Full Tilt Drops Out Of Top 10 Popular Sites

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Thursday, February 4th, 2016 | Written by Adam Brown

Six months ago, Full Tilt implemented an overhaul of its lobby and loyalty scheme in order to make the site more exciting and attractive for casual players. However, the sweeping changes have done little to improve the fortunes of Full Tilt, which has now dropped to out of the top 10 ‘Online Poker Traffic Report’ produced by PokerScout.

Top 3 Position Following Relaunch

In 2011, Full Tilt lost the majority of its players after being forced out of the US market, before a second blow was delivered following a customer funds scandal in which its players were unable to access the funds in their accounts. Full Tilt was subsequently forced to shut operations until the matter was eventually resolved with the site’s acquisition by PokerStars. Its much-anticipated relaunch then saw Full Tilt return to a top 3 position as far as online traffic was concerned, and despite a couple of slow summer months in which it fell to seventh place, the site managed to maintain its top tier ranking until 2015.

Declining Fortunes Since 2015

By 2015, however, Full Tilt reported a dramatic decline in its online traffic, fueled in no small part by a reduction in the incentives offered to its players, including reduced reward points and increased levels of rake. As a report produced by PokerScout explained at the time:

“The 2015 seasonal decline was unkind to the site as liquidity dropped a staggering 43% in the first few months of the year.”

As a result, Full Tilt slipped down the traffic rankings to 8th place by summer, which was the lowest it had been since being acquired by the Rational Group. Undeterred, managing director Dominic Mansour was still determined to take the site in a new direction, and on July 28th implemented sweeping changes to its lobby, micro and high stakes rake levels, and rewards scheme. Two weeks later, and liquidity plunged by another 20%, as Full Tilt slipped to being the tenth most popular site online.

Disgruntled Regulars Leave Site

In addition to the changes mentioned, Full Tilt also abandoned its traditional role of being the site of choice for high stakes regulars after cutting out these tables from its offerings, as well as other poker variants deemed unpopular. Those disgruntled players still remaining subsequently left Full Tilt for greener pastures after the site introduced a further reward program revamp in August that discriminated against its grinders in favor of recreational players. Although initially providing a 7% boost to its liquidity, these changes subsequently caused traffic to trail off and according to PokerScout since the Players Club/Edge Rewards program was introduced “traffic is down an additional 4%, compared to industry growth of 17%.”

Consequently, Full Tilt is now residing at number 12 on PokerScout’s ‘Online Poker Traffic Report’ with 800 cash game players over a seven-day period.

What Caused FT Decline?

Since the poker market has contracted, the industry has been doing its utmost to attract recreational players back into the game, without whom there is no fresh money to fund the action. While Full Tilt’s crusade against bumhunting and multi-tabling was therefore accepted by the poker playing community as necessary, Full Tilt’s decision to raise the rake for both high stakes and low stakes games inevitably lead to an uproar. The situation was further compounded by a decrease in rewards offered by the site, ultimately leading to Full Tilt players moving elsewhere for their action.

Little Incentive For Players

It is generally accepted that no poker sites can thrive without offering casino games, except perhaps PokerStars which has nevertheless introduced slots and gaming tables to its online offering. Likewise, Full Tilt has also sought to entice its customers into spending more time at its online casino, and even its so-called poker enticements called The Deal, which allows players to exchange their earned ‘Coins’ for a few spins on a progressive jackpot card game, is designed to get their gambling juices going.

Unfortunately, The Deal very rarely pays out and is likely viewed as a money-grabbing vehicle by players, with this lack of fun element subsequently dissuading them from trying the game again. In the meantime, the Full Tilt marketing team continues to flood players with emails promoting their casino products, while poker-related flyers are rarely seen.

Conclusion

In conclusion, while poker operators such as Full Tilt have to contend with an ever shrinking online poker market, more careful analysis has to be made in order to determine the root causes of its decline, thus allowing more practical solutions to be designed to return the iPoker market to some level of stabilization. Even if sites decide that casino games offers the best path to revenues, poker has always played an important part in attracting new players to their gamble sites, making the need to provide a more attractive and playing environment for these players all the more important.