Going Full Tilt for a flutter in Galway

Full Tilt Poker's new owners are heading to Galway Races in the latest round of the brand's rehabilitation.

The company, now owned by the Isle of Man-based Rational Group, which took it over almost a year ago, is organising Europe’s biggest ever poker festival in the city on dates that match the seven-day mauling of punters at Ballybrit.

The poker festival will run from July 27th to August 12th in a “custom-built village” in the centre of Galway. The company says that this alone will bring €2.5 million to the local economy, and it has already booked more than €400,000 worth of bedrooms in the area.

There will be a variety of events and games, according to Full Tilt. The main attraction will have a prize fund of at least €1 million. Buying into a lot of games will be cheap, presumably with an eye on players who take in the racing and back all those “certainties” for which Galway is famed.

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Rational rescued Full Tilt last August, repaying $730 million to the website’s clients, after a year of troubles that saw its executives charged in the US courts. The Isle of Man-based Rational Group kept on Full Tilt’s Irish hub in Cherrywood, Dublin, and now employs more than 200 staff there. Since it re-launched the site, the company reports that it has been trading well.