fyp

I really want to be a ps shill today. Imo either you being smart and all deliberately derail all that discussion or miss a point biiig time.

Main driver in this players vs pokerstars discussion is "they will rake players more, how's that going to help ecosystem"

Let's talk about this but no bull**** please!

First let's talk about this from perspective of rec player. Rec player playing in todays NLH games have winrate abour -25bb/100 regardless of limit since natural selection "pair" him with regulars good enough to have this figure almost unchangable (proof - your own holdem manager, filter players by vpip >40, prf <10 see avg result).

Any reg only game is unbeatable (or almost unbeatable) with rake of 3bb/100 and without 40%+ rakeback.

If you do not agree to either of this statements please provide counterarguments but I will proceed as I believe those are true.

So one position is that - if you rake games harder how's that going to help rec players? Well how's opposite is going to do that?

If you rake games harder you basically move money from winning regs (making them less winning in community by eliminating worse players effectively) to company.

Fish money is going to be take from fish REGARDLESS of rake. It's super crystal clear that better rake gives fish like 90 minutes of gameplayat average instead of like 80. Lesser rake does not solve anything for rec player: hi is deprived of "gambling" anyway since he's basically NEVER EVER wins (you can put -25bb/100 and std dev of 6m nlh into youf favrorite sim tool and see for yourself - I am using 6m nlh as primer but it applies pretty much across the board).

But then after that money taken from a fish by regular what % of these money goes to advertising, retention, promotions and so to attract new rec playes? Well 0%. Nothing.

When this money stays in the company some of it are invested back and it's better for ecosystem than status quo.

Does it solve problem? Hell no. It's better than status quo nevertheless

In my opinion rec players should be guaranteed on reasonable lose rate for certain variance.

We can use popular casino games as example. Let's take blackjack - it's very popular, we should take std dev per unit and lose rate per unit from blackjack and just artificially create conditions in poker.

Let's say we change rules to make game like -2% lost and 1.15 unit std dev by hand played (like blackjack). Will this work? Absolutely - this alone will create huge flow of new players and retention will be through the roof. While pokerstars don't do that instead of what they doing? They are chicken and afraid of big changes.

But is this whole thing (taking money from regs at least) is a step in right directiion? Absolutely because when there's be no fish there's going to be no games and no regulars whatsoever. Ppl who cry over sne now do not understand that.

plz be constructive with your responses.

if u and other hs/ms regs keep closing your eyes on that and stay passive nothing will change

When/if stars needs it they will prob take my idea of making 100% rakeback prop accounts available. I had one of these at absolute it was a dream (for both parties).

Unless, of course, they can convince people to play with GTO prop bots which I think is doable if jackpots are high enough.

Without trying to attack Ike, Ansky and DD how exactly were they proactive to help Amaya make the games better, improve the ecosystem, improve the experience of new players for a longer sustainability.

If you ask me they failed as "employees" to proactively help Amaya make the right decisions to help grow their business (and would be happy if Ike, Ansky or Daniel would share their opinions on following):

If they represent the players, which players exactly? The 2 million players that played a real money hand over last 12 months or do they represent SNs and SNEs only? I get it, SNs and SNEs got screwed so they speak up. Is there an instance they spoke up to protect the interest of recreational players so they would not be so heavily targeted through seating scripts, 3rd party software etc.? Did they organize a boycott to protect those players that are key for long term success of the game?

You don't need a pro to retain high volume grinders. They will be retained without Ike if they can continue to earn their hourly. Most of the twoplustwo community is disgusted by DNegs but in my opinion he was the only one from the PS pro team that was making any thoughts whatsoever about recs and long term sustainability of the game.

Hey, I apologize if this has been asked already.

Ignoring for a second the 2015 SNE's, SN who were cheated.

From what I understand one of the objectives is to help pokerstars be the #1 place to play online poker as it has been historically for pros and amateurs alike. Have you guys looked into the organization of other international poker sites to see if they have a foundation that you would support and push players towards?

This is what I don't get. Ipoker for example is still a class and reliable network.

I dont understand this nut hugging on pokerstars. Its changed. Times have changed/

1. Why did Daniel Negreanu leave the meetings early?

2. Do you have any plans on asking for a hearing via PokerStars' regulators in regards to the 2016 rewards?

What 'next steps' did you guys discuss at the meeting?

It's great that you guys met with A/PS but what if anything did you or A/PS propose going forward?

you are missing an important point. Scripts, huds and so just decide WHO will get fish money. It does not change outcome for rec player whatsoever. Natural selection and abundant free strategy information turned games for rec player to "always lose" proposition. And no changes in "who" getting rec money will do anything here, only HOW MUCH. But grim truth is if stars will limit rec player losses regs not going to survive as there's too many of such.

This is obviously correct. Scripts and HUDs are not making recs to losers but they are destroying their experience and make a winning session (while still losing long term) almost impossible. The skill gap will keep them -EV but the likelihood of enjoying the game with less massgrinders is simply bigger.

