A subsidiary of Full Tilt Poker has applied for a new online gambling licence in Alderney.
Orinic was the only one of four Full Tilt-owned companies to escape having its licence revoked by the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGCC) in September 2011 due to not having started trading, instead receiving a six month suspension or until certain conditions had been satisfied. These included the licensee being solvent, having a satisfactory ownership and corporate structure, and satisfying the Commissioners it could offer gambling safely and securely.
Orinic has applied for a category 2 eGambling licence in addition to its existing category 1 licence, which would allow it to undertake full online gambling operations, including handling gambling-related transactions and management of a gambling platform located within an approved hosting centre.
French investment house Groupe Bernard Tapie (GBT) has been in negotiations with Full Tilt’s owners and the US Department of Justice (DoJ) since last September over a deal to acquire Full Tilt’s software and brand, which would see the French investment group bear responsibility for refunding non-US players’ balances, and the DoJ for US players’. Full Tilt had been seeking US$150m from potential investors to cover its obligations to players ahead of its operating licences first being suspended by Alderney at the tail end of June last year.
Speculation that the deal is close to completion was further heightened today when Full Tilt’s Dublin-based marketing and customer service agency Pocket Kings posted notices for “urgently required” customer service staff on the Jobs.ie website in Ireland.
Notice of the application was posted on the AGCC’s website on 23 March, initiating a 14-day period for objections to be raised.
The AGCC recently announced it was in the “advanced stages of implementing a new approach towards the protection of player funds on a risk-assessed basis” following an independent review of its handling of events leading up to the collapse of Full Tilt Poker, whose licences were revoked after it was left unable to cover customer balances after it was shut down in the US by federal prosecutors.
The Alderney regulator revealed at the time of revoking the licences that Full Tilt’s owners had concealed US$331m of FTP-related fund seizures by US authorities between 2007 and 2011, continuing to mispresent this to the AGCC as available cash and to credit player deposits when it was no longer able to pull the money from players’ bank accounts.
