The fallout of the Full Tilt saga continues to hurt people as up to 180 staff at Pocket Kings have been reportedly made redundant. Pocket Kings are a Dublin-based subsidiary of Full Tilt Poker who provide the company with software, customer support, information technology and other services for the stricken former online poker giant.
The redundancies count for around 36% of the 500-strong work force in the Irish capital and there could be more in the pipeline because the management team are thought to informed staff that at least half of them would lose their jobs as Full Tilt Poker continues to be unable to operate after having its licence revoked by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission in September.
Nobody could have predicted the downfall of Full Tilt Poker as they were the second largest online poker site in the world but their fall from grace has shocked the poker community. After the so-called “Black Friday” when the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the American Department of Justice (DoJ) indicted Full Tilt Poker and other American-facing online poker sites on a variety of charges, including money laundering and fraud, Full Tilt Poker had to close its doors to American poker players but it was then that the massive problems came to light.
Rumours spread about Full Tilt Poker having a massive hole in its finances and that they did not have player’s deposits in segregated accounts. The vast majority of the poker world did not believe this but their worst fears came true when the management of Full Tilt Poker revealed there was a shortfall of more than $200,000,000 and that directors and shareholders had paid themselves around $440,000,000 over five years, despite knowing the company was slowly bleeding to death.
Over the weekend thread appeared on the Two Plus Two forums that was started by someone claiming to be a former Full Tilt Poker employee and he revealed that the takeover by the Bernard Tapie Group, which many see as a saviour for those with money stuck on the site, will not go through and if it does not then the poster predicts Full Tilt Poker will ceases to exist at all by the end of January 2012.
