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Two weeks ago, pokerfuse exclusively reported that the Full Tilt client would be sunset. Last Thursday, the desktop and mobile apps were taken offline across markets globally.
This marks the end to almost all the remaining assets of Full Tilt poker: From its cartoonish avatars and classic table themes to the iconic logo the ear-worm sound effects, what was once one of the most exciting online poker operators in the industry is all but gone.
Putting a single date on its ultimate demise is open to debate. This latest development is just one in a string made by owners PokerStars in winding down the brand. It has been almost five years since the iconic software was sunset. Since then, Full Tilt has been operating as a skin on PokerStars’ software, sharing the same player pool and offering only cosmetic differences.
Even today, the brand has not completely disappeared. The Full Tilt poker website and web product—PokerStars’ new browser-based poker client—remains online for now. The download link on the website has been replaced with that of PokerStars, but players can continue to use the instant play option by clicking on “Play” on the homepage.
However, this web product is entirely different from the iconic Full Tilt software. There are no cartoonish avatars, no Vegas skyline table theme nor any of its special sound effects. Instead, a simple browser-based poker client, akin to the operator’s old generation mobile app, but with limited game options and features, is all that remains.
This instant play option notwithstanding, the shutting of Full Tilt’s desktop and mobile apps mark the end of an era. Pokerfuse takes a look at the ups and downs of Full Tilt Poker over its 17-year history.
Rode High on Moneymaker Boom
Full Tilt was launched in 2004 under the ownership of Tiltware LLC. It involved some of the big names in the industry at the time, including former WSOP Main Event winner Chris Ferguson.
Riding high on the first online poker boom caused by the Moneymaker effect, the site quickly became one of the largest online poker rooms in the world. It had the reputation of professional poker players, was the primary sponsor of a number of poker TV programs and boasted exceptional software out of the gate.
It also became synonymous with high-stakes poker featuring nosebleed legends like Tom Dwan, Phil Ivey, Viktor “Isildur1” Blom and Phil Galfond. It was home of rail heaven. Post-UIGEA, it became the number one competitor of PokerStars.
Master of Innovations and New Features
Full Tilt Poker in its prime revolutionized the online poker industry by bringing several unique features to its poker platform.
Most famously, it invented Rush Poker in 2010, a fast-fold poker variant that allows players to “quick fold” and jump instantly to the next hand.
It was an instant success, and other operators took note. PokerStars joined the instant-action bandwagon with its own fast-fold variant called Zoom Poker.
Data provided by GameIntel
Today, the format has proved to be so popular that almost every online poker room spreads their own version.
Besides the revolutionary Rush, Full Tilt also introduced dozens of new games and features.
It launched Matrix tournaments, a sit & go style tournament played with a special scoring system, in 2008; Cashout tournaments allowing players to redeem all or a portion of tournament chips for immediate cash; Flipout tournaments allowed players to flip their way straight into the money. (this format has been re-instated by GGPoker as Flip & Go).
Full Tilt is also the inventor of multi-entry tournaments, in which players can effectively multi-table the same scheduled tournament, playing multiple chips stack at separate tables. Furthermore, it also introduced Double and Triple Chance MTTs, today known as re-entries.
It is also one of the first online poker rooms to roll-out Run It Twice, automated deal-making at final tables, on-demand sit and go’s, 4-handed Adrenaline Rush, in which players’ options were limited to raising or folding, tournament waiting lists, and more.
Action formats such as Irish Poker and 6 Card Omaha, plus 5-Card Stud and 25-Game Mixed Game variants, are also all creations of Full Tilt Poker.
List of Full Tilt Poker Online Poker Inventions
- Rush Poker
- Multi-Entry Tournaments
- Double and Triple Chance MTTs (Re-Entries)
- Matrix Tournaments
- Cashout Tournaments
- Flipout Tournaments
- Run It Twice
- Irish Poker, 6 Card PLO, 5-Card Stud
- 7-Game, 10-Game and 25-Game Mixed Game Variants
- Automated Dealing
- Poker Hybrid Jackpot The Deal
- On-Demand SNGs
- Tournament Waiting List
- 4-handed Adrenaline Rush
Controversies, Lawsuits And Black Friday
Full Tilt was certainly not immune to controversies and lawsuits. Its company and the founders faced multiple lawsuits alleging unfair and unlawful business practices. There were also accusations of poor financial decisions against the owners, leading to one of its board members quitting.
