RIVER *** [5c Td 4c 2c] [6c] (Total Pot: $88, 2 Players)
Drew_2036 checks
zzxas has 15 seconds left to act
zzxas bets $966, and is all in
Drew_2036 calls $897.20, and is all in
Uncalled bet of $68.80 returned to zzxas
*** SHOW DOWN ***
zzxas shows [3c Ks] a straight flush, Six high
Drew_2036 mucks
zzxas wins the pot ($1,879.40) with a straight flush, Six high
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $1,882.40 | Rake $3
Board: [5c Td 4c 2c 6c]
Seat 1: Joeylurrrve (small blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 3: fabtel (big blind) folded on the Turn
Seat 4: Drew_2036 mucked [Ac Ad] - a flush, Ace high
Seat 6: zzxas (button) showed [3c Ks] and won ($1,879.40) with a straight flush, Six high

Over 20 years experience in real and online poker, very few trustworthy sites, I admit, but Fulltilt is the most biased and a total scam among all the ones I've played.
You might win something but they will eventually make sure that they take it all and make you deposit more for it, it's rigged to the core with advance algorithms to make the most money they can out of you.
My humble advice please stay away from all fulltilt products and if ever someone finds a way to get back to those bastards count me in, they deserve to pay back.

They now have a new game out on Steam, where they are offering players a chance to buy 'chips' but not withdraw winnings.... I thought they couldn't do this?! Crooked bstrds.
'Note: This is a play-money game and whilst you can make in app purchases to top up chips, real-money gambling is not facilitated.'
So why they are skirting the law by not offering gambling, per se, they are still taking peoples money..

After years of emailing abuse to full tilt about the beats I took, bad abuse, they never kicked me out. But, when I won a 180 man SNG for a chance to play another tournament to get on POKER AFTER DARK, before I could find when my next tourney was, they kicked me out while I was STILL LOGGED IN. Fishy for sure.