Full Tilt Continues Overhaul With New Players Loyalty Program

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Wednesday, August 19th, 2015 | Written by Stephen Smith

At the end of July, Full Tilt implemented a major overhaul of its products in order to appeal more to recreational players, the life blood of the online poker industry. The site’s high-stakes buy-in levels were reduced to just $10/$20 for No Limit Hold’em, for instance, while a whole lot of poker variants which better suited professional grinders were dropped, such as heads-up, Draw, Stud, and Mixed Game tables. Measures were also undertaken to limit multi-tabling, and prevent “bum-hunting”, and “rat-holing”. As Full Tilt Managing Director Dominic Mansour commented at the time:

“The new structure will present a clean offering for all players and we consider these ring game changes to be key to Full Tilt’s ongoing commitment to provide a level playing field and attracting and retaining more casual poker players.”

A few weeks later, and Full Tilt has now revealed the second phase of its transitioning into a recreational centric poker room, with its latest changes involving a revamped loyalty program, which includes a new Players Club, an improved Edge VIP rewards program, and ongoing opportunities to win impressive progressive jackpots.

New Players Club

Once launched, players will be given the option to join one of two rewards programs, either the present Edge program which already enjoys a popular following among higher-volume online grinders, or alternatively the new Players Club designed to cater to recreational players.

“Right now, the vast majority of players gain very little benefit from rewards schemes because they primarily reward the players that put in the most volume. We are breaking that mould to ensure that more players receive more rewards and more entertainment than ever before,” explained Mansour.

Amongst the list of rewards that will be made available to Players Club members is a new game called The Deal, which features prizes, tickets, cash, and a progressive jackpot starting at $100,000. In addition, freeroll tournament give aways will be doubled, and players playing a few times a week will have the chance to win mystery prizes.

Option To Switch To Edge program

Full Tilt will continue to offer its popular Edge program, with regular players then given the option to switch from The Players Club to the updated Edge program if they prefer. The new Edge program comes in three levels, and will reward players according to the Full Tilt Points they earn over a 30 and 100 day rolling average, with the highest tier, Edge Prime, offering $2 for every 100 Full Tilt Points earned. As part of Full Tilt’s plan to give more loyalty money to recreational players, the Edge features a lower cashback base rate than its current level, but players opted into the program will be given the chance to increase their rewards “for starting and sustaining the action.”

Pioneering Change In The Industry

The online poker industry has been undergoing a transformation since the end of the ‘poker boom‘ in 2006, and the subsequent withdrawal of US players from the market in 2011 due to Black-Friday. Recreational players have been put off playing the game after losing their online funds quickly to the ever increasing number of sharks who populate the various poker sites. As a result, sites such as Bovada have introduced innovations, including anonymous tables, and banning tracking software and the use of HUDs.

Full Tilt has now fully embraced the need for change to restore the balance between recreational players, and online grinders in the game, not least because of the declining traffic numbers noted across the whole industry. At the beginning of 2015, for instance, Full Tilt had a seven-day average of 1,800 cash game, making it the second biggest poker room in the world, but the site has since slipped down to 10th place with just 800 cash players, according to PokerScout.

Sportsbook and Casino Important

Amaya Gaming owns both the PokerStars and Full Tilt brands, and another way in which the pioneering company has counteracted the effects of an ailing iPoker market is by adding a number of casino games, and a sportsbook to its product offering. While PokerStars is expected to launch daily fantasy sports site StarsDraft later this year, both PokerStars and Full Tilt currently offer a range of casino games, with Amaya saying it expects at least 13% of its revenues to derive from these two verticals in 2015.