This is bull**** to an amazing level. This thread should be in NVG where there is the most traffic.
If the NVG thread about Spin&Go's has taught me anything it's that this thread would be full of idiots shouting that regs are not entitled to free deposits/withdrawals and that stars should tax winning player's withdrawals at 50% because they are awful for poker!!
But then if the thread teaches just 1 person to deposit in their native currency then switch to USD from within the client, then that is money kept with the people/in the game, rather than into Pokerstars' pocket, so well worth it.
If the NVG thread about Spin&Go's has taught me anything it's that this thread would be full of idiots shouting that regs are not entitled to free deposits/withdrawals and that stars should tax winning player's withdrawals at 50% because they are awful for poker!!
But then if the thread teaches just 1 person to deposit in their native currency then switch to USD from within the client, then that is money kept with the people/in the game, rather than into Pokerstars' pocket, so well worth it.
This post will attempt to give an overall summary of the situation, because it seems many are still generally confused with how this works.
- Exchanging money within the Stars cashier system between two currencies does not have a charge to it (will get to the rounded penny later).
- Exchanging money as part of a withdrawal or deposit does come with a 2.5-3% charge.
- The smart way for a player (who cashes out in US, Canadian, Euros or Pounds) to move money to and from Pokerstars to the real world is to convert it to the proper currency within the Stars client first, or match the currency deposited to the appropriate cashier within Stars (ie: do not deposit Euros into the US cashier).
- Pokerstars has the following term within their terms and conditions
The use of the Currency Exchange Facility and/or User's account to engage in currency trading or speculation is strictly prohibited. To help maintain the integrity of the Currency Exchange facility, PokerStars has the right to, in its sole discretion:
require that funds held in a User's account and converted via the Currency Exchange Facility into a different currency be used for playing the Games before being cashed out, transferred or used for any other purpose;
That seems a bit vague and spooky, but anyone can contact Pokerstars to ask if one can exchange money within the client before withdrawing and they will say it is fine.
What the above condition is really for is to protect Stars from people that exploit changes in the currency price before Pokerstars adjusts their vig free price. Ladbrokers got hit pretty hard by people who would do this by buying the appropriate currency before Ladbrokers did its daily price adjustment.
Hence, if a person is swapping currencies within the cashier back and forth for no apparent reason (ie: to play or withdraw) then that is what Stars will not be happy about.
- Limits exist for how much can be exchanged. Teh default appear to be 3k per day, 5k per week and 10k per month.
I emailed Stars support and they told me that the limits can be increased (subject to an account review) when I reach close to my limit. After receiving this I did a 3k US transfer and emailed support back and they increased the limits to the following:
USD 7,500.00 - new limit per day
USD 10,000.00 - new limit per 7 days
USD 20,000.00 - new limit per 30 days
I assume these can be increased again if this facility is used in a proper manner, much like player transfer limits are increased as needed (again, subject to account review).
I also assume that those that need to exceed their limits for a specific reason (ie they win the Sunday Million and do not wish to take 2 years to avoid the 3% fee) can contact Pokerstars for a one time help in that regard.
The reality is the situation above probably has minimal or no impact on the majority of players if they use some common sense (which is easier once the raw emotions calm down), but that certainly does not mean this change was handled in an ideal manner.
- Pokerstars method of communicating this change was horrible and I agree it does not reflect well on the new owners. I feel bad for Josem, who's OP almost feels like a person being forced to go out and say what was in that message. Why they did not email all their customers about this change (with more clear wording) is a valid concern, and hopefully Pokerstars will come out with a proper explanation for this in future.
- The rounded penny (no matter what, they round down when exchanging within the client whether by the cashier or buying into a tabl;e/tournament) is a very valid concern, particularly for cash players since every time they join and leave a table they get hit (MTT people do not frequently buy in and unregister to really validate much concern in that area).
I am not sure how they handled this situation before this change (since often times a person leaves with a different amount than one started at the table), but this is an area where Pokerstars should make it very clear what the policy is and why.
- People who cannot cash out in one of the cashier currencies are put in a bad position and Pokerstars should properly acknowledge that.
As always with these types of events one needs to let the "sky is falling" crowd calms down for a while and then hopefully all the details of this change can be understood and explained properly.
