Full Tilt to Increase Rewards to Recreational Players

The Managing Director of Full Tilt has announced that the site will be offering more rewards to recreational players in a forthcoming series of changes.

Writing for the Full Tilt blog, Dominic Mansour has indicated that he intends to turn the poker industry on its head by introducing a series of changes to the site´s rewards program in order to encourage more casual and recreational players to Full Tilt.

Mansour acknowledges that there is a growing skill gap between professional and recreational players, and that this skill gap results in casual players losing their bankrolls quicker and dissuades them from reinvesting in online poker.

To avoid casual players thinking will I go back and do it again? after a losing session, Mansour intends to make wholesale changes to Full Tilt´s “Edge” rewards program which will take the emphasis away from volume and create a more entertaining experience for those playing online poker for entertainment.

Details of the Changes Coming in Weeks

How exactly Full Tilt intends to change its rewards program is as yet unknown, but Mansour has said that there will be changes to the rake structure to fund the changes. A higher percentage of rake will be charged at micro and low stakes up to $0.05/$0.10 and the rake cap on ring games with stake levels of $5.00/$10.00 and $10.00/$20.00 will be increased.

Rake levels between these two extremes are likely to remain unchanged, implying that Full Tilt will be targeting players with bankrolls above $250.00. It will be interesting to see if the site changes the structure of the [geolink href=”https://www.pokernewsreport.com/full-tilt-poker”]Full Tilt poker bonus[/geolink] – already the easiest poker bonus in the world to clear – in order to attract new casual players, or if the changes will only benefit existing players.

New online poker players at Full Tilt currently receive some level of protection from more experienced players due to the “New to the Game” tournaments and ring game tables. However, only micro-stakes games exist on the ring game tables, and this program is one of the most likely to be changed if Mansour does not want to alienate new players with higher rake percentages.

Software Changes on the Way as Well

As part of his promise to make the playing experience as welcoming and fair as possible, Mansour revealed in his blog post that software changes are on the way to ring game lobby and to Full Tilt´s mobile apps. The ring game lobby certainly needs a fix because new players can find the choice of games and stakes overwhelming, and maybe the site could tinker with the tournament lobby as well.

However, we wonder if making changes to Full Tilt´s mobile apps is a wise decision. Full Tilt already offers possibly the best mobile poker experience of any of the leading online poker sites (the site was awarded “Best Poker App” at the IGA Gaming Awards last year) and there is an argument that if it ain´t broke, don´t fix it.

For many years, Full Tilt has been acknowledged as having the best poker software in the industry, and it would be a shame for the quality of the software to be compromised in order to make it simpler for new players to understand and navigate. We wait to see what happens in regard to software changes and hope that the playing experience is not “dumbed down” by the desire to attract more players.