Doyle Brunson and Barry Greenstein have joined the scores of pros who have stepped forward to offer their views on the Full Tilt Poker scandal. Both pros give the Full Tilt management the benefit of the doubt.

Two of the game's most celebrated personalities, Doyle Brunson and Barry Greenstein, have stepped forward to share their views on the ongoing Full Tilt Poker scandal, both saying that they do not believe that the Full Tilt management knowingly misled players and the industry.

With a combined 13 WSOP bracelets between them, Brunson and Greenstein are among the most respected figures yet to have spoken out about Full Tilt Poker, with both players also being close friends of some of the scandal's leading characters.

The two icons now reveal that they do not see the happenings as a result of any malicious intents, but rather as a surprising turn of unfortunate events.

"I'm extremely surprised because I've known Howard for years and I've always held him in high regard," Brunson said, speaking to PokerListings.com at the ongoing EPT London.

"I always believed he was a very ethical person and I have to believe he didn't really know what was going on," he added.

Barry Greenstein similarly expressed his surprise with the events, adding that he too sees the misfortune of the site as a result of mismanagement rather that bad intentions.

"I don't think anyone believes that the initial intent was to defraud the customers, it just worked out that way in their method of fixing the problem," Greenstein said.

According to the Team PokerStars icon, only a small core of the Full Tilt management knew exactly what was going on, and the rest of Team Full Tilt can therefore not be blamed either, he added.

"Most of these guys on Team Full Tilt are friends of mine and most of them definitely didn't know what was going on," he said.

Greenstein, who is known to be active in the fight for legalized and regulated U.S. poker, added that he believes that that U.S. government has to take its part of the blame for what happened this summer.

"I don't think the government should be blamed for Full Tilt's mistakes but it set up a climate in which poker wasn't regulated and the potential for bad things happening was there," Greenstein said.

"Economically there's money in online poker and we shouldn't be shipping that money out to other countries that house online poker rooms that cater predominantly to American customers".

"The money needs to stay in America and we need to be employing American," he ended.

Source: Poker.org