I just talked to my friend last night and he said he had $12k in Full Tilt. He used that site the most but was able to get some money out of the other sites he played on. Looks like he will get back pennies on the dollar.I had $550 in Pokerstars and was able to get a check from them about two months after the shut down.
The most commonly asked question on poker forums is 'Which site to play on?' and we'll tackle the issue by breaking down PokerStars versus Full Tilt Poker.
COMPARISON VIDEO
ROUND BY ROUND
ROUND1Bonuses & Promotions
Both Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars have 100% deposit bonus programs up to $600. At both sites the bonuses are pretty reasonable in terms of having to clear the necessary points to unlock the bonus money. In addition, both sites give at least three months to clear the bonus, so they both get a big thumbs up in this department.
ROUND 1 WINNER:
ROUND2Software
Both sites are constantly renovating their software and lobby to make the software experience one that players will enjoy. There are never lag issues with PokerStars while some report some issues with Full Tilt Poker. Full Tilt's recent upgrade shored up a lot of previous lag issues and introduced a new powerful lobby system with custom widgets. Both sites have a ton of custom filters for ring games and tournaments and straight-forward and easy-to-use table controls. In addition, there are plenty of table and card mods available for a customized experience. For players that like a graphically rich experience with all the bells and whistles, Full Tilt Poker wins out with the software.
ROUND 2 WINNER:
ROUND3Traffic
PokerStars has the biggest traffic, by far, in the industry and are the undisputed #1 poker site when it comes to the amount of players it has in its pool. Full Tilt Poker is in second, again by a wide distance as compared to the third largest poker site (iPoker Network). According to PokerScout.com, PokerStars' last six months has seen steady traffic while Full Tilt Poker has gained about 35-40% more traffic during the same timeframe. Both rank as 'A' level poker sites in terms of traffic.
ROUND 3 WINNER:
ROUND4Tournaments
Both sites have tournaments starting literally every single second of the day. Because of the large player pools, tons of multi-table tournaments and one table Sit & Gos are always running. Full Tilt Poker runs a popular tournament series in the FTOPS and MiniFTOPS series, while PokerStars counters with the SCOOP and WCOOP tournament series. Both sites have lots of destination satellite events as well as big guarantee tournaments on Sundays. You can't go wrong at either site
ROUND 4 WINNER:
ROUND5Ring Games
Both sites have tournaments starting literally every single second of the day. Because of the large player pools, tons of multi-table tournaments and one table Sit & Gos are always running. Full Tilt Poker runs a popular tournament series in the FTOPS and MiniFTOPS series, while PokerStars counters with the SCOOP and WCOOP tournament series. Both sites have lots of destination satellite events as well as big guarantee tournaments on Sundays. You can't go wrong at either site
ROUND 5 WINNER:
ROUND6Games
Full Tilt Poker offers a nice variety of poker games including HO, HORSE, HEROS, HOSE, RAZZ and Omaha games on top of all the various Hold'em games available. PokerStars does offer more in terms of a variety of games including 5 Card Draw, Badugi, HORSE, HEROS, HOSE, Mixed Games, Razz, Single Draw Lowball 2-7 and Triple Draw Lowball 2-7.
ROUND 6 WINNER:
ROUND7Deposit/Withdrawal Options
Full Tilt Poker Usa
Both sites offer credit card depositing in addition to accepting wire transfers from US players (Western Union and/or Moneygram). Both sites offer Instant eCheck, Cash Transfer and Click2Pay methods of deposit. For withdrawal on Full Tilt, they can issue a premium bank wire, bank transfer or a paper check which is guaranteed to arrive within 15 days. PokerStars players can withdrawal via paper check or receive a special circumstance wire transfer if requested through customer service (large amounts only)
ROUND 7 WINNER:
ROUND8VIP Program
PokerStars has one of the better VIP programs for regular players. As you accumulate VIP points, your VIP level goes up which includes a FPP multiplier for more spendable FPP points. These points can be used for items in the store, tournament entries or cash bonuses. At Full Tilt Poker there's the Iron Man promotion which awards points for daily grinding which turn into medals. These medals can be used for cash bonuses or items in the special store but carry a lot less value than FPPs at PokerStars. However, Full Tilt has 'Full Tilt Points' which can be used to buy into tournaments or items from the store (no cash though).
ROUND 8 WINNER:
ROUND9Support
There's no comparison here at all as PokerStars receives some of the best marks for customer service in the industry. Full Tilt Poker, on the other side of the coin, receives some of the worst. It's unfortunate that both sites only offer e-mail as a method for contacting customer support (no chat or phone). Nevertheless, PokerStars returns customer support emails very quickly (sometimes in as little as an hour) while Full Tilt Poker is a roll of the dice and can be a matter of hours to days.
Full Tilt Poker Download
ROUND 9 WINNER:
Full Tilt Poker Online
PokerStarsVSFull Tilt PokerWHO WINS?
The good news is that you really can't go wrong here with either site. The general consensus is that PokerStars has a better player pool but because it's so big has more fish. Full Tilt Poker might have less players but a greater proportion of their players are bad. It's give and take but if customer service and a large player pool are important to you go with PokerStars. If finding the worst of the two sites' competition is important and you like swanky lobby software, go with Full Tilt Poker. Keep in mind, there's no reason not to join both!
FINAL SCORE414
Full Tilt Poker Forum Hr Free
I’m so amazingly pissed off about this:
Full Tilt Poker Free Games
The TL;DR version - US says FTP was a ponzi scheme because they paid out the owners before their creditors (the players).
While I don’t doubt that, I do have an issue with this paragraph:
“The distributions to the owners continued even as funds to pay out creditors—the poker players—dwindled because government investigators had made it increasingly impossible to move player money into company-affiliated bank accounts, the government says.”
So…players, like me, were unable to redeem their deposits because the gov’t made it extremely difficult to do business with US banks. (This is true. Getting money out of FTP was a pain, but it was possible.) Then the gov’t gets pissed because FTP can’t make distributions to players. WTF?
I don’t doubt it was a shady company. I have no idea what kind of reserves they kept on hand. I’m sure if there was a run on deposits they would have been screwed. But, that’s not why the gov’t took them down. It wasn’t about the safety of my money. It was because they weren’t getting their cut!
This was complete BS when it happened, not to mention hugely unpopular, and now the justice department is grasping at straws to cover their ass. I want my online poker back.