In the wake of the announcement of the Full Tilt Poker/PokerStars/DOJ deal being finalized, and with numerous details about the repayment of player funds and the future of Full Tilt poker and PokerStars, yet another twist has been added to the year-and-a-half-long saga that has been Black Friday. Earlier this week one of the biggest online poker affiliate sites on the Internet, PokerStrategy.com, announced that were filing a $1.2 million lawsuit against the previous owners of Full Tilt poker, PocketKings Ltd.

The news first appeared on the popular online gaming website egrmagazine.com, also known as eGaming Review, where they detailed PokerStrategy’s assertions concerning ad revenue from Full Tilt Poker in the immediate aftermath of Black Friday, up until the site saw their license pulled by the Aldernay Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) in late June of 2011.

According to PokerStrategy, they waited until the sale was finalized so there would be no possibility for their lawsuit (which will likely lead to other companies filing similar suits) would affect the potential deal.

EGR is reporting that PokerStrategy was sending some 30,000 players a month to Full Tilt Poker and was the leading affiliate for the site post-Black Friday, sending countless non-US players to Full Tilt poker. According to EGR, PokerStrategy is “believed to have provided the bulk of the operator’s non-U.S. players after Tilt was forced to withdraw from the U.S. following Black Friday.”

It’s unclear if PokerStrategy is claiming that the $1.2 million was part of an ad-buy from Full Tilt Poker; of Full Tilt poker simply didn’t send PokerStrategy their affiliate payments during this particular stretch of time; or if they are claiming the $1.2 million as some type of lost revenue due to an existing contract.

My understanding of the Full Tilt poker remission process is that PokerStrategy would have to file a remission claim much like affected Full Tilt poker players, making their case for the claim. It’s possible that the DOJ could then prioritize the money to PokerStrategy, or put them behind player accounts.

In a comment from a PocketFives.com article on the lawsuit, PokerStrategy CEO Dominik Koffert stated:

Hi all,

PokerStrategy.com’s claim is not against pokerstars but against PocketKings who were responsible for Full Tilt Poker prior to the events of Black Friday.

Further – to avoid any confusion – PokerStrategy.com ensured that PokerStars’ legal team was fully informed and aware of its claim prior to filing.

Best regards,

Dominik Kofert

CEO PokerStrategy.com

Koffert went on to reply to another posters question with the following response:

Full Tilt Poker has a marketing agreement with us, under which there is – among other continuing obligations – an outstanding invoice of approximately $1.2m. This has been outstanding since Full Tilt Poker was forced to suspend operations in June 2011 due to the revocation of its licence.

Despite the large sum of money involved, we were careful to file the claim only after the rescue of Full Tilt Poker was completed as it was of the utmost importance that this claim would not jeopardise any potential deal, player bankrolls or the resurrection of Full Tilt Poker.

Thus, our claim has nothing to do with players getting repaid or not. That the players get repaid is a done deal and we deliberately waited with our claim until it was done.

Also, our claim is not against PokerStars (who is repaying the players) but against PocketKings (who were running Full Tilt before they went offline).

Best regards,

Dominik

 

Tags: Affiliate Site, Affiliate Sites, Aftermath, Agcc, Assertions, Black Friday, Egaming Review, Egr, Full tilt Poker, Gambling Control, Gaming Website, Online Poker, poker players, Pokerstrategy, Saga, Suits

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2012 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Poker Industry News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.