On Monday, PocketFives.com founder Adamposted a thread in the Poker Sites forumafter learning from trusted industry sources that Full Tilt Poker may be on the verge of refunding U.S. players. Adam shared, “I can’t verify this from anyone directly at Full Tilt, but I heard from a trusted industry source that this will be announced this week or very shortly after. Would be a nice upswing for all of us right now.”

Adam then clarified that a definitive time line had not yet been announced: “I got hit up about this very quickly from I guess the source’s source’s source or something along those lines. They wanted to clarify that Full Tilt isn’t ready to announce this and doesn’t have a set time/date to do it. According to my new source, they have not entirely finalized their deal with the U.S. DOJ.”

Another anonymous source close to Full Tilt told PocketFives.com on Tuesday that he knows of no time line for Full Tilt Poker U.S. player cashouts. The same source indicated that higher-ups at Full Tilt were meeting “like 15 hours a day” in an effort to expedite refunds to American players, who have been shut out of the site’s real money games since Black Friday on April 15th.

Full Tilt originally announced a deal with the U.S. Department of Justice to pay back players the week following the Black Friday indictments of Ray Bitar and Nelson Burtnick. However, the site has not yet begun the process and is purportedly selling half of its parent company for $200 million in an effort to raise capital.

According to Subject Poker, casino mogul Jack Binion (pictured) might be in the running to invest in Full Tilt. However, not everyone was sold on Binion coughing up nine-figures to invest in a company that’s the target of a Federal criminal investigation.

One poster in the same Poker Sites thread contended, “Realistically, who is going to invest in a company that has a black eye of [expletive] over their customers? PokerScout reported today that they gained 1% this week in traffic after five weeks of decline, but if we don’t get paid within a year, Full Tilt won’t survive.”

The same Full Tilt source told PocketFives.com on Tuesday that cashouts to players outside of the United States are also running slowly. Moreover, the site has chosen to remain quiet on forums like ours until there is news to report. In the interim, Full Tilt is gearing up for a software update, which is coming up “soon.”

One week ago, QuadJacksposted an “Encounter with Howard Lederer” on its YouTube page. QuadJacks tracked down Lederer (pictured) in the parking lot of a restaurant in Las Vegas. Lederer, who remained calm throughout the 90-second video, responded when asked for comment, “I can’t make any comments.”

When asked if he was going to “be in Vegas for long,” the Full Tilt Poker front man answered, “We’ll see.” QuadJacks then asked whether there would be any updates for American players in the future, to which Lederer remarked, “Uh… When we’re ready.” Lederer then hopped into the driver’s seat of an Audi and drove off.

According to PokerScout.com, which monitors cash game traffic on the world’s virtual felts, nearly half of Full Tilt Poker’s real money ring game activity – 46% – was from the United States in 2009 and 2010. Since Black Friday, its cash game numbers have dipped by 48% to a seven-day running average of 9,100 and a 24-hour peak of just over 13,500. As recently as May 10th, its 24-hour peak had eclipsed 20,000.

According to Poker Players Alliance Executive Director John Pappas (pictured), between $100 million and $500 million could be due to online poker players as of May. That same month, PokerStars issued a press release saying it had already returned $100 million to online poker players in the USA.

Stay tuned to PocketFives.com for the latest Black Friday fallout.