ARJEL: 90% of Full Tilt's French players have been repaid
Regulator says liquidation of Rekop Limited will not affect reimbursement process.
French regulatory body Autorité de regulation des jeux en ligne (ARJEL) has revealed that approximately 90% of the balances owed to Full Tilt’s former dot.fr player base have been returned.
Having issued instructions last year on how players could ‘pair’ their accounts with PokerStars.fr accounts following Stars taking over selected Full Tilt assets last year, ARJEL confirmed that 4.1m of the 4.7m in total balances has been returned to players.
The regulator has confirmed that the license revocation accompanying the opening of liquidation proceedings against Full Tilt Poker’s former French subsidiary will not impact the reimbursement of players on the operator’s now-defunct dot.fr site.
Rekop Limited appointed liquidators earlier this month, with the business stripped of its licence last week, however this licence had been suspended since July 2011 and PokerStars parent Rational Group had explicitly explained that there were no plans to apply for a French licence for the Full Tilt brand following its dot.com relaunch.
A statement from ARJEL read: “[The repeal of Rekop’s licence] does not affect the reimbursement process for old FullTiltPoker.fr players, which will continue to unfold until all the players can be credited with their frozen assets.”
According to the latest figures from tracking site Pokerscout, Full Tilt has fallen to fourth for worldwide cash poker traffic despite the release of two new variants last week.
The operator only serves the dot.com and dot.eu markets, under licences from the Isle of Man and Malta respectively, and Rational Group has no plans to pursue licensure for the brand in any dot.country market where market-leader PokerStars is already licensed.