Good post. That makes sense to me now.

Part A seems beyond speculative. It seems incredibly unlikely the US government is holding Stars responsible for what happens off their site. If they could influence Stars' play money games, the most likely scenario is Stars would be unable to offer play money to US players - period.

And your conclusion from part B is, in my opinion, somewhat equally ridiculous. If somebody is smart enough and motivated enough to realize how absurd Stars' rake levels are to make them decide to start playing play money and settling up themselves then I see basically 0 chance that this makes them decide to deposit. They can use a simple filter to filter out the rake or they can take their games to one of the other million sites that offer play money poker. Easy.

That makes a lot of sense, actually. I understand now; thank you.

conclusion in B) is a bit off imo.

raking the games makes them slightly more inconvenient to use and makes players (..) abusing play moneys leave some* more traces. i would think stars is trying to find measures that work reasonably well, not wanting to ban home game play moneys altogether.

Lol at this whole post

Stars being held responsible for people gambling on outcomes of play money on their site is like the NFL being shut down because two friends made a bet on the Super Bowl.

And even if they could be held responsible and if their motivation for raking play money games was to be compliant with US law - see how ridiculous that sounds?? - how well would their defence hold up when the DOJ comes after them? "Well your honor, we raked the play money to discourage them from doing in play cash games but they still went ahead and did it in sit n' gos."

Why can't people at least skim through a thread and evaluate a bit before posting complete nonsense? This move in absolutely no way discourages players from settling up offline for tourney and sng play. As already pointed out, whoever were running the game would just have to figure out a WTA filter in PT/HEM.

And B), if players are savvy enough to not want to pay rake that bad then they're not very likely to sign up for real money as an alternative. They are much more likely to find a different site to facilitate their game.

From a business perspective, Stars should want more and more players downloading their software and playing for play money. Clearly the business model works, otherwise they wouldn't have had those ad campaigns running post moneymaker boom about learning to play for free on Poker Stars.net.

If every Home Game in ran this way - using stars software to run play money home games and settle up offline - Stars would have a lot of new player sign ups. The players create an account, get to like the software, eventually browse through the different games offered, start receiving promotional emails, check out the play money games outside of the Home Game they were invited to, and some - albeit small % - will eventually make that first deposit.

Stars is well compensated for the total cost of running play money and Home Games in the long run by eventually converting those players into real money players.

I probably should have clarified that both of the reasons I offered were speculative... I don't work for Stars of otherwise have any inside knowledge wrt the process that led them to start raking play money games.

WRT the US government, I agree that play money games might not be the highest priority atm, but,, if it were demonstrated that Stars knew that the play money software was being used to facilitate real money gaming on a large scale, I could actually see the government asking them to shut down the software.

And WRT b, sure there are ways of filtering out the rake and whatnot, but the point is that the more similarly the play money games play to the real money games, the more likely it is that folks will transition from play money to real money.

Anyway, my larger point, is that there are several reasons why Stars would want to ensure that play money games are really being played just for play money and not as a way of facilitating real money gaming and raking play money would seem to assist that goal...

Ok, so what's your theory wrt why Stars would start raking play money? Did they have any reason for it, or did they just decide to rake because raking is fun?

There are a few possibilities.
1) they want to make it so that u can't use their play money for real money play. This has already been pointed out to be a stupid solution to a problem that is actually not a problem but cost effective marketing and cheap player acquisition.

2) They want to make the games more exciting. I don't see how this would make play money any more exciting. maybe they should create a feature to play tip the dealer instead.

3) They eventually plan on selling play money the way that zynga does and realize that they will make more money off of that business model if more players are losers. if they rake each player at 20bb/100 they'll have a lot of losing players.

The reason I stated is, I feel, the only reasonable explanation so far. Low stakes real money ring games are raked up to 20+bb/100. Play money games were not raked. 20+bb/100 is a ridiculously huge rake and people who crush the play money games and decide to deposit would likely have no idea what they were in for since they probably believe that rake is just some "small fee" as Stars like to keep trying to claim. You would go from crushing the play money games and earning tons to playing real money games against opponents who aren't all 'that' much better and suddenly you're losing massive amounts of money. The huge rake at low stakes takes a lot of the skill out of the game since it becomes a war against the house more than the other players. The concept of 'table selecting' at something like $10NL (which presumably is around the level most play money to real money converts would 'test the waters') sounds pretty funny until you realize earning 24bb/100 at some games at those stakes still isn't enough to beat the rake.

Stars has already stated very few play money players end up playing for real money. And I expect of the few that do try real money, they almost always end up going back to play money. The idea of this change is probably simply to try to more closely simulate what real money play is like, which is to say a grueling grind against the house's "small cut". Heaven forbid that if the rake is driving new signups away that they consider lowering it.

PM me for the best playrakeback deals on Stars.

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Are there any other poker softwares that offer Home Games?

Here's my guess as to what happened.

Many of the play money players from the U.S. (since they cannot play for real money) asked pokerstars to rake the play money tables so they can get a "pretend feel" for what it would be like to play at a real money table.

The problem is, as it has been pointed out several times, there is NOTHING you can do to make a play money table be like a real money table. Why? Because it is PLAY money! I am guessing that many of the play money players believe that if they treat it like "real money" and their opponents do as well, that they can recreate the feeling of playing for real money.

As for answering your original question, when they implemented the rake at the play money table, they did it for every play money table, ring and home games included.

mathguy
stranger
Join Date: Aug 2003
Posts: 2


Good to see your second post in 9 years is about the important topic of play money poker.