PokerStars Offers €2M In Promos For Italian FTP Players

Huge giveaway to repay blocked Full Tilt Poker funds

Online poker behemoth PokerStars purchased some Full Tilt Poker assets last year and launched its former rival. While the news made headlines across the world, some issues remained unanswered, mostly regarding the payments that had to be made to the ex-Full Tilt Poker players that had funds when the poker room was shut down by the United States Department of Justice on Black Friday.

The agreement between Stars and the US DOJ was that the former will be in charge of repaying all account balances to ex-FTP players outside the United States while the Department of Justice will take care of the American players from the settled amount paid by Stars.

Former Full Tilt Poker from the US

A couple of weeks ago, American players which had funds on Full Tilt Poker when the poker room was closed were given an update regarding their payments and how they can get back their account balances. The entire process lasted for a very long time as the authorized claims administrator Garden City Group had to go through a massive amount of data in order to sort out the details.

The date was then set for September 16, 2013 according to a message on the FullTiltPokerClaims.com site. All eligible players were asked to create an account on this website and an email will be sent with the details once everything is sorted out. There is however a deadline for players to submit a Petition for Remission and all those who fail to meet this deadline will no longer be able to claim their blocked Full Tilt Poker funds. All applications must be submitted by November 15, 2013.

Repaying former Italian players

While American players can finally see light at the end of the tunnel, PokerStars has been looking for a way to solve another problem – repaying the former Italian customers of Full Tilt Poker.

Since Full Tilt was not licensed in Italy, gambling regulators did now allow players to withdraw their funds through PokerStars; as it happened in France and Spain. This meant that all FTP transactions were considered illegal and if Stars would attempt to simply release the account balances directly to the players, it would be doing an illegal activity.

The solution was recently revealed and it comes in the form of one of the many benefits that come with online gaming – promotions. PokerStars will launch a Tilt Mania promotion which will give away over €2 million to Italian players by the end of the year.

The promotions will only be available on the PokerStars.IT site and will give away bonuses to cash game players, triple the prize money in the SNG tournaments and offer free multi-table tournaments.

PokerStars spokesperson mentioned the fact that this will not just benefit the players that had accounts on Full Tilt Poker and that it is a large promotion for the entire Italian poker community. By restricting the promotions and only allowing former FTP players to join in, Stars could be charged for money laundering and other illegal activities, so it will be open for all.

The huge online poker room currently dominates the Italian online poker market, having a share of over 40% when talking about cash game activity. Those with access to the .IT website can get more information on the promotion and start right away.

One can also consider this method as a way to attract even more Italian customers. Huge promotions such as this one can provide big benefits to the card room since players will be encouraged to continue their online poker activity even after the giveaway is over. According to PokerStars, it is also the option that brings the most benefits to the Italian poker community.

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