The Department of Justice’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, in conjunction with claims administrator Garden City Group, today announced a clarification of eligibility rules regarding former US-based customers of Full Tilt Poker whose player accounts received rakeback payments tagged with the word “affiliate”.
The latest update was in direct response to protests received from former Full Tilters who discovered that their reported account balances were hundreds or thousands of dollars less than what they believed they were owed from the site, which ceased its US-facing operations in April of 2011.
Under dispute were a category of funds that appeared likely to be withheld in the FTP remission process; these funds were rakeback payments made to players that had often been tagged as affiliates within Full Tilt’s own record-keeping system, but were not true business associates of the site.
The latest update from GCG:
INFORMATION REGARDING AFFILIATE BALANCES
Affiliate balances shown upon logging into the online filing site were determined by deducting from the account balance all payments labeled as Affiliate payments in the data provided by Full Tilt Poker. The Department of Justice does not consider rakeback an Affiliate payment and will include rakeback payments in approved remission amounts. However, if rakeback was labeled by Full Tilt Poker as an Affiliate payment on a particular account and was therefore deducted from the balance, it is the player’s responsibility to dispute the account balance and provide an explanation differentiating rakeback from Affiliate revenue.
The clarification of the distinction between rakeback payments made to players and true affiliate-business transactions is an obvious distinction for those within the poker world, though lax record-keeping at the old Full Tilt potentially placed millions of dollars of possible refunds at risk. The situation regarding rakeback accounts had been exposed fully in recent days, with numerous players posting examples of how the numbers shown in their remission information at GCG matched up to known account balances — less the missing rakeback.
One player in particular, Deuces Cracked coach Aaron Wilt (@WiltonTilt on Twitter), helped PPA executive director John Pappas assemble examples of the missing rakeback payments. Pappas and the PPA, in turn, who have been in communications with DOJ officials, then communicated that information to the DOJ and GCG, who quickly understood the problem and announced the clarification.
Prior to GCG issuing its clarification, Pappas had already advised poker players that the situation had been addressed and a revision would be forthcoming. Wrote Pappas at 2+2:
Good news to report. I already heard back from the DOJ and they have made very clear that legitimate rakeback will not be withheld from players. Unfortunately, the data they are working from does not make clear distinctions between rakeback and affiliate payments. But, they are now aware of these discrepancies and want to work with players to ensure they get the proper refund. So, the burden is going to fall with the player to demonstrate legitimate rake back vs. an affiliate payment. My contact at DOJ specifically cited the information put together by WiltOnTilt (which he sent directly to GCG and which I shared with DOJ) as the exact type of back-up info they would be seeking.
Also, there will be an update forthcoming on the GCG web-page “soon” (don’t make me define soon please), which should provide additional detail.
I am optimistic that this will be resolved positively for the affected players and I am pleased that the DOJ and GCG are responding so quickly.
As noted by Pappas, the latest adjustment is good news for players, although they’ll still need to be proactive in terms of getting their paperwork prepared for GCG/DOJ review. In many instances, players will likely have to seek rakeback tracking records from the affiliates with whom they signed their earlier Full Tilt rakeback deals.
Still more updates are likely in the weeks ahead, though the latest clarification moves the process a little bit closer to what the DOJ appears to have intended — getting refunds for players while keeping for itself all business-to-business transactions and monies involved in any facet of the operation of the old Full Tilt.
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