Home / Poker News July 2012 / Patrik Antonius has $5m tied up at Full Tilt
Patrik Antonius has $5m tied up at Full Tilt
Posted by: Randy Williams - Mon, 2012-07-23 15:48
The poker media has been full of rumors regarding Full Tilt Poker’s takeover by some kind of online gambling entity, ever since the Black Friday events. First, it was French conglomerate Groupe Bernard Tapie that looked like it was going to take over, then – as GBT dropped out of the picture –
PokerStars surfaced as a possible solution. Still, with all those rumors floating around, it is possible that nothing will come to fruition and Full Tilt Poker will be forced to go bankrupt. Hundreds of thousands of players will then officially lose the monies they’ve had locked up at the site since Black Friday and apparently some of the big ‘name’ pros who had endorsed the operation will be among them.
Patrik Antonius, one of the top Full Tilt Pros, who used to play for six-figure pots at the site’s nosebleed stakes tables, said that while he only really had $100 in his FTP account when the Black Friday indictments struck (which in itself is more than peculiar), he will stand to lose around $5 million, mainly through people to whom he lent money and who are currently unable to pay him back on account of the Full Tilt fiasco.
Antonius said that there was one person who owed him around $2.4 million and who had all his funds at Full Tilt Poker. Antonius had apparently also transferred around $500k to various online players before the 2011 WSOP, who then failed to cash it out in time and were left with their monies in their accounts. These players are – quite rightfully – refusing to pay Antonius, on account of the fact that their online credits at Full Tilt are currently worth exactly zero, therefore they cannot be viewed as real currency.
Some US players managed to withdraw funds in the immediate aftermath of Black Friday, but most people – among them Antonius – were met with closed doors.
Antonius also has some pending compensation from Full Tilt Poker which is now precariously balanced on the edge of bankruptcy as well.
