PokerStars official statement (in italian):

http://www.pokerstarsblog.it/2013/co...sa-141165.html

Italian players won't be repayed for the money they had on FTP. Instead, there will be many promotions for a total exceeding 2M euros for all players on pokerstars.it.

Direct payments hasn't been possible due to italian legislation. Transfering money on PS.it accounts would have resulted in money laundering and the loss of the license for PS on the italian market. PS decided to invest the equivalent of the money FT owed to italian players through many promotions, starting from September and ending in Dicember.

Old FullTilt accounts are going to be closed and won't be possible for anybody to take the money back.

This seems unfair

account was closed they cant be paid how is that fair? not there fault and why should they suffer for what was pokerstars fault?.

These are FTP accounts operated by FTP without an Italian license before PokerStars purchased the company.

Playing on FTP was illegal in Italy.

cant the promotions just be, "get your fulltilt account balance reload bonus on pokerstars (up to 100%)"... also this is so stupid

I think this is pretty fair of Pokerstars.

They are under no obligation here and have their hands tied in regard to direct returns.

Don't think they could be much fairer

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL LLLLLLLL

Yea totally PokerStars fault LOLOLOLOL.

This sounds like it's going go a bit like back in the '90's when those Indian casinos in California were ordered to give back ill-gotten gains with overlays they had to provide to blackjack and other table game players for a while (although this is Pokerstars voluntarily doing this here).

I looked at the Promotions page at Pokerstars.it and it seems like they are "giving back" a bunch of the $$$ this Sunday, Sep 8, 2013, in the form of true half-price tournaments. Quite a good deal for **ALL** Pokerstars' Italian players, but obviously those with high balances that aren't getting them back will be miffed. They say you save €302,50 (around USD$400) if you play in all of these tourneys.



(This is Google Translate's version in English, so the grammar may be a bit off)...

Half Price Sunday

Buy-in halved prize unchanged

Thanks to Half Price Sunday Sunday tournaments you can play your favorite investing only half the usual. The buy-in of the main PokerStars tournament will in fact be halved at Sunday, September 8th!

Join our unique Sunday Special , the online poker tournament Italy's richest who is giving away a guaranteed prize pool of € 200,000 at a cost of only € 50 , or choose to participate in other tournaments in Hold'em and Omaha program as the SundayWarm-Up (€ 20,000 GTD), the Sunday Evening (€ 40,000 GTD), the Omaha Saturday or Sunday Omaha Hi / Lo . Check now the schedule of tournaments with a buy-in of reduced Half Price Sunday and have fun.

By participating in every tournament buy-in from the small, well you spare € 302,50 than usual and all competing for the same prize!

If you do not have an account yet, download the free software and start playing on the biggest poker site in Italy.

Half Price Sunday - Programme Tournaments
The following tournaments scheduled for Sunday, September 8 will have the buy-in half while maintaining the same prize pool.

Tournament Hours Buy-in Guaranteed Prize Pool
Sunday Warm-up 17:00 € 25 € 20,000
Sunday Omaha Hi / Lo 18:00 € 15 € 2,000
Sunday Omaha 19:00 € 25 € 5,000
Sunday Evening 20:00 € 25 € 40,000
Sunday Smackdown 20:30 € 15 € 15,000
Sunday Special 21:00 € 50 € 200,000
Sunday Challenge 21:30€ 7.5 € 20,000
Sunday High Roller 22:00 € 125 € 50,000
Sunday Zoom 22:30 € 15 € 10,000

To register for the tournament, open the PokerStars lobby, select 'Tourney' & 'Special'.

Note: If you are holding a ticket for one of the tournaments listed above, you may not be able to use it for the edition of discounted buy-in Sunday, September 8.

For any question about Half Price Sunday contact support@pokerstars.it .

^^Seems Legit^^

And what if you only play cash games? You get no promotions?

seems unfair that the promotion is available to all players including new accounts that had nothing on ftp but at least the guys that had $ locked up are getting some value from their ftp funds as ps has no obligation to do this

wouldn't it be easier to give away Points on Stars to former FTP italian players who can then turn them into cash prizes.

How certain are you this would be possible given their license?

The linked article specifically mentions promotions for cash, sng and mtt players that will run over the next four months.

