Yorky Pud

With the rescheduled hearing with the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) due to take place on Monday 19 September, Full Tilt Poker have released yet another statement, which reveals that the company is in financial trouble, something that the poker community already guessed.

The statement opens with very similar text to all other correspondence released by the Full Tilt Poker Management team but the second paragraph makes quite interesting reading as the management admits they are having to adopt a cost optimisation program and part of this means they need to save €12,000,000. They then reveal they plan to save the majority of this money by making 250 staff redundant.

The statement, in full, reads as follows:

"On April 15th 2011 the United States Department of Justice unsealed a federal indictment against a number of individuals employed by major online poker operators. After the issuance of that indictment and a related civil case brought by the United States government, Full Tilt Poker withdrew from the US market. Then in a related action, on June 29th, 2011, Full Tilt Poker had its operating licenses suspended by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission.

As a result, Pocket Kings Ltd. (provider of marketing and technology services to Full Tilt Poker) has adopted a cost optimization program and estimates that they need to reduce their costs by approximately €12m. This program is intended to streamline the company’s operations in order to better position itself for future growth and profitability in Full Tilt Poker’s markets outside of the U.S.

If all of the required cost savings were to be achieved through redundancies, approximately 250 positions could be affected; however the exact number cannot be confirmed until the conclusion of a consultation process with its workforce.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, Pocket Kings firmly believes it has a very strong future in Full Tilt Poker’s Non-US Markets, and is fully committed to ensuring Full Tilt Poker restores the site and repay players in full. To this end, Full Tilt Poker has retained Sea Port Group Securities, LLC as its financial advisor with regard to raising capital and/or assisting in securing a strategic partner in order to fund continued operations of Full Tilt Poker's non-U.S. business. The Company is in active discussions with several parties and will provide a further statement in due course."

I myself was meant to travel to London and sit in on the meeting between the AGCC and Full Tilt Poker but the former emailed all attendees yesterday and informed us that the hearing is going to be entirely “in camera,” a legal term for completely private, so it would be a wasted journey. The very fact Full Tilt Poker does not want to be open with Joe Public, instead only allowing them to know what has been discussed via any press releases the AGCC chooses to send out speaks volumes. What do they have to hide? When people are kept in the dark like this they begin to think the worst and rumours start, which in turn causes more damage to the company's reputation, surely? We all know the management made huge mistakes and we all know they must be in a dire financial situation despite raking hundreds of millions of dollars but they just will not come out and say it. And regarding the redundancies, I would be willing to bet that Ray Bitar etc will not be the ones who receive their marching orders, instead it will be the men and women who have done their jobs to the letter whilst Bitar and the rest of his cronies drove and continue to drive the former stricken online poker giant into the ground.

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