Because of the US indictments back on April 15th, people living in the US can no longer play at PokerStars. Most everyone else in the world can still play at Stars, but they have been affected by Black Friday as well.
Some of the changes have been good. For example, those living in Europe received SCOOP tournament starting times that were much more European-friendly than in other years. Some of the changes haven’t been good, though. For instance, some tournament guarantees have had to be reduced due to a smaller player base.
Another consequence of Black Friday is the fact that PokerStars will not be at this year’s World Series of Poker. Previous years have seen wonderful Series incentives from PokerStars. For instance, there was a year that saw people automatically become Supernova just for playing the Main Event donning a PokerStars logo. Like a lot of other sites, they also used to offer cash incentives for making the final table.
With all their recent problems with the Department of Justice, PokerStars is not taking any chances. They will not have PokerStars representatives at the WSOP at all.
In previous years they threw a PokerStars party and they gave away player bags. They used to also book their players’ rooms in the Palms. This year’s WSOP will not see any of these perks. No one gets a bonus for winning their Main Event seat on PokerStars, nor is there a final table incentive.
All of this is completely understandable. The target market for PokerStars is no longer the US and so there is no reason to offer WSOP incentives. PokerStars has been removed from all US television programming, which means that there is nothing for them to gain during the WSOP.
Don’t let this entry get you down, though. Everyone that lives outside of America has the option to play at PokerStars. You can still win your way into the WSOP on PokerStars with some of their other promotins.
New PokerStars Deposits Receive Access to Arena Promotion
If you live in Central or Eastern Europe, you have the chance to participate in the PokerStars promotion called Arena 2. There are 100 iPad 2’s up for grabs, and you have the chance to win one of them! The promotion started earlier this month, but you still have plenty of time to get your hands on one of those iPads.
iPads are given out in the Arena 2 Daily Final tournaments. If youdownload PokerStars and make your first deposit between now and May 29th, you will receive an Access All Areas pass that will allow you to play every Daily Final. Use the bonus code “arena” while depositing in order to receive your Access All Areas pass. To help your bankroll, you will also receive a 100% bonus up to $600 when making your deposit.
If you cannot afford to make a deposit, you can win Daily Final seats by playing freerolls. There are free-to-enter 180 sit & go tournaments filling around the clock, and you are allowed to play one of them every hour of the day. If you don’t mind investing a little cash, you can try 36 player sit-and-go’s for $0.11 or 27-man sit & gos for $1.10. You earn both Daily Final seats and prize payouts in these events.
The Daily Arena 2 Finals run at 2 pm eastern. They have $500 prize pools that are distributed to 20% of the field. 1st and 2nd place both win iPad 2 devices! If you can finish in the top 50 of the event, you will also receive a Coliseum Final ticket.
PokerStars is hosting the Coliseum Final on June 5th in the afternoon. You will want an Access All Areas pass to receive a ticket to this event if you were unable to finish in the top 50 of one of the Daily Finals. This tournament has a $5,000 prize pool. It will also award an iPad 2 to the top fifty finishers.
If you can’t place in the top 50 in the Coliseum Final, don’t worry because there are also Arena characters that have iPad bounties on them. The event will host eight Arena characters, and they carry $100 bounties in addition to the iPad 2.
If you have yet to join PokerStars, receiving an Access All Areas pass is a great reason to do so now. Go collect some iPad bounties!
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