In breaking news, as posted on the PocketFives forums by Patrick SkallagrimFleming, Director of the Litigation Support Network for the Poker Players Alliance, the US Department of Justice has approved $82 million in undisputed repayments for Full Tilt Poker players, who have had their money in limbo for the last three years. Approximately 30,000 undisputed player claims were approved.

Fleming quoted PPA Executive Director John Pappas as saying, “Players with undisputed claims should be looking for an e-mail from Garden City Group within the next few weeks with instructions on how to receive their payment. The DOJ could not provide me with a definitive date on when these e-mails will go out and when payments will be processed. But, it looks like it will be in advance of their March 31 deadline.”

The deadline to submit remission petitions was in mid-November, two months after the process began.

Still up in the air is how the DOJ will treat affiliatesand so-called Red Pros. The latter group received an extension beyond the November 16 cutoff date to file, while affiliates were able to petition for the money in their accounts not related to affiliate activity. Full Tilt Team Pros were excluded from the remission process, as were “other players who were playing with funds from FTP or who were compensated by FTP to play on the FTP site.”

Pappas reiterated that there’s no timeline in place for disputed Full Tilt repayments: “There is still not a timeline for disputed claims that were filed by the deadline. They are still working on those and hope more info will be available once the undisputed funds are released. FTP players who for some reason have still not filed a claim can still do it and those claims will be considered.” Players with questions can call 866-250-2640.

According to the official claims website of Garden City Group, the Claims Administrator in this case, PokerStars forfeited $547 million to the US Government and repaid $184 million to non-US Full Tilt players. In mid-2012, PokerNews reported that the amount due to US players was around $150 million.

Pappas said the FullTiltPokerClaims.com website should be updated with an official announcement on Thursday. We’ll keep you posted on the latest.

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