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pokerstars increase rake from Nov 1st

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  1. #1

    Default pokerstars increase rake from Nov 1st

    announced at 2+2 by pokerstars steve

    Quote Originally Posted by PokerStars Steve View Post
    The following changes will be implemented for PokerStars.com and shared liquidity sites in the near future. Implementation dates are included for each change and full tables detailing the changes are provided at the end of the post.


    Battle of the Planets
    The week ending Saturday, November 1st will be the final week of the Battle of the Planets promotion. Prizes will be paid out this week as per normal.


    Rake Changes Effective November 3, 2014
    Rake will increase for all stakes of heads-up hyper turbo Sit & Go tournaments.


    Tournament fees for all forms of knockout tournaments, including both scheduled and Sit & Go tournaments, will now be equivalent to tournament fees charged for similar non-knockout tournaments. This is a change for all forms of knockout tournaments except for progressive super knockout tournaments for which tournament fees will not change.


    Hyper-turbo scheduled tournament fees will increase from 2% to approximately half of the fees charged for other scheduled tournaments at same or similar buy-in levels.


    The cap for ring game rake for hands dealt at PL/NL games to exactly two players will increase to $2 for stakes $25/$50 and higher and $1 for all other stakes.


    The cap for ring game rake for PL/NL games at $25/$50 and higher stakes with 5+ players dealt in will increase from $3 to $5.


    Spin & Go rake will be increased at stakes $3 and above. Details are in the table at the end of the post. Note that the ‘Rake’ row in the table refers to the % of prize pool withheld for rake, as is consistent with our current communication on our website and communication of pricing by competitors about similar products.




    Rakes Changes Effective January 1, 2015
    Hyper-turbo satellite Sit & Go fees will be increased at stakes below $2,000 from 2% to an amount equivalent to roughly 75% of the fees charged for cash prize hyper-turbo Sit & Go tournaments of the same buy-in. A table at the end of this post includes sample fees for a wide range of buy-ins.


    New tournament fees will apply in rebuy tournaments for players whose play is subject to significant local taxes in the form of gaming duty and/or VAT. For such players, tournament fees equivalent to those charged for initial buy-ins will be charged for rebuys and add-ons. We will soon provide a full list of sites/countries affected on January 1, but as examples, PokerStars.be, PokerStars.dk, PokerStars.uk, and PokerStars.bg will qualify due to gaming duty and players from Germany will qualify due to VAT.


    Spin & Go Prize Changes Effective November 3, 2014
    Spin & Go prize distribution will change to offer top prizes of 3000x the buy-in at each pool, increased from 1000x. Full details of the new distributions are available in the table at the bottom of this post.




    Details and Examples of Changes


    Sit & Go





    Spin & Go





    Scheduled MTT



    The above are examples; similar changes will apply at all stakes.


    NL/PL Ring Games


  2. #2
    Eric's Avatar
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    Interesting. Related to Amaya taking over?
  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Eric View Post
    Interesting. Related to Amaya taking over?
    Most certainly.

    With all of these news with Amaya making Stars to gain more profit short-term (2,5% deposit / withdrawal fees, removal of $5,2k ticket from SNE and claim that they will take even more next year etc) it starts to look very possible that their monopoly will be broken. Outcry in other forums have been very strong.
  4. #4
    Eric's Avatar
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    I think you're right, Amaya has to do a balancing act and the decisions won't be easy.
  5. #5
    $5bn of debt has to be paid off and players are the ones who will be paying it . US players be warned ...the return of pokerstars isn't the return of the old pokerstars but the cash grabbing leviathan that amaya is turning into. removal of battle of the planets is gonna hit the SNG grinders and HU rake is going through the roof which will penalize table starters.
  6. #6
    Eric's Avatar
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    Yeah, five thousand million dollars of debt is nothing to sneeze at.
  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith View Post
    $5bn of debt has to be paid off and players are the ones who will be paying it . US players be warned ...the return of pokerstars isn't the return of the old pokerstars but the cash grabbing leviathan that amaya is turning into. removal of battle of the planets is gonna hit the SNG grinders and HU rake is going through the roof which will penalize table starters.
    I'm glad you brought this up, Keith. I've wondered quite a bit lately about how beneficial having PokerStars launching in NJ is going to be to players. There's is a ton of brand loyalty even for that small market, but it's also obvious that promotions/VIP Club are going to be significantly less for the vast majority of players who have been loyal PokerStars patrons over the years.

    I'm really interested to see the NJ numbers over the first six months.
  8. #8
    Normal 9man STT´s, 45mans and normal MTT´s not affected?
  9. #9
    Eric's Avatar
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    Some people are going nuts about these rake increases on twitter. Never a dull moment in the poker world...
  10. #10
    I just wish there was some genuine competition out there - all other software is practically unplayable.

