One of the more anticipated dates in in the history of American online poker is nearly upon us.
That date: Monday, September 16th, when the claims process for former U.S. customers of Full Tilt Poker officially opens.
Starting on that date, American players with frozen balances at Full Tilt will be able to begin filing petitions with claims administrator The Garden City Group for the return of said balances.
Details of the steps involved in filing a petition will be made available by the GCG at FullTiltPokerClaims.com.
The claims period will only be open until November 16th, 2013, so players are advised to engage with the petition as quickly as possible.
Specifics of Full Tilt payback plan remain somewhat murky
While we do know that the window for petitions will open on Monday and remain open until November 16th, there are still a number of critical details that have yet to be articulated by the GCG and the U.S. Government.
One big question that continues to confront players concerns what appeals process - if any - will be provided for players who disagree with the GCG's determination regarding their balance amount or qualification for remission payment.
Another uncertainty: How will players be compensated for the non-cash assets associated with their Full Tilt Poker accounts?
For example, nearly every American player at Full Tilt likely accumulated some amount of Full Tilt points that were unredeemed at the time that U.S. player accounts were frozen when the DoJ brought money laundering and UIGEA changes against several online poker sites.
While FTP points never had a direct cash value, the points were exchangeable for bonuses, tournament tickets and merchandise - in short, things that clearly had some monetary value, albeit something of an ambiguous one.
But to date the GCG has not revealed any plans to include such assets in the payback formula for Full Tilt's American players.
How many players will be excluded?
As we reported earlier in the week, it appears that the U.S. Government and the GCG will be employing a fairly stringent qualification policy that could potentially exclude hundreds, if not thousands, of Americans from the Full Tilt remissions process.
The exact scope of still-unconfirmed policy remains unclear. We will be following this story very closely and adding any and all relevant updates to our U.S. poker news section.
How to confirm your balance at Full Tilt Poker
If you're not certain of your Full Tilt Poker balance as of Black Friday, don't worry - confirming your balance at Full Tilt is a simple three-step process. After logging into the software, you'll want to:
1. Choose "Requests" from the main menu and scroll down to the "Account History" option.
2. This will take you to a webpage that allows you to request a report from Full Tilt. You'll want to choose "All types" under "Select Report Type" and "Real Money" under "Select Balance Type." For "Time Range" you're mostly concerned about the end date - make sure it's set to 4/15/2011.
3. Full Tilt Poker will email you when the report is ready for download. If you don't receive your report within a few hours, check your spam folder. The report is in spreadsheet format and arranged by date.
If you've forgotten your username or password, open the Full Tilt Poker software and request them from the initial login screen.
Non-US players not impacted in any way by remissions process
The claims process is limited to American customers of Full Tilt Poker and in no way affects Full Tilt customers from outside of the United States.
Those players were compensated by PokerStars after PokerStars took control of Full Tilt Poker following Black Friday and reopened the site in November of 2012.
