Two Players Sue Full Tilt Online Poker
Posted on: October 7th, 2009 8:56 am | By: Ricky Bauer
Full Tilt Poker is the focus of a new lawsuit after accusing two of its players of using bot software in its online poker rooms. The lawsuit comes from Lary “pokergirl_z” Kennedy and Greg Omotoy, two former Full Tilt Poker customers, and takes aim at both Full Tilt and Tiltware and several Team Full Tilt members including Andy Bloch, Perry Friedman, Erick Lindgren, Howard Lederer, Phil Ivey, John Juanda, Gus Hansen, Patrik Antonius, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow and Allen Cunningham. The players are accusing Full Tilt of a laundry list of nasty things including fraud, false advertising, racketeering, unjust enrichment, libel and slander.
The details state that Full Tilt seized over $80,000 from the players’ accounts after they were suspected of using online poker bot software to increase their winnings. According to the suit, another player who goes by the name “The Complainer” suspected “pokergirl_z” of foul play and reported her. TheComplainer’s opinion is apparently held in very high regard with the company and pokergirl was then removed from the site and relieved of her winnings. According to Poker News Daily, these are not the only players The Complainer has outed.
The suit unleashes a number of damaging claims. Among them, that the online poker room, which claims to have operated as two separate entities (Tiltware and Vert Enterprises) is in fact one company and that they operated out of a Los Angeles office for over two years. It also says that Full Tilt itself uses bots to increase income on slow tables. Perhaps most damaging is the accusation of Team Full Tilt playing with Full Tilt’s money which equates them to the “house” in a casino, thereby classifying them as an online casino and not a card room, thus violating California state laws.
This is not the only lawsuit with which Full Tilt online poker is currently involved. Former Full Tilt employee Jason Newitt, who was let go after leaking confidential information onto the web, filed suit against his ex-online poker employer claiming he was “unfairly fired and that his distribution payments were unfairly ceased.”
As if that weren’t enough, just recently Brandon McSmith filed a lawsuit alleging that his idea for “Face the Ace” was stolen by Poker PROductions. Though Full Tilt Poker is not named in the suit, they are tied to the production as the show features Full Tilt Pros.
Tags: Face the Ace, Full Tilt Poker, lawsuit, online casino, online casinos, online gambling, online poker, Phil Ivey
October 12th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
What a shame that this would happen. I now play only “play” money because I felt the real money games were not quite fair. Oh well..poker goes on – just hope these allegations are resolved so that more people are not “taken”.
June 1st, 2011 at 9:40 am
[...] Phil Ivey, one of the biggest poker players in the world and one of the biggest endorsements of Full Tilt Poker, is now biting the hand that feeds him. Well, it’s not exactly like that, but he has turned on Full Tilt and has drawn a line in the sand, calling on them to make things right by their members. [...]