I've tested it. If you join a USD table with just EUR in your account you loose 1 Cent per table.
That's been happening way before this update.
I noticed that last year e-mailed them how they advertised to me via e-mail that if I set up a euro pref and registered usd games as long as I was being a regular in those games I would not be getting charged a %. I e-mailed them saying I was a regular and u can easily see that. They never did anything about it and just kept taking a %. So I had to put almost my entire roll in USD as that is >95% of my volume.
Is this the only place you are disseminating the information? Why have I not received an email detailing this change? Are you simply raking in the money from the people (recreational players) who are not aware of these changes? For € and Ł customers they are easily avoided by exchanging currencies in the cashier but I bet there are many many players who are not aware that they can do this and will deposit straight to $ from € or Ł and will be hit with an extortionate fee.
You claim in the post I linked that the fees are in line with the industry standard. Yes they are in line with some of the big banks that have been ripping us off for years, no they are not in line with people like transferwise who should become the new industry standard. With this also coming at the same time as people being forced to cash out their rolls due to Pokerstars no longer operating in their area it appears as a blatant money grab.
Yes I understand that you need to cover your costs. What I don't understand is your choice of rate used and the lack of information provided. I have paid ~$1m in rake over the years and am seriously concerned about the direction that Pokerstars is heading in. have already begun looking at alternative sites and imagine that there are many other players doing the same thing.
Might be worth people emailing them rather than just having a moan here
If conversion limits can be increased further then, as long as you know to convert to your bank account's currency GBP/EUR/CAD before withdrawing, no one need lose out. But this information needs to publicised quite widely so unwitting customers don't feel ripped off.
I've emailed support to seek clarification that this is the case, will there be any limits on conversion, is it just a case of requesting a higher limit as you reach the cap?
The pessimist in me says there will still be a cap. I look forward to being proved wrong.
What seems shady is that an announcement pretty important to how we get cash in to and out of the worlds leading poker site without being penalised, that announcement is made here and 99% of PokerStars players won't read it. That's what makes this look like a cash grab more than anything.
Here we go again, Amaya raping us all again...greed, when they could of just left the exchanges free, you want a global player pool but expect to rape us at the same time for depositing in our native countries? The way the site works, its virtual the currency in your bankroll, yes its covered in their bank accounts but that virtual bankroll does not move or exchange for any value, its basically further taxation on us by them, the UK gaming tax is probably partly to do with this as well and I bet our VIP program gets raped as well even though the cost is covered 10 times over.
I noticed that last year e-mailed them how they advertised to me via e-mail that if I set up a euro pref and registered usd games as long as I was being a regular in those games I would not be getting charged a %. I e-mailed them saying I was a regular and u can easily see that. They never did anything about it and just kept taking a %. So I had to put almost my entire roll in USD as that is >95% of my volume.
I just tried and it seems like they charge 2,5% for a USD--> EUR transaction. No way that that's cheaper than most banks like OP claims.
It is cheaper than the rates that most players would otherwise be able to obtain if they rely on their bank's default currency exchange service or credit card issuer when making a deposit.
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Really bad move to not openly disclose the percentages also...
We display the charges (showing the local currency and the amount of USD to be credited) when a player makes a deposit. This is the internationally standard way of displaying such things.
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Originally Posted by gabbkk
since no one from the usa can play and since theres a 6k limit/month of transfers between diff account currencies , this is a sick money grab by amaya.
That's simply the default limit on currency transactions for new players. If you require a higher limit, please email security@pokerstars.com anytime.
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Originally Posted by Gandalf The White?
other sites aren't as bad as they used to be imo, there are some good alternatives for stars. gl
We encourage you to compare these fees to other sites.
I see that one player in this thread compared our fee to PartyPoker, and here is that post:
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Originally Posted by Monteroy
...Here are the figures from US to Canadian for Stars
$1,000 US = $1,123.15 if exchanged within the client
$1,000 = $1,095.11 if US is converted to a Canadian check (it does round down from 1,095.116 which is interesting and may be related to how that situation is handled with exchanging to buy in to tournaments)
on Party Poker $1,000 US = $1,090
and I believe Party Poker now charges 3% on many types of withdraws (like Skrill) even within the same currency.