    Will be interesting to see the impact on the business in the long-term too. At the moment, there's stacks of regs paying a lot of rake and only just about breaking even with rakeback (hi!). I'd expect a lot of those to gradually disappear.
  11. #11
    Quote Originally Posted by Daniel72 View Post
    Normal 9man STT´s, 45mans and normal MTT´s not affected?
    Hyper MTTs and rebuys were as well as KOs. Rebuys because licensed markets are getting raked (I guess this is even worse for non-licensed markets as it supposedly means that they pay rake -> get bonuses but overall prizepool gets raked?).

    Regular MTTs in Stars are generally so bad that I never played them in any case, except PLO8/NLO8. Other sites have much better tournaments. But hypers are bad (2% -> 5% mostly).
  12. #12
    "Regular MTTs in Stars are generally so bad "

    Why bad - tons of bad players in it !
  13. #13
    What about its sibling Fu;;Ti;t?

    (happy accident or freudian slip, I actually just missed the L key but then I thought it looked more appropriate anyway)
  14. #14
    Eric's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by chemist View Post
    What about its sibling Fu;;Ti;t?

    (happy accident or freudian slip, I actually just missed the L key but then I thought it looked more appropriate anyway)
    Lol, it does look funny that way.
  15. #15
    Eric's Avatar
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    Daniel Negreanu responded: http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poke...owtopic=147358

    He says most changes were going to happen without Amaya:
    First of all, I think it’s really important to note that most of the recent changes were going to happen well before the new ownership group took over.
    He says PokerStars is still the cheapest option:
    While I get it, nobody gets excited over rake increases, I think it’s really important to note that PokerStars remains the cheapest place to play online poker. The rake increases are still smaller than what the competition offer, and that’s before you account for the generous VIP programs.
  16. #16
    have posted a reply there ....interesting to see if he replies and what he says in reply.
  17. #17
    Eric's Avatar
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    Yeah, I'm curious to see how he'll reply. Daniel comes off as a nice guy but he is in an awkward spot here.
  18. #18
    Eric's Avatar
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    This probably isn't the best time for the tweet from @PokerStars 6 hours ago.

    It is on #pokerorigins and it has an image with the following text:
    Workers would operate a
    hand mill to GRIND grain.
    It was considered a draining
    and arduous occupation.
  19. #19
    So if U.S. players do come back to Pokerstars, it will be a more expensive proposition. Sounds like not as much to return to.
    It takes 2 years to learn to talk, but a lifetime to learn when to shut up.
  20. #20
    There is no other option than Pokerstars, it is still by far the best room in all apects. All the other roooms are almost a joke (traffic, software, game offer, cashier things etc.)

    Some hundred hyper and hu regs maybe complain about new changes, but Stars has gazillions of customers!!
  21. #21
    you seem to be missing the point ...its not just a few hundred hyper and HU regs getting affected .....all .uk .dk .es (+more?) mtt players will now be raked on rebuys and addons while .com players wont. All table starters (6max and FR tables)at 50nl and higher or when tables are shutting down now face much higher rake whilst HU. sng players have now lost the bonus that they got from battle of the planets promo. this affects a big proportion of stars raking customers in some way or another.
  22. #22
    Quote Originally Posted by Eric View Post
    Daniel Negreanu responded: http://www.fullcontactpoker.com/poke...owtopic=147358

    He says most changes were going to happen without Amaya:


    He says PokerStars is still the cheapest option:
    The rake increases are still smaller than what the competition offer, and that’s before you account for the generous VIP programs.
    Quote Originally Posted by Keith View Post
    have posted a reply there ....interesting to see if he replies and what he says in reply.

    Did you ask him if he is only defending it because he wants to stay one of the few pros that isn't getting dropped by Amaya?
    Did you mention that 'the competition' had a different business model and payed rake back instead of an ingenious VIP program?


    Have you heard anything about Fulltilt? It seems strange to me that pokerstars announce country specific changes and rake increases, but I haven't seen anything about any changes at Fu;;Ti;t.
    Last edited by chemist; 11-02-2014 at 09:23 AM.
  23. #23
    these are the posts i made ...no response yet....he's probably waiting for stars PR department to tell him what his thought are about it .
    so at what point is raking MTT rebuys and add ons for uk players (supposedly to pay for the increased tax for the regulation changes recently introduced ) acceptable when most other players are not raked on those rebuys. The rebuys and addons go to the prize pool not to stars income , and therefore are not taxed. So stars are stiffing UK players for extra rake on those rebuys/addons and this then incurs extra tax because that extra rake is now income and taxable. Is the 40% profit on all their income (rake) insufficient for Stars so that they have to take even more out of the poker economy?

    from the Q & A about uk migration



    Will my VIP Club rewards be affected?

