Full tilt Poker Room Sold

Initially Full Tilt was a decent poker room and had a number of high profile professional players, but then they were sold.

Obviously the Black Friday scandal in 2011 didn’t help as Full Tilt, Poker Stars and Absolute Poker were seized by the US DOJ with the accusations they were in violation of the UIGEA.

Poker Stars Steps In

A lot of players had lost a great deal of funds in the government seizure and in the summer of 2012 Poker Stars made an offer to buy the brand. Part of the purchase agreement was they would also restore the funds players had in their accounts at the time of the seizure.

Initially this was good for the players, and it became obvious fairly quickly that they would continue to operate as a “skin” of Poker Stars”. Players were given the opportunity to transfer their account funds over to a Stars account and many did opt for that. By mid 2016 it was official that player accounts were actually Stars accounts even if the player played on the Full Tilt skin.

Full Tilt Couldn’t Overcome the Tarnish

Even though many believed that Stars would continue on with the brand, the tarnish to Full Tilt’s image just could not be completely overcome.

Poker Stars should be commended for stepping in and saving things, it cost them a lot of money, but it ended up making them the largest Poker Room brand for a long time.

Eventually though, in a somewhat logical and expected move, late in 2020 it became clear that Stars knew that it made more financial sense to close the skin and continue with them.

2021 See’s the Last of Full Tilt

At the beginning of 2021 Poker Stars decided that it was time for a complete closure of the Full Tilt brand and they transferred all the remaining operations and staff positions to their flagship brand name. They had actually been running everything for years by then so it was not a huge transition

Then later in February the announcement was made and Full Tilt officially closed Feb 28, 2021.

Any remaining players balances or accounts were then transferred to a Poker Stars account.

End of an Era

When Full Tilt closed and Poker Stars left the US player market (except the handful of regulated states) many thought it was the end of an era.

However a few other poker rooms had grown quite a bit the last 10 years. Both Bet Online, Sportsbetting as well as Everygame (formerly known as Intertops) Poker Rooms were more then willing to accept the US traffic the other rooms were not.

See our poker room reviews on them here, or in the Poker Rooms drop-down menu above.