Full Tilt Poker Revealed as the Owner of Rival Domain Names

It has been recently revealed that Full Tilt Poker is the owner of many rival domain name variations as well as those of popular poker players. Two of the most notable rival domain names are those of Absolute Poker and Hollywood Poker. Full Tilt owns ansolutepoker.com which is a typo from the Absolute Poker domain name and in fact, the b and n keys are next to each other. Hits to the website have gone through the roof recently after stories of the UB/Absolute Poker cheating scandal was exposed by 60 Minutes and its associated newspaper article in the Washington Post.

Also on Full Tilt’s list of domain names is hallywoodpoker.com which is also one letter off from the popular domain, Hollywood Poker. The front man for the online poker site is World Poker Tour host Vince Van Patten and does not accept customers from the United States.

Several sponsored pros of other online poker rooms also have their domain names owned by Full Tilt. The domain name adamlevypoker.com is on Full Tilt’s list though Levy is a member of Ultimate Bet’s Star Players Team. Grant Hinkle, a member of Team Bodog and one half of only the second pair of brothers ever to win World Series of Poker bracelets has granthinklepoker.com owned by Full Tilt. Another domain that redirects to Full Tilt’s website is andreakkaripoker.com, Akkari is a member of Team PokerStars Pro along with Victor Ramdin who’s domain victorramdinpoker.com is a redirect to Full Tilt.

Several players are mentioned in the list and are not yet Full Tilt sponsored pros though their domain names are already taken. They are Joe “LatestLines2″ Ward, Terrence Chan (he finished second in a Six-Handed No Limit Hold’em event in the 2007 World Series of Poker), 2008 Poker Stars World Championship of Online Poker champ Carter “ckingusc” King and Matt Matros, who took home third place money in the 2004 WPT Championship and author of a popular Internet poker blog.

The depth of Full Tilt’s intentions is unknown at this time but it appears it’s simply a ploy to capitalize and perhaps “tap the glass” a little. Particularly in the case of some of their competitors such as Absolute Poker and Hollywood Poker.