One might think that Full Tilt Poker would own the domain name FullTilt.com. But apparently they don't. FullTilt.com is owned by a company named FullTilt Product Information Management. (I'm not sure I know what "product information management", but I'm reasonably sure that they're not in the online poker biz.)

The FullTilt.com domain receives 60,000 visitors each month looking for online poker site FullTiltPoker.com. Timothy Wallace, the CEO of the company which currently owns FullTilt.com, says that at first it was fun receiving that much traffic, even if it was by mistake, but as the domain has gotten more popular, the bandwidth costs of the extra visitors has become inconvenient for the company.

They have retained MHKogan Inc to manage the auction of the domain, which will occur in November. To bid on FullTilt.com, you must be pre-registered and approved. Michael H. Kogan says that he's anticipating a sale price of over $1 million, and he should know. Kogan was one of the founders of the Platinum Poker website, and until last year he was VP of the Doyle Brunson online poker room.

My prediction is that Full Tilt Poker will buy the domain themselves. They can certainly afford to do so, and it makes excellent business sense for them to own the domain FullTilt.com. I also think it would be considered somehow disrespectful or dishonorable for one of the other online poker sites like PokerStars to purchase the domain. It would be hard to defend such an action against a trademark infringement lawsuit in that case.

(PokerStars is just an example. I don't have any knowledge that anyone from there or from any other cardroom online is planning to bid on this domain name.)

Another possibility is that a portal company like PokerListings.com or PokerNews.com will step up and purchase FullTilt.com. I still think they'd have to worry about a trademark infringement lawsuit, but this is the Internet we're talking about. And in many ways, the world of domains, especially poker-related domains, is the virtual equivalent of the wild west.

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