This, and lots of other Qs in this thread, is actually answered in the pretty extensive FAQ that's in the link in the OP.

It's only in italian but google translate is fine. I wrote an english-lang article on pokerfuse which also covers the salient points. Basically, according to PS what you suggest could be construed as either money laundering or aiding and abetting, and so is untenable. They quote the relevant laws.

They even answer the question 'but surely pokerstars benefits from promotions rather than cash giveaways', so if you have Qs its definately worth a read. They should probably make it available in English to satisfy the curious.

I am an italian player who had an account on Full Tilt before the black friday and I have had some money on the account, but just some dimes less than $100.

Actually the promotion that has been linked and translated has no link with the 2 million that are going to be given back through promotions as another way to refund Italian players, but it is a promotion that they run once in a while. ( I have to add that the prize guaranteed it is always surpassed ^_^ )

Pokerstars has not been able to give the money back in any different way i.e. through bonus exclusive, tickets, etc. to the owners' of frozen money because for the Italian's (crappy) law it would have been money laundry.
for this reason there is no way to ask the money back even if you move outside the country, but some people are saying that they have made it.

I have tried, as I am living in the UK since November 2012 but they told me that is not possible, but it sounds strange to me.

Players in Italy are getting mad but I do not believe there is nothing they can do unless they do a massive strike against PS but this is never going to happen as we are Italians ^_^

Even because it wasagainst the law by playing on Full Tilt from Italy as someone as already said.

I'm not sure what you mean, the link specifically talks about more than 2 million euros given back to Italian players as the way of reimbursing FTP funds.

The promotion isn't increased guarantees, its free tournaments with real money prize pools, 3x prize pool on SNG tournament leaderboards, and prizes for cash game play.

2m euro money giveaway (not guaranteed tournaments..) is pretty huge promotion, hardly something they do on a regulated site on a frequent basis. Can't think of anything comparable on ES/FR/IT.

"Dicember". Who wrote this post Cloutier?!

yes you are right, in face I was referring to this post by Stone_Palace as this promotion has nothing to do with the 2Millions+ that they are going to do

The promotions that are going to be done with the 2M are going to be IMHO:

1. tournaments with added guaranteed;
2. bonus machine for cash game (a nice promotion that already took place and it is like the build your bonus from Full Tilt );
3. 3X prizes on the SnG leaderboards ( but they are different from the .com .fr and .es, as the traffic is really low).

Seems good that they are doing something, but its got to burn if you had a sizeable chunk on FTP and thats all your going to get!

why do any of you blame pokerstars they bought fulltilt
they arent required anything for this
they cant refund due to the italian laws now
so they make some kinda specials for them which is a benefit
its not pokerstars fault that fulltilt stole their moneys
they could just shrug and =go we didnt do nuttin
but they are at least willing to do something for them and to get them back to play on ps it.

Unless someone suggests a superior way to reimburse players that is also legal in Italy, this seems like the best solution for both players and Stars.

After reading about this on italian forums, it looks like this isn't true: you only had to declare taxes for your winnings.


Now italian players are mad cause when ps.com became ps.it the money were transfered with no problems.

I hope we'll organize a class action.

It's such a shame that FTP didn't go on running so those italians could build their rolls through the skillful play and canny tells for which they became famous.
Seems very harsh, these draconian italian laws. I suppose that's the price you have to pay if you want a clean and corruption-free system that the rest of the world can only hope to achieve.

1)They already transfered the ps.com bankrolls to ps.it when it opened, and the anti-recycling money law didn't change since then.

2)They could had negotiate a Fiscal shield with the government (in the past we had 5% lol ones). I don't believe that they proposed a 30% one to the government and the gov says no

3)They could have give a notice to the ones who wanted to go abroad and get the money (it was possible before, but they bull**** us telling that they'll find a solution so a lot of us just waited)

4)We will not even receive the ftp converted

Obv they did not wanted to find a solution, don't also believe all the law reference, it could be long to translate the law language, but a person more prepared than mecriticized all the line in a ita forum.

P.S. Was not illegal play on ftp poker from italy,
It is possible and not clear if you had to pay tax on the winning, but not illegal to play on

Good point.