Online poker room Full Tilt Poker is known for keeping mum when it comes to its legal and business matters, but the company broke its silence to comment on a recent lawsuit by former customers Lary Kennedy and Greg Omotov. Full Tilt issued a statement to the media regarding the case in which the company asserts that the plaintiffs’ accusations are false and there was just cause behind the closure of the two players’ accounts.
News of Kennedy and Omotov’s suit broke earlier this month when their lawyer, Cyrus Sanai, filed in a California court. Within the claim, the two individuals allege that Full Tilt Poker unjustly confiscated their accounts following false accusations that they were using poker bots to play on the site’s cash game tables. They then went on to suggest that Full Tilt used bots of its own and also leveled several other claims ranging from fraud to violations of the Racketeer-Influenced Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act.
Full Tilt addressed some, but not all, of Kennedy and Omotov’s accusations in a statement which refers to the suit as “baseless” and “frivolous.” The statement, which was posted in full on Gambling911, went on to explain, “Both of these player accounts were appropriately terminated for multiple violations of the express terms and conditions governing fair and lawful play in the Full Tilt Poker online virtual cardroom, including their own admissions of using multiple accounts.”
Kennedy admitted to multi-accounting in a lengthy thread on the TwoPlusTwo online poker forum. She said she sometimes used Omotov’s idle Full Tilt account to get action at the heads-up cash game tables after many regulars stopped playing with her when she was logged in on her personal account under her own username.
The statement from Full Tilt also addressed the claims that the site operates its own bots on the cash game tables: “Full Tilt Poker has never knowingly allowed ‘bots’ to play on its site… When fraud, collusion, and cheating of any kind is uncovered, Full Tilt Poker investigates extensively and then acts accordingly and appropriately, as was the case involving these claimants.” Full Tilt not only affirmed its belief that the two players were cheating, but the company also suggested the two individuals will “be obliged to compensate the aggrieved defendants for any harm that may arise out of their false allegations and for the wrongful institution of these bad faith legal proceedings.”
While Full Tilt’s statement addressed the issue of bot use, the site did not comment on some of the suit’s claims about racketeering, unfair competition, and operating an illegal online casino in the state of California. The statement also failed to confirm or deny any assertions about Howard Lederer, Raymond Bitar, and Chris Ferguson’s role within the company. The lawsuit suggests that these three individuals serve as top executives for both Tiltware and Vert Enterprises. These two companies are supposedly different entities run out of California and St. Kitts and Nevis, respectively, but the suit claims they are one in the same and controlled by Bitar, Lederer, and Ferguson.
The company has yet to issue a statement on its pending lawsuits involving former sponsored pro Clonie Gowen and former employee Jason “JDN” Newitt.
Online poker needs to be properly regulated and legalized. If these aligations are true or not, we as poker players who pla online DESERVE to heve this great game regulated and legalized. To support our cause go to MakePokerLegal.com
Thank You,
Ty Warren
President
Playing poker online is fun, but can be addicting. There also is to much room for cheaters or other scandal-like playing that seems impossible to fix. Going to the casino to play is a much safer bet in my eyes.
This is amazing and I am glad it is happening. For far too long there have been rumours that bots are being used to help get tables going as been said before that tighter regulation is needed.
full tilt will prob pay them off or give back their money to avoid any algorithm investigation. Software engineers that worked with ft even let out FT’s proposition for player identification modules. Think about it, you get people out of tournies quicker (big stacks win, more bad beats) the players that bust go buy in another tourney faster. If you take 10 dollars and pass it around thousands of times, FT taking 1 dollar each time, think of where all the money goes? Playing poker professionally, I understand the variance. Seems that Full Tilt using variance as their alibi. FT is very adamant about their software algorithm and seem to pay off alot of pros. You will also notice alot of post being removed online from websites that trash it. They hire a team just to get of internet suspicion and promote the integrity. Seems a bit sketchy. Of course the company needs to hide in small countries where the law is hard to get through.
Ty Warren, If you are to be the president of anything, you should probably take a spelling class, or at least know how to use spell check. I’m pretty sure FTP is legit and if Jim were really playing poker for a living he would know better than to talk like a fish in a shark tank with diarrhea of the mouth.
D.V., you are an idiot! What relevance does his spelling have? Also, pla is obviously play. Stop spendin’ time pointn’ out irrelevant crap and go jump in a real fish tank with a few sharks to make the world a better place.
Thanks,
The Donkey
I’ve watched Chris and Howard for a long time. I love to see them play.Yet lets not b/s about it.These cats are in it for the cheese.If they have anything to do with FTP decision making then you can believe they’ll try anything.I can easly see Chris banging out programs that generate anything that he desires.As for Howard he’s old school.When I see him,he looks like he just step off the stage with the rat pack.Dude is to cool for his own good.Rico would just be bragging rites for him and his crew.He child hood dream was most likely to grow up to be a mobster.Lucky for him, he is the reincarnation of Al Capone.He most likely knows more mafia than the FBI.However as long as I’m having fun playing then I say more power to them and goodluck.
well, there you have it……. maybe they will do a once over on BODOG sportsbook, poker room, and casino! It’s only fair considering the similarities in the systems as far as “statistics”…. taking advantage of hardworking individuals, it’s a sickness gambling is and using the internet these companies took advantage sucked away your money through well coordinated results. The computer collects tell tale info on your moves and uses all this info to predict what variables to put in in order for you to make any certain move. FTP had the most outrageous hands and quite a few plus quite often hands that are 1 in a million. The Deposits always have different names of online stores and anything but the name of the company is in it…. search online, all the info is there but you shouldn’t have to now because it’s all being brought into light publicly…..
so is the site shut down , i am trying to load it on a new pc , and am having problems