Full Tilt Players Surveyed by French Magazine
LivePoker, a French magazine whose owner recently partnered with Group Bernard Tapie (GBT), has reportedly been calling Full Tilt players with unpaid account balances and asking them questions about preferred payment options.
According to multiple reports from players who received calls and posted the details of the phone interviews on a poker forum, callers were insinuating that GBT is behind the survey in an effort to determine an estimate on how much capital would be required to get the shuttered poker site back online again.
During the telephone call, players were initially asked random questions such as:
- What poker site do you currently play at?
- What is the amount of your unpaid balance at Full Tilt?
- Would you ever consider playing at Full Tilt again?
- What were your typical deposit and cashout habits?
The caller then would give players three options on preferred methods of receiving their outstanding funds, with the interviewer suggesting that the choices were being considered in an effort to reduce funding needed to get the business running again.
The three choices given were:
1) Invest a portion of their funds in Full Tilt shares. Players would have the option of selling the shares back to Full Tilt at a later date.
2) Cashout the entire account balance immediately with a penalty that would be a percentage of the balance. No information on percentage amounts was given.
3) Receive small cashouts over the course of a year’s time with no fees or penalties attached.
It is believed that the callers from the magazine had access to Full Tilt’s database of players and were calling only those poker players with considerably large bankrolls at Full Tilt. George Djen, the owner of LivePoker, is the founder of FullFun Company, which recently entered into a partnership agreement with GBT to set up another Tapie poker venture, the International Stadium Poker Tour.
The interviewer reportedly told some players who received calls that rumors were growing that Full Tilt could possibly be online in a matter of weeks. That scenario, of course, would be contingent on new ownership securing the proper licensing, as the operating license of Full Tilt was revoked by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission last month.
The information about players being telephonically surveyed was first reported by Poker Red, a Spanish poker news site. Apparently, one of Poker Red’s employees was one of the first to be surveyed. Unconfirmed reports have stated that players from European countries, including Belgium and Germany, have also received calls.
Of the three choices for receiving unpaid account balances, industry observers believe the third option would be the most preferred method for many players. Receiving shares in a company that, at this time, has no operating license and has no assurance of ever being allowed to enter the U.S. market again just doesn’t seem a good bet. Likewise, paying a penalty to receive hard-earned money would also be viewed as unfavorable to most players.