And then Black Friday happened. In April 2011, the US Department of Justice seized money and the domains of Full Tilt, PokerStars, and Absolute Poker. The US Department of Justice alleged that these online poker rooms laundered money, violated US federal gaming laws, and committed bank fraud by misleading banks about the true nature of their business.
In June later that year, the site was forced to close and its license was suspended.
What the Department of Justice discovered on the books of Full Tilt was massive fraud against its own players. The operator did not have player funds in deposit, like it said it did. A civil complaint against executives alleged that player funds were stolen, and players were deceived, in what amounted to “global Ponzi scheme,” it was claimed.
PokerStars came to the rescue. Having already repaid its own US players in full within weeks of its shutdown, in April 2012, it reached a settlement with the US DOJ to purchase its long-time rival and its assets. As part of the settlement, it agreed to repay all the money owed to Full Tilt players.
Second Round of Full Tilt
Full Tilt relaunched in November 2012 to much fanfare, but early euphoria soon died down. It did continue to innovate with new games and formats, hosted its flagship FTOPS series and expanded into gaming beyond poker, but it struggled to maintain traffic like it did before Black Friday.
A few years later, the operator adopted a dramatic new strategy to make the poker room more attractive to “recreational” players by removing table selection, heads-up games, nosebleed games and mixed games.
It then revamped its reward program to please casual players, a pivotal moment for the industry in its approach to player loyalty.
However, none of these moves worked. The site was migrated to the PokerStars platform in 2016. A Full Tilt representative told PRO site that the original software would not be put up for sale.
For the next five years, it quietly continued to operate as a skin of PokerStars, but with fewer game options. However, keeping Full Tilt in sync with constant upgrades to PokerStars’ client has forced the operator to shelve Full Tilt skin.
Its first shutdown process began in October last year, forcing the dot-EU players to switch to the PokerStars platform. On February 25, the Full Tilt skin was been closed entirely.
Today, it lives on in the web client, though how long that will last remains to be seen.
Full Tilt Poker used to be one of the biggest and most popular destinations during the early days of onlinepoker, and while it had to compete with the likes of PokerStars and Party Poker, Full Tilt managed to hold its own over the years for many reasons.
The first and the most obvious one was their
roster of high-profile players.
With the likes of Phil Ivey, Chris “Jesus”
Ferguson, Howard “The Professor” Lederer, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan wearing their
colors, Full Tilt quickly became the number one destination for poker fans.
Secondly, their software was unique and quite
modern for the early to mid-2000s. Featuring a cartoonish design and funny
avatars but still offering a very player-friendly and easy-to-use interface, it
was well ahead of its time.
So, what happened to Full Tilt Poker?
If you try to look up the room today, you might
get excited initially as the website still exists.
However, that excitement will be short-lived as
you’ll quickly realize it’s just a skin of PokerStars that kept some of the
original design, but not much else.
If you’ve been wondering what happened to FTP,
this is the full story, from the glorious beginning to the bitter end.
Full Tilt Poker Takes
The Poker World By Storm
The poker boom started during the early 2000s, before things really took off in 2003 after the legendary WSOP Main Event win by Chris Moneymaker.
The writing was on the wall, and those in the
know saw a huge business potential in the game.
Chris Ferguson, already an established and
accomplished player at the time, was among those who saw the opening and
decided to take his chances. He paired up with Ray Bitar, and together they
launched Full Tilt Poker in July of 2004.
They wasted no time bringing big names onboard.
The likes of Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Erick Lindgren, and Jennifer Harman joined Full Tilt Poker, and the room devised a very clever strategy to attract new players.
Under the slogan “play with the pros” FTP appealed
to the masses of poker fans who rushed to the site for their chance to sit
across from one of their favorite players.
