On the morning of April 15, 2011, poker players in the US woke up - probably around noon, of course - to find an unusual note on their favorite poker website. At the WSOP that year, the Full Tilt hats, shirts, and patches disappeared. But then, on April 15, 2011, the darkest day in poker history, everything changed. If you walked into the Rio during the World Series of Poker back then, you'd notice half the room was full of poker players sporting Full Tilt Poker gear. Television networks in the US were looking for ways to get poker on TV and did so with iconic shows such as Poker After Dark and High Stakes Poker - shows that were sponsored by the big poker sites. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing a Full Tilt or PokerStars add. Ultimate Bet and its sister site Absolute Poker were also major players.įull Tilt was sort of the GGPoker in its day with many of the biggest stars in the game representing the brand such as Phil Ivey, Mike Matusow, and Tom Dwan.īack then, poker was mainstream.

There were two top dogs in the industry at the time - PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. They made questionable decisions, as you'll soon discover - decisions that cost American poker players money and led to the destruction of online poker in the US going forward.įor those who weren't around the game during the 2000s and into the early 2010s, online poker, and poker in general, in the US (and worldwide) was booming like never before. Lederer and Ferguson, along with Ray Bitar, were executives at FTP when the site was shut down to American players on Black Friday. He even actually won the WSOP Player of the Year award in 2017 to the dismay of many within the poker community. Their reputations will likely forever be tarnished, and they were forced to disappear from the game almost permanently, although Ferguson did return for a few years to compete in the World Series of Poker. With all the scandals that have surrounded the poker world this year, it seems like a perfect opportunity to look back at one of the biggest of them all.Īs you’re about to learn, the Full Tilt scandal involved some prominent poker players at the time such as expected future Poker Hall of Famers Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson, two of the most popular pros during the 2000s. The Full Tilt Poker scandal on Apaka 'Black Friday' - was costly to thousands of poker players, and it changed the landscape of online poker in the US forever, and not in a good way.

Full Tilt Poker Scandal's Impact on WSOP.

PokerStars Acquires Full Tilt, Pays Back Players.

Full Tilt Poker Scandal: What Happened?.

Pokerstars casino history