PokerStars, 888 Launch Christmas Promos
We’re only a week away from being a month away from Christmas, so a couple of the internet’s most popular poker rooms have launched their Christmas promos for all of you good little children out there.* They aren’t the most amazing promotions we have ever seen, but hey, something is better than nothing and they could at least make your online poker sessions a little more interesting for the next few weeks.
PokerStars Christmas Festival
Let’s start with PokerStars (hence the above heading), the world’s largest online poker room. Stars kicked off its Christmas Festival this week, planning to give away over $10 million through December 27th. The first part of the Christmas Festival, the Daily Double Jackpot, will run for most of this month, up through November 29th. Each day, PokerStars will host three pairs of Daily Double multi-table tournaments at price points of $1.10, $11, and $55, starting at 13:00 ET, 14:00 ET, and 15:00 ET, respectively. That’s two tourneys at the same buy-in level at the same time. Each has a guaranteed prize pool with a larger guarantee on Sunday.
Monday through Saturday, one table will be chosen at random and each player at said table will win two free $55 tournament tickets. On Sunday, the random table award will be a $215 tournament ticket. Additionally, and good luck with this, if someone should somehow win two Daily Double tourneys at the same buy-in on the same day, PokerStars will give that insanely fortunate and skilled person $1 million.
When December begins, so does the next part of the Christmas Festival, the Christmas Calendar Door promo. Each day from December 1st through December 25th, PokerStars will make available a new poker offer which can be unveiled via the “Challenges” window in the poker client software. Not all will be useful to everyone, not all will necessarily be attainable, but it seems like there should be something for everyone at some point. The offers will include things like freerolls, Milestone Hands, Challenges, PCA Giveaways, Megabonuses, and Golden Sit & Go’s.
And finally, on December 27th, PokerStars will host a special $5 million guaranteed edition of the PokerStars Sunday Million. It will cost $215 and guarantees at least $500,000 to the winner.
888poker Gift Showers $700,000 Season of Giving
PokerScout’s second ranked online poker room in terms of cash game traffic, 888poker, has started the (wait for it…) Gift Showers $700,000 Season of Giving promotion. There are several moving parts here, so let’s wade through it.
The Gift Showers promo (I think I’ll go with Gift Showers rather than Season of Giving because the visual is just more fun) primarily consists of three different freeroll tournaments:
• All-in Gift Tournament – daily at 18:05 GMT – prizes include iPhone 6s, Go Pro cameras, and Playstation 4
• $2,000 Lucky Star Tournament – daily at 12:05, 19:05, and 00:05 GMT – prizes include…cash?
• $6,500 Starburst Tournament – weekly at 21:05 GMT – prizes include Macbook Air and Apple TV packages as well as cash
Anyone who has an account on 888poker will receive one free ticket into the All-in Gift Tournament, while those who were members before the promotion started (November 12th) also get a ticket for the $2,000 Lucky Star Tournament. Those who registered during the promo can get two more All-in Gift Tournament tickets and two tickets for the Lucky Star tourney by depositing using the promo code GIFT4ME.
Ok, that’s a start. Players can also earn more free tickets for the All-in Gift Tournament by completing real-money poker missions every day. These missions include:
• Playing 30 raked cash game hands
• Play with a total of $6 buy-in or play at least 15 raked hands on the mobile version of the 888 software
• Bet at least $80 on casino games
• Play a Sit & Go with a buy-in of $6 or more
• Bet $5 or more on sports
It appears that players can win a ticket for each of these missions every day (so five tickets total), but players must have already participated in one All-in Gift Tournament before being eligible for the extra entries.
Of course, this still leaves the $2,000 Lucky Star Tournament and $6,500 Starburst Tournament. Aside from the new player deposit option, additional $2,000 Lucky Star Tournament tickets can be won via the Star Spin game (what’s with all the co-opting of PokerStars’ “Star” nomenclature?). Everyone gets one free spin, but those who have made a deposit at any point get a free spin every day. In addition to the Lucky Star entry, prizes for the Star Spin include All-in Gift Tournament tickets (of course), casino and sports betting free plays, and generic tournament tickets.
Players who download the mobile app will also receive a second spin each day.
The $6,500 Starburst Tournament is actually shrouded in a little bit of mystery. There are no automatic tickets for this one. Every Sunday, players will receive an e-mail that includes a special weekly mission. Complete that mission and receive a ticket for the tournament.
Though the Gift Showers promotion is labeled as a Christmas or holiday promo, it actually runs all the way through April 1st, 2016.
*Children should not be playing online poker.
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