You are right, it won't change the outcome for rec players, but the existence of mass tablers who constantly time out and try to fold their way to rakeback heaven certainly does effect the experience of the game. There are way more rec players willing to lose to a table full of poker players who actually act quickly, chat semi-frequently, and are actually present at the table, rather then sitting at tables that are 60% full of silent mass-tablers who constantly time out and basically ruin the whole experience of poker for anyone who actually is interested in playing the game with real live people who make quick decisions.

Context: I co-author coverage of Amaya for Eilers & Krejcik Gaming. I don't know everything about Amaya by any stretch, but I know more than average.

They are doing it to save money but it likely has nothing to do with California directly. They could not "buy the Indian tribes off" in any case.

No, they'd have to have the NDA for any material non-public info, positive or negative. With that said, the general contours of the meeting seem to clash with the public narrative from Amaya that online poker is growing.

I don't know that it's inherently problematic if you have the right team in place on the Isle. But I share fundamental concerns about the general quality of management following the performance of the company in 2015. And there is reportedly a fair bit of turnover at Stars post-acquisition (hard to say if more than normal following that kind of shift).

Depends on what you mean by offset. The numbers are shared publicly if you're just talking about revenue. If you're talking about active users or other metrics, things get a little trickier / opaque.

It's a tough thing to generalize about, but if you asked me for a TL;DR I'd say global online poker is shrinking, and that a decline in cash games are driving that overall decline. Tournament play is arguably increasing, and a big part of that is Spins, but the increase doesn't appear to be quite enough from a rev point of view to offset cash declines.

I don't see any obvious indication that competitors (e.g., 888 and iPoker) want the traffic that PokerStars will ostensibly lose with these changes. Happy to be shown examples to the contrary.

As for launching a new room that caters to that traffic: I think the market has already indicated that there's no true demand for this product or that it's not sustainable. Online poker is pretty mature at this point and has not suffered for a lack of entrepreneurial types.

This makes sense on face, but the dynamic is arguably a bit more complicated. Some types of marketing might not be +ROI in one online poker ecosystem that are +ROI in another. If you have to pay "x" to acquire a casual player via Facebook, one ecosystem might support a higher LTV for that kind of player (i.e., they rake more before losing their deposit) than another.

Please post more

OPReport (Chris?):

User count is growing, and so is market share and revenue. However, action is shifting from cash games (which are riddled with sharks armed to the teeth with HUD's and software) to tournaments and Spin & Go's (as you mentioned below). Since you are an analyst and follow Amaya, presumably you have listened in on their conference calls and viewed their Powerpoint presentations. If you had done so, you would hear them say that the market is growing by low single digits but they have plans to double it by 2020. They need time to execute their plan as 2016 is going to have some launches of new "innovative" poker products.

As you know, acquiring a customer is expensive and difficult. Amaya has spent a lot of money in marketing, and plans to spend more. However, if they sign up new customers, and those customers immediately get annhilated and lose all their money, they don't have much of a fun experience and their accounts will become dormant. That is precisely what they are trying to avoid with their new rules. They want to make Pokerstars more attractive towards recreational users who don't mind blowing $20 a month for some entertainment. They do not want professionals who are going to be making 6 figures and then whining when their benefits are cut.

Aside from the botched sportsbook launch, I'm not sure how you can fault the "general quality of management". The US$ has skyrockets vs the ruble, euro, pound, Brazilian real, Canadian dollar, and a host of other currencies that make up Amaya's revenue base. To have revenue increase in this environment is rather difficult.

As for the turnover, the four main people that left was due to the fact that the NJ DGE made NJ approval conditional on their departures. If there is other personnel you are referring to, then please share. I haven't seen or heard anything about some sort of mass exodus, so please stay away from unfounded rumors as you are supposed to be an analyst.

Not really. Amaya shares active users and quite a few other KPI's. Have you gone through their investor presenations?
Aside from I wrote earlier, I will add that Amaya's revenue has actually increased, but they have to give a significant portion of it to governments as a condition of their licensing. Check out how much they are paying in the UK and Italy for example. It is simply more expensive to operate a legal online poker/gambling site than an illegal one due to all the fees, taxes, compliance, etc...

When you can publicly share data which are covered by the signed NDA?

Maintaining the ecosystem so that it works for winning players, and maintaining the ecosystem so that it works for losing (small stakes) players are two totally different things.

Amaya are clearly going to focus on the latter.

Amaya's new player recruitment is based on the lure of achieveable riches in MTTs, not in cash games.

That's me.

I have heard them say this. I have listened to every call and viewed every presentation.

We believe that their characterization of the online poker market today and their outlook through 2020 are both wrong (with the outlook being almost incredibly so).

User count growing is not impressive. User count is always growing. Market share increasing is not impressive when the market is shrinking. As for revenue growth from poker, that is highly debatable. AYA presents an adjusted revenue picture that is not the apples-to-apples comparison that one would like in order to feel comfortable making that definitive claim.

I don't think we disagree here.

Two examples of why I have concerns about management:

1) They blew guidance by a massive amount for 1Q-3Q15 and failed to correct even when it was obvious (at least to us) that they were going to miss.

