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Published: 13th July 2012 Written by Poker News
Updated: 4th December 2023

full tilt pokerA new rumor surfaced this week alleging that Pokerstars have pulled out on Full Tilt Poker deal, and the deal was just a ploy to prevent GBT from acquiring Full Tilt Poker. As strategic as this rumor sounds, Pokerstars Head of Corporate Communications Eric Hollreiser retweeted, ESPN Andrew Feldman tweet which stated that ‘Twitter rumors of PS folding on the FTP deal is false’.

While no actual statement has been made as to how and when the supposed the Full Tilt Poker deal is to take place, negotiations and settlement discussions are an ongoing process.

Pokerstars Rumor on Full Tilt Poker Deal

The Groupe Bernard Tapie failed to acquire Full Tilt Poker assets back in April after the deal fell through when GBT could not comply with the DOJ last minute demands on how players would be re-payed.

This is when PokerStars allegedly stepped in as a potential buyer of Full Tilt Poker, the only evidence that this deal was taking place was a blog post made by Eric Hollreiser, Head of Corporate Communications on the PokerStars Blog.

The statement was very vague and basically states that Pokerstars can’t comment on rumors while in legal discussions.

“We’ve had a lot of enquiries and there’s lots of speculation on the forums, so I wanted to address the PokerStars chatter. As you know, PokerStars is in settlement discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice. As such settlement discussions are always confidential, we are unable to comment on rumors. As soon as we have information to share publicly we will do so.”

The next piece of evidenced appeared when Ray Bitar former FullTiltPoker CEO sent an email to his employees which shed some light on the Full Tilt Poker deal, see the extract below.

“hopefully our deal with Poker Stars will very soon make our goal a reality.”

“we have made arrangements for Poker Stars to guarantee all July salaries.”

Read the entire Ray Bitar email here.

This week rumors were rampant on the social networks, saying that PokerStars have pulled out of the Full Tilt Poker deal. The bold statement was made by James Barnes on his twitter account, Barnes is a legal counsel for PartyGaming and has also worked for BBC and FIFA marketing.

pokerstars twitter

This may have come across as devastating news to players who still have their Full Tilt Poker bankrolls frozen for more than a year. While no source was given, Barnes still stands by his word that the deal is off and it was all a strategic ploy on behalf of PokerStars to eradicate their competition.

These rumors where then shot down the same day by ESPN’s Andrew Feldman who tweeted that the rumors of Pokerstars pulling out of the deal were false. Eric Hollreiser also retweeted reassuring us that this is not the case.

espn twitter

Players are still waiting for an official statement regarding PokerStars buying Full Tilt Poker.