Here is an update on the current withdrawal methods available to poker players at Full Tilt and Pokerstars.
Full Tilt Withdrawal Options


The Ultra PrePaid Phone Card service is still available to the players at Full Tilt. There haven't been any problems reported yet with this service and all of their transactions seem to have gone pretty smoothly. The only issue with this company is their short track record.

The majority of the problems that players have encountered when trying to withdrawal their money from Full Tilt have occurred when trying to request a cash-out by check. If you want to read about some of the events leading up to this point, you can read these past blog entries; Full Tilt Withdrawal Problems, More Full Tilt Withdrawal Problems

In the past few weeks some players have been able to withdrawal their funds by check from Full Tilt while others have been getting denied.

Some people have exchanged several emails with the support staff before they are able to accomplish anything. In many cases, players have been able to get their check withdrawals approved, only to find out a few days later that there was a problem.

For those of you who don't know, Full Tilt's support staff is mostly run by a company called Pocket Kings Ltd which is based in the UK. They typically will not deal with Full Tilt's patrons over the phone, but if you play your cards right, you can get in touch with someone who may provide some useful information.

It appears as though the recent problems were been caused by a combination of many factors. Certain bank accounts held by Full Tilt were closed for various reasons, one of these reasons I still suspect was the recent seizure of Bodog's funds from the Nevada State Bank.

Right now all players are being allowed to cash out via check. I can't really say that this will continue to be true, but right now anyone can request a check.

Full Tilt has also removed the Moneygram cash out option. People that got to use this option said it was pretty convenient, but it appears as though this is a thing of the past.


Pokerstars Withdrawal Options


Pokerstars is still running relatively smoothly at this point. They removed their cash pick-up option around the same time that Full Tilt did this week, but their checks are still flowing freely. All players including Americans can request a cashout by check at anytime from the Pokerstars cashier.

I mentioned in my last blog that I had stopped playing on Full Tilt for the most part. I'm not a big fan of the prepaid phone card system. I guess I'm just not a fan of uncertainty in general when it comes to cashing out my money.

I've been spending most of my playing time at Pokerstars lately. Their site has about twice as many players at their tables, so their tournaments tend to have a lot more people.

I also opened up an account at Cake Poker because I haven't heard about any problems cashing out funds over there. Cake Poker has been around for a few years and I had always heard that the lower stakes cash games were pretty good there. Since I don't play in the big $200/$400 games at Full Tilt, this is just fine with me. If you are interested in playing at Pokerstars or Cake you can navigate there through these links; Pokerstars, Cake Poker.

If you are not American, you have quite a few more deposit and withdrawal options at Pokerstars. Rather than discuss them all here, I'm just gonna post this screen shot. If you would like to read more you can click on the image below to access the Pokerstars withdrawal option information.