The room received plenty of additional
marketing thanks to High Stakes Poker’s sponsorship, easily the most popular
poker show ever filmed.
On top of all this, many fans of the game would
log in to Full Tilt just to observe some high stakes cash game action.
The site became the go-to place for everyone
seeking to playonline nosebleeds, with $300/$600+ games running regularly.
By the end of 2005, Full Tilt Poker had taken over the onlinepoker scene, leaving Party Poker and PokerStars, their two biggest competitors at the time, far behind.
Full Tilt was the synonym for onlinepoker
during those early years.
FTP Rolls The Dice As The UIGEA Is Passed
By this point in time, there is hardly anyone
in the poker world, especially if they happen to be from the U.S., who doesn’t
know about the infamous Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006.
The Act was targeted at financial institutions in the States, expressly forbidding them to process any transactions directed towards online gambling sites.
This was a big hit for onlinepoker.
Prior to 2006, players from the U.S. made up a
large percentage of the overall player pool.
However, the UIGEA was directed at financial
institutions and not gambling and poker operators themselves, so there was some
grey area.
Party Poker decided that it was too much of a
risk to continue operating in the States, but PokerStars and Full Tilt saw
another opportunity here.
The people behind Full Tilt Poker decided to
roll the dice and continue business as usual. Some years later, this would
prove to be a big mistake.
Once the initial dust had settled, it seemed
things were back to normal.
With one competitor less to worry about, Full
Tilt made the brand even stronger and it seemed like their decision to ignore
the UIGEA was spot on.
This was just an illusion, though.
Things were happening behind the scenes that
the general public and even some of those inside the company weren’t aware of.
The pin was about the drop, and when it finally
did, FTP received a huge blow that it would never recover from.
The U.S. Department Of Justice Takes On Online Poker
April 15, 2011, is a date that almost every
poker player who’s been around for a while is well familiar with.
It became known as Black Friday as it was easily the hardest and ugliest day in the relatively short history of onlinepoker.
Players who logged on that day were faced with this shocking message:
On that day, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) made it very clear that pretending the UIGEA didn’t exist wasn’t the best move.
They spent several years building the case and collecting the evidence, but they went hard when they were ready to go.
In a single day, they took down websites of
three major poker operators in the U.S. Apart from FTP, PokerStars and Absolute
Poker’s domains were also seized.
The shock that players experienced on that day
when they tried to log in to their Full Tilt accounts can hardly be put into
words.
Many people had substantial amounts of cash
stuck on the site, and no one saw the DoJ coming.
False Promises And The
Fall Of Full Tilt Poker
Initially, Full Tilt Poker issued several
reassuring statements that players had nothing to worry about as their money
was safe.
With the promise of paying U.S. players in
full, the room was allowed to continue operating in the rest of the world for a
short while.
However, after a few weeks, it became clear
that something wasn’t right. The DoJ shut down FTP once again, and underlying
problems started to surface.
It would turn out that the promises about funds
being safe were completely false.
The room didn’t have all the players’ money
readily available, and the DoJ launched a full-scale investigation into the
matter.
Soon after, the claims of the “Ponzi
scheme” operation came about.
Full Tilt Poker has been experiencing problems
processing payments for years.
Some payment processors that dealt with U.S.
deposits weren’t sending them money, but the room continued to add it to the
players’ balances just the same, while actual transactions were stuck in limbo.
While the room was operational, they could
handle the backlog, although players were complaining about delayed withdrawals
long before Black Friday.
But, once they were forced to shut down the
operation and money from new players stopped coming in, it was the end.
There simply wasn’t enough money in FTP’s accounts
to cover everyone’s balances.
Players were furious and felt betrayed, but
there wasn’t much anyone could do at that point. It was hopeless situation.
Who Was To Blame For Full
Tilt Poker’s Fall?
Once the FTP scandal came to light, both the
authorities and players started to ask questions.
Whose fault was it? How did such a big room
with such a great market position end up where it was?
All eyes were directed at the main honchos: Ray
Bitar, Howard Lederer, and Chris Ferguson.
At the very least, they had to know about these
issues, and they had the responsibility to act before it was too late.
