WHAT'S IN A NAME?

12 December 2008

For Full Tilt Poker, clearly a lot....

 

Online poker sleuth Nat Arem, now famous for his contribution to uncovering major cheating scams at Absolute Poker and UltimateBet, has been on the investigative trail again, and this time the subject of his attention is the world's second largest online poker website, Full Tilt Poker.com.

Arem's blog details meticulous enquiries the determined detective has undertaken using mainly DomainTools.com regarding some recent domain name buying by Full Tilt, and revealing some surprising similarities with existing websites and Internet poker personalities.

Take, for example Hallywoodpoker.com - only one letter off the domain name of a top Ongame Network website. And Ansolutepoker.com, similarly only a few alphabet letters away from the Cereus Network's Absolute Poker owned by Joe Norton's Tokwiro Enterprises.

The list is not confined to poker rooms either - Full Tilt has apparently taken to registering domain names perilously close to those of top players on other networks, including Adamlevypoker.com, as player on UltimateBet's Star Players Team; Granthinklepoker.com - a famous part of a sibling team that won WSOP bracelets who plays for Team Bodog. PokerStars players Andrea Akkari and Victor Ramdin may also be surprised to hear that their names, followed by the word "poker" have been registered as Full Tilt domains.

Interestingly, top players who have been excluded from Full Tilt for multi-accounting also appear on the domain list, for example Sorelmizzi.net; Chrisvaughanpoker.com and Nickneirgarth.com.

Other names that have potential for the future but do not yet play for Full Tilt have also been turned into domains and registered, including Isaachaxton.com, jasonmercierpoker.com and shannonelizabethfulltiltpoker.com.

Full Tilt's motivation in registering such a range of names could be based on a protective strategy or simply to use as many channels as possible to direct users to its main site.