    A.
    VIP Club rewards for PokerStars UK will be the same as on PokerStars.com for the remainder of 2014. Rewards will be reduced slightly for 2015; more information will be available at a later date.

    Q.Are there any tax implications that will affect me as a player?

    A.
    PokerStars, like all other operators, will be required to pay UK gaming tax at 15% from December 1. The impact of this cost may mean that we introduce some changes to our VIP programme (but only from 2015). This is currently being reviewed. We will ensure that players are notified in advance.
    The introduction of the UK tax will not impact winnings/cashouts, deposits or transfers - we will not be required to withhold taxes from any such transactions.


    so if UK players vip rewards are being reduced to reflect the fact that stars is taxed on UK players rake why also selectively rake the uk players rebuys and add ons. 85% of that extra rake is pure profit for stars. Also if the tax has to be paid from december 1st why are stars raking the november rebuys and addons? Will your opinion still be the same when the amaya bean counters decide that you sponsorship money would be far better in the companies bottom line than in your bank account.Do you fell like you are now heading into the position that the LOCK poker pros were in when they kept promoting Lock whilst Lock were busily shafting the players for their own benefit? look how that turned out.


    Last edited by Keith; 11-02-2014 at 11:23 AM.
  24. #24
    Eric's Avatar
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    Despite the statements Daniel made, I find the timing of this interesting. I'm not saying it is right or wrong, Amaya needs to find the right balance of making money while keeping customers happy and maybe there is a little room for rake increases.

    Amaya filed a business acquisition report at sedar.com on October 15, 2014.

    The income statement below for PokerStars comes from the report:
    2013 Revenue: $1.1 billion
    2013 Profit before tax: $422 million


    Page 14 says these are in US Dollars:
    3 Functional and presentation currency

    The individual financial statements of each Group entity are presented in the currency of the primary economic environment in which the entity operates (the "functional currency").

    The consolidated financial statements are presented in United States Dollars, which is the Group's functional and presentation currency.
  25. #25
    UK players will have to unregister from all tourneys ( including the mission week ones , but can then register again after migrating) in order to complete the migration.

    There is also a potentially expensive cockup for stars that i've reported to stars related to stellar awards.
  26. #26
    I was under the impression that raking rebuys and addons was an unexpected quirk that would be ironed out before the migration. Am I kidding myself? I'm not playing rebuys and addons if I'm paying rake on my rebuys while others aren't. That sounds to me like stars are asking me to turn around and drop my kegs so they can fuck me up the arse.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  27. #27
    looks like we are also on the reduced VIP as well even though the tax hasnt kicked in yet
  28. #28
    Is raising the bar not just gonna result in a % of break even regs going under and disappearing? Will that not negatively impact on their profits? The more I think about this the more stupid it seems. It's not even that I mind paying more, it's just that it doesn't seem a very wise business stratgey. What if I can't make any money any more? I lose my BR and I stop playing. Currently I make more money for pokerstars than I make for myself. Significantly more. If I stop playing it's worse for them than it is for me. Why would they want to risk break even grinders going bust?

    When you consider how much money pokerstars make, it's obscene really that they are asking for more, especially when any money they gain is going to be offset at least to some degree by the losses they take on as a result of people going broke.
    Quote Originally Posted by wufwugy View Post
    ongies gonna ong
  29. #29
    Wow, very funny comparing Negreanu's positive spin comments about Pokerstars to the Lock debacle. I mean if players do not want to earn $1 for every $10 they are earning for Pokerstars coffers, maybe Pokerstars may have to rethink things. One would be getting rid of the Negreanu expense.
    It takes 2 years to learn to talk, but a lifetime to learn when to shut up.
  30. #30
    Eric's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by eberetta1 View Post
    I mean if players do not want to earn $1 for every $10 they are earning for Pokerstars coffers, maybe Pokerstars may have to rethink things. One would be getting rid of the Negreanu expense.
    I strongly disagree - this rake increase isn't Daniel's fault. He shouldn't become a target just because he's willing to talk about this heated issue publicly while some of their other pros remain silent.

    No one is happy about this but PokerStars has been a great company historically and Daniel has been a tremendous ambassador for them over the years. Hopefully they can make the right decisions about how to increase net earnings (improve margins) without alienating customers.
  31. #31
    Dos anybody know if the milestone credit progress bar is broken on the UK software? I've earned 27k VPPs this year but it's saying I need another 73k before the next credit, rather than 3k.
  32. #32
    yeah its broken, theres reports on 2+2 of UK people hitting the next stellar reward and being able to cash it out in the client as normal.

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