On April 5, 2010, the Financial Times reported that a federal grand jury in Manhattan was investigating Full Tilt Poker and individuals associated with the company, including Howard Lederer and Chris Ferguson, for violations of gambling and money-laundering laws.[24] Although neither the Manhattan United States Attorney nor officials with the United States Department of Justice would comment on the matter, it was reported that such an investigation “would fit the federal law enforcement strategy by trying to make an example out of prominent targets”.[24] The Department of Justice maintained that online poker violates the Interstate Wire Act of 1961 (Federal Wire Act),[24] but later changed their opinion on that matter.

On April 15, 2011, the Department of Justice unsealed an indictment, dated March 10, 2011, against two of the owners / employees (Ray Bitar and Nelson Burtnick) of Full Tilt Poker, along with some of the owners / employees of PokerStars and Absolute Poker.[25] The defendants were charged with fraud, money laundering, and violation of United States federal gambling laws, and certain domain names for the sites were seized by the FBI.[26][27] The Full Tilt Poker homepage was reinstated six days later on April 20, 2011.

On September 20, 2011, the U.S. Justice Department accused certain Full Tilt principals of defrauding poker players out of more than $300 million. The U.S. Attorney in the Southern District of New York filed a motion to amend an earlier civil complaint to allege that company directors Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Rafe Furst, and Ray Bitar operated what the Justice Department claims was a Ponzi scheme that allowed the company to pay out $444 million to themselves and other owners, which included other famous poker players.[28][29] A lawyer for Ferguson has denied the allegations, suggesting that the issues may have been the result of mismanagement rather than malice.[30][31] Bitar surrendered to authorities on July 2, 2012, to deal with the civil and criminal case that is pending against him in New York .[32] On April 15, 2013, Bitar reached a deal with prosecutors to plead guilt to criminal charges, and was sentenced to time served and ordered to surrender his assets, rumored to include various homes and $40 million in cash.[33]

A companion civil case, U.S. v. PokerStars, et al. (11 Civ. 2564)[34] was filed on April 14, 2011, and includes Full Tilt and its related entities as defendants.[25] On July 31, 2012, the US government dismissed with prejudice all civil complaints against all PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker companies after coming to a settlement with PokerStars which included PokerStars purchasing Full Tilt.[35] PokerStars and Full Tilt admitted no wrongdoing as part of the settlement, which ended all litigation between the government and the companies. The criminal indictments remain in place for the named individuals.[36][37]