05 September 2025
Due to italian legislation, PokerStars can't directly reimburse the italian Full Tilt Players players who had their money and accounts frozen during the Black Friday.
To somehow reimburse the players and the poker community, PokerStars will offer the Tilt Mania promotion, which will deliver more than the €2 million owed to italian players until December.
Italian players were until yesterday the last players on Europe that still didn't know how (and if) they would receive the money they had frozen on Full Tilt Poker.
Even the players of the Spanish and French regulated markets had already been reimbursed through the local PokerStars rooms; yet, according to a statement from PokerStars, this process can't be done in Italy .
This because Full Tilt Poker had no gaming license in Italy , and so any attempt to repay the players by PokerStars could lead to sanctions from the Italian authorities.
In a statement published in PokerStars.it the Rational Group poker room states that it has contacted "authorities and consulted two lawyer firms in order to find the best payment solution to Italian players. However, since the Italian players who played on Full Tilt Poker were playing in an unlicensed room , any payment by PokerStars would be regarded as a violation of the criminal laws."
PokerStars also explains that it has given thought to two other options: donating the value in debt to the Italian players (more than €2 million) to italian charities or delaying payments to players until the law changes and allows italian players to be reimbursed.
Not knowing when and if the law would change, PokerStars decided to create Tilt Mania, a promotion that will start in September and will only be finished by the end of December 2013. During this period, the SNG leaderboards prizes will be tripled, cash games players will be entitled to extra bonus and more free MTT's will be organized.
