Full Tilt Poker Goes To The Races With F1 Virgin Racing Sponsorhsip

Full Tilt Poker recently announced that it will be sponsoring Formula 1 auto racing in much the same ways as sites like Party Poker already have. Specifically, FullTilt will be sponsoring the Virgin Racing Team. Full Tilt Poker’s first appearance in a Formula 1 race will be at the F1 Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, Spain.

The media is plugging this as Full Tilt Poker’s first real advertising foray into the offline world, an anticipated sign of the impending UIGEA deadline of June 1, 2010, at which point it will supposedly be illegal for a poker site to serve U.S. customers. But we’ll see how the government does with that.

The F1 Spanish Grand Prix is set for Sunday, May 9 at 12:00 GMT. Practice round results so far have LC Hamilton of Great Britan driving for McLaren at the top with J Button, also of Great Britain and also driving for McLaren, right behind him. Then comes M Schumacher of Germany driving for Mercedes, then M Webber of Austalia driving for Red Bull, and S Vettel of German driving for Red Bull as well.

Full Tilt Poker will be featured at races on Virgin Racing’s VR-01 race cars and on team apparel as well as other components of the Virgin Racing Team’s off- and on-track presence.

In order to get around the illegal gambling laws in certain jurisdictions, in the same way that PokerStars.net and PartyGaming.net have done it, is with their .net, fake money online poker school site, FullTiltPoker.net.