Players Still Wait for Full Tilt Poker Deal

Online poker players around the world continue to wait for news of a deal between Full Tilt Poker and Groupe Bernard Tapie - although the deadline reported by various news outlets was supposed to be last week.

Full Tilt Poker and Groupe Bernard Tapie recently extended their deadline for completion of the $80 million purchase deal to Friday March 16, and sources on both sides were quoted as being confident that the deadline would be met. However, nothing has been heard from them since then, leaving players in the dark about whether the deal will be signed.

As it stands, French firm GBT has a deal with the US Department of Justice in which it will acquire Full Tilt for $80 million, in return for federal authorities dismissing all civil complaints against the online poker room. Once the deal goes through, the new owner would pay players all the poker site's outstanding debts.

Outspoken Canadian poker pro Daniel Negreanu - who has regularly criticized Full Tilt Poker and the way it has handled itself since Black Friday - claimed in an interview this week that FTP customers will never see their money again, and that the two sides were never close to finalizing their deal.

"The players are not getting paid. It's over. It's gone. Forget it," Negreanu said. People familiar with the man will know all about his weekly video attacks against others in the poker industry, such as Ray Bitar, Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson, who he has called "scumbags" and "shameful little weasels."