As the figures from the player above shows, in this example, PokerStars would give a Canadian player 3% more USD for their money than our competitor.
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Originally Posted by Sect7G
The best way for players to push Stars to return to the ways of old is to move sites asap, as this will speed up an inevitable process.
We encourage you to compare our fees to other sites.
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Originally Posted by highlandfox
When will Pokerstars support Bitcoin cashouts and withdrawals?
We have announced no plans to do so at the moment.
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Originally Posted by 4-Star General
Does anyone know what PS is doing with the deposits? Are they in a bank account that generates interest for PS?
Here is a video that we recently published on this issue generally:
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Originally Posted by MeleaB
Michael, how the **** can you make this claim!?**
There are companies around now (such as transferwise.com) that exchange using very, very low rates that blow banks out of the water…
We agree that we were probably the world's best place for players to exchange currency until now. We agree that under the previous arrangement - where we charged no currency exchange fee - we probably offered an exchange rate that was better, than literally any other business at any time on a widespread and/or consistent basis*. That's why, for example, we had people trying to discreetly exchange very large sums of money to take advantage of our services.
We are now charging a margin on such transactions. We think we are no longer offer the world's best exchange rate of any business of any sort anywhere in the world. That is all certainly true, and that’s why we started this thread to explain that.
Instead, we merely offer exchange rates which we think are still very competitive. We think that they are very competitive with our major competitors, and better than most of the other currency exchange options available to players.
That's why we would encourage a player in this thread to post and compare the various options available to players: so that players can make informed decisions about these issues.
*We accept that it is theoretically possible that other businesses may have temporarily had errors in their exchange rates whereby they effectively paid people to exchange currencies.
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**Actually I've already answered this question in my response three posts above: You now work for a company you have to defend despite clearly not agreeing with what they're doing.
That's not true. I agree with having a fee. PokerStars provides currency exchange services for players. These services cost money to operate, and it makes sense to charge a fee for those services. Under the previous system, where I think that PokerStars offered literally the best exchange rate of any business of any sort in the world on a consistent basis, players were effectively encouraged to use our currency transaction services more often than they needed. Now, going forward, the margin for this service will offset the cost for providing the service, and we expect that players will not use our currency exchange service excessively. This distortion will no longer increase costs to PokerStars, and instead, it will allow us to offer currency exchange services on an ongoing and sustainable basis.
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Originally Posted by kyan972
I could be way off with this but do you think theres a chance stars implemented this now for the possible pull out of countries like Aus and Russia? in a final ploy to take a % of what these people had in there BR when they make there final withdrawal
No.
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Originally Posted by OMGClayDol
Does it actually cost to convert within the client now? So if i have just USD currency and then wanna play some ept tournaments i'm losing a few %?
No.
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If it's just for withdrawing, even though that affects me as well, I think that is a lot more reasonable and makes more sense
Yes, it only applies to deposits and withdrawals where there is a currency conversion applied.
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Originally Posted by bjsmith22
So is it safe to assume based on the exchange above that stars support is either blatantly lying or entirely uninformed on this matter?
No, the Support email exchange posted is accurate.
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Originally Posted by Transcendence
...Comparing yourselves with a bank? R u delusional? How dare you after all these years and all the extortionate rake we have paid. How dare you?...
We made that comparison because that is the alternative option that players face when making a deposit. In most cases, if not all, our currency exchange margins are still lower than the other options available to players when making a deposit.
This might be clearer with a simple, hypothetical, example.
A player wants to make a deposit from a country that does not use USD/GBP/EUR/CAD as their local currency to play in our games. To make a deposit, their local currency needs to be converted into USD. There are conceptually two options that are available to PokerStars in processing that transaction:
Option A: PokerStars charges a USD amount to their card. The currency conversion is then performed by their credit card issuer (typically, their bank).
Option B: PokerStars charges an amount to their card in the local currency. The currency conversion is thus performed by PokerStars.
In the vast majority of situations, if not all, it is better for players to use Option B – because our foreign exchange rates, even after this change, are lower than most consumer banks. If you travel internationally and use your card at various retailers or ATMs, you will be familiar with this, because you often have an equivalent choice to make.
The same process works in reverse for withdrawals.
