With poker players and members of the media left scratching their heads at what took place in the Park Plaza Victoria Hotel in London earlier today, the only definitive thing we learned from the proceedings, which were touted as a public hearing regarding the state of Full Tilt Poker’s Aldernay Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) license, was that Full Tilt Poker owes the AGCC £250,000, and only plans on paying them should their license be reinstated!

The most troubling news happened early on in the process when Full Tilt Poker’s legal counsel, Martin Heslop, made a motion to request that the hearing be adjourned, and that even the arguments over why the hearing should be adjourned should take place in private. And the AGCC agreed! Hopefully the AGCC is being shown solid evidence that a deal is imminent, and anything that were to come out publicly might jeopardize that deal, otherwise the AGCC is nothing but a sham, and should be treated as such.

Later in the day the AGCC decided to adjourn the hearing until September 15 at the latest, seemingly in an effort to give Full Tilt Poker a chance to sell the company and make good on its growing list of debts. However, this action, coupled with the poker world knowing no more than they did going into today’s hearing has left a bitter taste in the mouths of most poker players, and their outrage has been felt across the Twitterverse.

While the hearing was touted by Executive Director of AGCC, André Wilsenach, as the “AGCC’s choice to hold a public hearing in to the future of Full Tilt Poker demonstrates our willingness to act transparently and we will welcome members of the public and the media. As ever at all times, our primary concern is the protection of the player.” Most of the poker players who were supposedly being protected felt more like poker pro Harry Demetriou who yelled out, “”What about the interests of the players? Why you are protecting this corrupt company?” before storming out of the hearing.

As it stands we are either looking at the death throes of a dying brand, or Full Tilt Poker is tactically stalling to allow for the sale of the company, or some of its assets, in order to raise the necessary capitol to repay its debts and possibly rebrand itself. The only thing that is keeping me from being entirely pessimistic is that Full Tilt has ZERO revenue coming in at the moment, so stalling is not making them money.

Stay tuned as this story continues to develop.

Tags: Agcc, Bitter Taste, Corrupt Company, Debts, Full tilt Poker, Gambling Control, Harry Demetriou, Heslop, Hotel In London, Legal Counsel, Mouths, Outrage, Poker Gambling, poker players, Poker Pro, Poker World, Public Hearing, Sham, Victoria Hotel, Willingness

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 26th, 2011 at 3:26 pm and is filed under Poker 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.