2) They also consistently blew product rollout deadlines or delivered something close to a MVP to make deadlines.

On employees: It's more than just the four who left due to NJ. I'm not going to laundry list who has left, but the consensus of the people that I speak to who are familiar with the company concur that the departures are significant.

As I said in my original comments, this may or may not have happened anyhow post-acquisition.

Yes, of course. They provide a shifting set of KPIs each quarter and there's a lack of meaningful context around many of them.

Contrast what they offer to the KPI spreadsheet bwin.party provides and you'll see what I mean.

Note that I said trickier / more opaque and not impossible.

No disagreement that regulation increases some costs. It also decreases some others, but is probably a significant net increase in cost in most situations.

I do not believe that Amaya has grown poker revenue. The question is complicated due to how they adjust for FX and a few other factors.

not true at all. All these things make no difference for losing player, except only when somebody open twitch stream sometimes with crazy hud or like somebody timeouts all the time and that could be addressed separately and almost non issue.

But considering winrate - nope, if you are winning reg and HONEST with youself and others you know than fish loses at same winrate regardless of anything.

yeah, like former is somehow possible without latter. I mean let's admit it already - poker is boring and hard mental task for regs and nobody has any incentive to play it without good monetary reward.

Let me put it into context - league of legends. Ppl play it for fun, amateurs and pros alike and nobody really cares about "pro players" salaries. You can hire a coach for like "thank you much". Why is this possible? Could it be possible in poker?

I will put it in even simplier terms: did you heard about somebody who plays for playmoney like 10-15 hrs a week just for a sake of a game, at the same time watching streams and coaching vids and so? Just think about it.

Two of the three gave up many hours discussing possible solutions for seating scripts, this time last year. This included flying out to Toronoto for three days worth of discussions with Pokerstars staff.

They represent ALL the players. EVERYONE will be directly affected by these changes, and- most likely- future changes that will take further money out of the Eco-system.

I think when Amaya flew them out to Montreal they had no intention of making any changes. It was merely a cheap and desperate attempt to appease customers.

+1

Im not a SNE in 2015 but you also need to add the highstakes effect:

In 2016 if you start as SNE, play 5/10+ and you rake ~181k, you getting 0% rakeback wich is 0$. = 124k less rewards then promised.

If you play half lower and half 5/10+ and you rake ~181k, you get around ~41k$. = ~ 83 k$ less rewards then promised.

Might I ask you to expand on this a little bit, as I know you are well-informed. Why was it "obvious" to you that they were going to miss? As you know, they blamed the lion's share of the earnings miss on FX issues. But you seem to be basing your statement that the impending miss was "obvious" on something more objective and observable than murky FX issues. So what was your "obvious" assessment based on? Simply observing traffic #'s? The debt+interest repayments vs. their projected top-line revenue? Do you think their FX explanation is just a made-up pretext?

OPReport:

If you believe their outlook to be "incredibly wrong", why don't you elaborate? Do you believe the poker market will shrink by 20% in 5 years? It would be more credible if you posted hard numbers (you're an analyst after all) rather than vague generalizations.

As for adjusted revenue, I agree that I also don't like any adjusted numbers. However, pretty much every publicly traded company provides adjusted numbers when reporting earnings. The reason they claim to do so is they believe it paints a more accurate picture of their earnings due to the unique characteristics of their respective industry.




If it was so obvious to you, why didn't you post an article about it on your website? You have such gems as "Regulated Online Gambling Expansion In 2016? Your Guess Is As Good As Mine" and "NJ Online Casino No Deposit Offers". I'm sure an article that Amaya would miss on their revenues would be slightly more interesting.

Yes, they blew it with their sports betting. What other product deadlines did they miss that affected revenue materially?

Whenever a company is bought out, there is always turnover: layoffs, new dept heads wanting to bring in fresh blood, changes of strategy, etc.... This is normal and I have not heard of any waves of resignations.



As you are an analyst, you could get on the call and challenge them on the data they provide, or ask for more color about certain KPI's. Have you ever done that?


Gambling duty, corporate taxes, setting up geospecific players pools, etc..these are all very expensive. It is a very significant cost increase in all situations, not most. For a publicly traded company, it is a cost they would prefer to the alternative.

They have had the site for a year, and the US$ has gone up significantly when the site has been in their possession. I think they need a few more years under their belt before you can conclude how well management did. It's a bit presumptuous to label management as a failure based on one year of ownership, especially considering they bagged an elephant and need time to digest it.

The corporate presentations are to appease shareholders and investors as well as future investors. This final category is highly relevant as rumours are going around that Amayazov is trying to pay off the rest of the debt with another massive share issue. If he can present a 1-off rosy set of results for the end of year, and get a bump of some sort in the share price, he may be be able to pull off this masterstroke. As it is, there is likely little appetite among institutions to soak up another multi-billion dollars worth of newly issued shares. As things stand Amaya is likely to get crushed under the burden of debt interest and capital repayments.