When PokerStars (or its parent company, to be exact) agreed to purchase Full Tilt Poker nearly four years ago as part of its Black Friday settlement with the Department of Justice, it also agreed to make whole all of the players whose funds had been lost or frozen when Full Tilt went down. To date, most U.S. Full Tilt players have been repaid (they should be, it has been five years since Black Friday), but PokerStars now plans to refund more than just cash that was in players’ accounts.
In a largely ignored Two Plus Two post on Friday, PokerStars VIP Club Manager Dylan Coady, going by the screen name “PokerStars Dylan,” announced in the dedicated PokerStars New Jersey thread that Stars run a special promotion for New Jersey players to try to reward those players who had Full Tilt Points that they were never able to use.
Part of PokerStars’ deal with the DoJ, Coady explained, was to refund Full Tilt players’ cash balances. Stars was not responsible, though, for any other Full Tilt liabilities. The problem that created for former Full Tilt players, though, was that many had loads of Full Tilt Points sitting in their accounts. These points had real value and were lost forever.
But now it looks like PokerStars wants to try to help those former Full Tilt players by offering some sort of promo. No details on the promo were forthcoming; they will be e-mailed to New Jersey Full Tilt players when they are finalized, possibly in June. Of course, former Full Tilt players in other states will have to wait, as New Jersey is not only one of just three states in which online poker is legal, but it is also the only one in which PokerStars has a license. Can’t have a promotion if there is no PokerStars on which to play.
The entire post from PokerStars Dylan is below:
Hi all,
I can finally share information regarding Full Tilt Point balance for New Jersey players, as well as the situation for the rest of the U.S.
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When PokerStars agreed to acquire Full Tilt, one of the primary reasons was to make sure that Full Tilt players were made whole for their account balances and deposits which the previous owners had not re-paid. Our lump sum payment was more than enough to cover these balances. The agreement also made clear that PokerStars was not responsible for any of Full Tilt’s liabilities.
Despite not being our responsibility, we have sought to ensure Full Tilt players could maintain some advantages associated with their previously accumulated FTPs. In the coming months, eligible New Jersey Full Tilt account holders will be contacted via email with details of an upcoming promotion to reward previously accumulated Full Tilt Points. Unfortunately, at this time we are unable to offer a promotion to U.S. players (outside New Jersey) for previously accumulated FTPs.
PokerStars is working vigorously to promote regulated online gaming across the United States. As new regulated markets open in the U.S. we will do our best to offer a promotion to previous Full Tilt players. However, we can make no guarantees at this time that such a promotion will occur.
We appreciate your understanding in this matter.
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Regarding the details for the promotion for eligible New Jersey players, I will try to get those details ASAP, but they likely won’t be available until sometime in June.
Regards,
Dylan
