Its official!
Back in February, PokerStars had announced they planned to rid the online poker world of Full Tilt. Not in those exact words, but I'm sure many feel that the time has come to finally rip the band aid off and get it over with.
The merger was announced, yet no official date was set – leaving us questioning when, and what would happen to player accounts at Full Tilt.
Only days ago, head of PokerStars and Full Tilt PR department announced an official date and what players need to do in order to prepare. The date will be May 17th 2016. This gives less than 2 weeks to get your Full Tilt affairs in order.
In reality, it's really not that serious. Most players who use Full Tilt already play on PokerStars, so the transition will be rather smooth. Essentially, instead of logging in to Full Tilt on May 17th you just log on to PokerStars.
For anyone without a PokerStars account playing on Full Tilt, you will need to create an account at PokerStars in order to merge all of your funds and player points. To help players make a smooth transition, emails will be sent to all Full Tilt players with clear instructions on what needs to be done.
Once an account is created at PokerStars (or if you currently have an account) all funds, player points and other important information will be instantly transferred over to youre PokerStars account.
This move is being called a merger, or player liquidation, but the truth is, it's just a smart business move by PokerStars.
Full Tilt has seen a sharp decline in traffic since Amaya purchased the brand. What once was the 2nd largest poker room, has now become an insignificant member of the poker community with less than 600 cash game players on a daily basis. They currently rank 14th for traffic. To put this into perspective,
PokerStars currently has 13,000 cash game players on average a day. The tournament traffic is much higher. All stats courtesy of Poker Scout.
The cost of keeping Full Tilt operational had to be a drain on Amaya, naturally it makes sense to move players over to account, since the majority already had one. Overall traffic at PokerStars will see little to no effects due to this fact. There be slight bump in cash game traffic initially; but, for the most part, it will be just another day at PokerStars.
Be sure to create your PokerStars account if you haven't already done so. For those in a jurisdiction where playing on PokerStars is not permitted, you will receive special instructions on how to proceed.
05/08/16, 01:05:22 PM