But, the poker community was hit with deafening
silence for the most part – they never got the answers they were hoping for.
By that time, Ferguson (below) was no longer as involved with the company management.
Lederer did a few interviews, but his response to most questions was, “I don’t know.” Bitar stayed away from the public eye.
During the investigation, it was revealed that
the management of FTP further deepened the crisis by issuing big loans to some
of their big-name players.
In the end, the blame for the FTP fiasco falls
to those in charge at the time.
For that reason, they were ostracized by the
poker community and had to pay hefty fines.
But, the whole story of what was actually
happening behind the closed doors in those last years and months of Full Tilt
Poker was never told in full.
One must wonder what would have happened if
Black Friday had never occurred.
Perhaps the story of Full Tilt Poker would be
much different. Maybe they’d have found a way to get the funds, and we’d have
been none would be the wiser.
PokerStars Buys Full
Tilt And Restores Player Funds
The uncertainty surrounding FTP was concerning.
It soon became clear that the company couldn’t
pay players back, so they had to find someone willing to take over and rectify
the situation.
With the brand tarnished and the player trust
severely shaken, this was not an easy feat.
In July 2012, former FTP players could finally
see the light at the end of the tunnel after long and painful months of
waiting.
PokerStars agreed to purchase the fallen star and
reimburse all players’ balances: those from the U.S. and the rest of the world
alike.
Shortly after, the ROW players could log back in
to their old FTP accounts and access their funds.
Money was available for withdrawal, and players
could also opt to transfer it to their PokerStars account through a rather
simple process.
However, U.S. players weren’t so lucky.
Although the repayment money was secured, there
was a long process ahead. It wasn’t before 2014 that first installments started
to come in for those who went through necessary steps to claim what was owed to
them.
It took several years for this process to
complete.
With financial issues out of the way, the
question became: what would happen with Full Tilt Poker?
For a little while, the room was up and running
again, and with PokerStars now backing the brand, some players believed the
room would bounce back and reclaim its position.
FTP Discontinued: The
End Of An Era
It seems that PokerStars entertained the idea
of keeping Full Tilt Poker alive but eventually decided not to go through with
it.
While the brand certainly had some value,
everything that happened over the years made it very difficult to rebuild the
trust.
Plus, with PokerStars being the biggest brand
worldwide now that FTP was out the picture, there wasn’t much incentive to
spend resources on what used to be its competing brand.
PokerStars created a huge amount of goodwill
with the player base by purchasing FTP and reimbursing players in full.
They came through like a knight in shining
armor, making sure everyone got every single cent of their money back.
From a marketing perspective it was a great
move, even if a costly one.
PokerStars demonstrated their care for the
community, regardless of what their business motivation might have been. They
came through on their promise with no excuses.
But Full Tilt Poker had to go.
Once repayments were done, PokerStars decided
it was time to send the legendary room to the sidelines.
They kept the domain and the software, as this
was a part of the purchase, but FTP stopped existing as a standalone entity.
Instead, it is now just a skin of PokerStars
with a slightly different design.
If you download Full Tilt Poker today, you’ll
find that it features exactly the same games and players as the original
PokerStars client.
The Final Goodbye To
Full Tilt Poker
Those involved with onlinepoker during the
early 2000s will always remember Full Tilt Poker with a bit of nostalgia.
It was the place where some of the most epic
high stakes battles took place and where many up-and-coming players made a name
for themselves.
On the other hand, heaps of freerolls and
small-stakes games and tournaments made it possible for everyone to experience
the game and build their bankrolls from scratch.
Had chips fallen differently, there is no
telling what would’ve become of Full Tilt Poker.
Is Full Tilt Poker Legal
Perhaps it would be the strongest brand today.
Perhaps it would run its course and shut down, like so many other rooms over
the years.
Full Tilt Net
In the end, the story of Full Tilt Poker wasn’t
a glorious one, but the room certainly had its moments.
Full Tilt Poker Log In
It’s a shame that PokerStars decided to put it
away for good, but maybe it was for the best.
Full Tilt Poker Online
For more articles in this series, check out: