UK Online Poker Sites Raise Tournament Guarantees

Two UK online poker sites, 888Poker and PartyPoker are raising their guaranteed tournament payouts in a desperate effort to keep current players happy.
Here’s a look at what 888 and Party Poker are doing.
888 Guarantees and Pause Button
888Poker is a huge brand with a massive international footprint, but that hasn’t been enough to keep the company from having some pretty serious technical issues.
A plague of poorly timed system freezes have left hardcore players howling, and who could blame them?
Technicians at the massive operation have been working overtime to solve the problem and recently they came up with a pause button feature that’s designed to help preserve the integrity of tournament play.
The company is also pumping an additional $100,000 a month into additional prize guarantee money. All that fresh cash will be spread across a number of tournaments, including a $5,000 prize boost in their Sunday tournament.
PartyPoker Ups the Ante, Too
Over at PartyPoker, operators are throwing an additional $400,000 at boosting tournament guarantees over the next few months.
While PartyPoker’s been spared the sorts of technical problems that have been plaguing 888, they’re still having trouble hanging on to casual players. Company officials are hoping that throwing money at tournament guarantees will help keep newbies swimming in shark infested waters.
While these moves aren’t particularly risky they are expensive and there’s no guarantee that boosting tourney guarantees will even work.
But in the topsy turvy online poker world, sometimes operators wind up gambling as much as much as their players.