Can we get any bets in on when Josem takes a red pill. The amount of shilling in those 16257 posts is truly unbelievable,

Well is what Stars saying really true?? Just to give you an example Spin n Go The very best regs at 100 spins gets like 6% ROI but it was rakeback included which is no longer. So you have to consider it being like 4.5% or so pre rakeback. Now consider it that they rake that game 5%.
So if you consider a table with like one 2% ROI Reg one 4% ROI reg and one fish how big of a % of the recreational player end up as a rake?
To put it blantly the 1st reg gets like 2$ per game on average, the 2nd 4$ while Stars take 15 in Rake.... So to say Regs stop winning so much when in most cases you take like 70%+ of the money from deposit in to rake (and most of the time 80%+) how you can really say with a straight face that the problem are regs winning too much??

The same in games I play so nl100-nl200 Holdem there is maybe like 2-3 regs beating it for 5bb/100+ in the entire player pool over a large sample. Now if you take into consideration that you pay between 5-8bb/100 rake per player the situations gets exactly the same. 70%+ of the deposit of the recreational player end up as a rake. In PLO it is even worse.

I mean in an environment where the games are old and established and solved to some degree the edges are getting smaller and smaller and it is one of the reason why pokerscout numbers for cash games are getting worse and worse.
This is in line with the MPN poker boss said in ChicagoJoey podcast about decreasing rake in microstakes. Recreational players don't need to understand rake but with lower rake their deposit last quite a bit longer in the long run and given that most of the deposit end up as a rake thats significant.

Their solution proves they don't really have a clue and just use one solution for all instead of making it more complex but ultimately a lot more fair. There is always something called Pareto principle so in case of poker the high stakes reg and probably the MTT guys makes most of the money (so the 80% of the profit) while they make a solution where they forced everyone to pay for it even if in current environment very few bit the game with a solid winrate....

I mean their arguments and Dnengs talk was true maybe in 2009-2011 era but not now when there is very few crushers left in the games. (unless you play high stakes where you pay no rake or play MTTs I guess) .

Their solution so cutting rakeback for everyone is just lazy and for many games will be disastrous in the long run.

LOL most businesses in the world would ****ing WISH to be sputtering the way Stars was sputtering pre Amaya. Is Bloomberg even a legit site? They seems like some bull****ers to me cuz that just LOLtastic to think they were struggling.


No joke **** like this makes me happy 2011 happened in the US, **** the poker business as there just so many money grubbing whores lol.

who ?

posting confidence shaken. I used to think I had the best words. Sad.

Stars has been on blatant path to purge winning players.

Is it just seeing their purge strategy in writing or in directly spoken words that was so alarming.

I get the sense some think this is like a "smoking gun" where they were caught finally admitting to their sins.

there was no sin here. Stars has no obligation or responsibility to hold up or protect the game of online poker as it exists in your mind.


of course they are. agreed that "in the past" it didnt matter. In the Boom Boom days there was so much new money pouring into the game there was enough water at the well for all.

when well started drying up due to "insert one of a myriad of reasons" winning that inherent combat/conflict became material to their business success.

Could stars leave just a little water for the grinders and to fuel the dreams of srsly and others and still have PLENTY of water for themselves.

Sure, but why would they ?

More water is better than less water.

Pokerstars fired its army of prop players hoping that less games with higher functional rake is a better business plan?


Whether this will work is another question.

Always hear that recs don't care about rake or don't understand it, what is bad about that?

Everyone else regs and sharks who understands the ins and out rake can't do anything about it and have never been able to do anything about it.

Knowing about rake is pointless only thing you can do with it is quit because you know can't beat rake.

Thanks so much for the article rivercitybirdie


Wonder if maybe the comment from the CEO about planning on 'attacking' a decent portion of the customer base maybe raised eyebrows with Bloomberg? Who really does that, really?

And it was neat to see an analyst's opinion of the direction Stars is taking - he's even noticed that tourneys aren't filling up like they used to!

It doesn't sound like he'll be investing in AYA any time soon?

There is nothing to understand . Even if you don't understand it rake still affects you. Recreational losing his money will blame other players at the table without even realizing that it is Pokerstars that took 80%+ of his deposit not the other players at the table!!!
What Stars do here is just shameful because they lie in order to keep recreational players uninformed. You play vs other player and you think you are losing to other players while now a days at least on Pokerstars it is more like players vs casino.

amaya couldve bought the product (stars) and left it as it was and made decent money. instead they made insane changes and have watched profit fall year after year LOL

So they complain that there are too many regs but limiting tables was never an option. Or how about banning these countries where the majority of players are micro and smallstake regs who take more out of the economy than their fellow countrymen deposit. If you add that probably most of the bots come from there as well you could easily justify these moves.

stars is grabbing as much $$ as they can while poker is still a thing

LOL, Bloomberg is the largest and most respected source of business news in the world. Traders pay $20k+ year for instant access to Bloomberg's news/articles.

Well, traders pay $20k a year for access to advanced market data, not news articles. It's still a legit site, though.

i had my own bloomberg terminal for years (fixed income)........ i actually found the big 3 things people used it for: 1) souped up email system with everyone one click away; 2) ties into #1 but ready access to dealer quotes; 3) consolidates info that would have you using 30+ free sites otherwise....#3 is huge. almost like bloomberg is a portal of info that's largely free elsewhere.

fantastic organization and unbelievable new organization.. they write opinion pieces about hedge funds being rip-offs and dealers being corrupt. basically their customer group.

as per bloomberg and article, the most interesting thing is the quotes from amaya (name??) execs and therefore really doesn't matter what news group is reporting it

Didn't read article but it seems unlikely that stars is adding unbeatable high rake traps that mimics a slot machine payouts doesn't really allow recs to win, it allows them to capture the gaming revenue that would be shared with winning players entirely for themselves.

Which is generally perceived as a bad thing if you're a poker player trying to capture recs deposits/make a profit obv.

"Meanwhile Stars poker revenue down 5.9 percent year-over-year: http://www.cardplayer.com/poker-news...-percent-in-q2"


Looking at the year end numbers won't paint an accurate picture of the success of these programs when there're so many other factors.

But is revenue even a useful metric to judge the consequence of these types of moves?

If it's gross revenue, pinching high volume players could both hurt gross revenue and improve their bottom line.

And even assuming it was net of benefits being paid I'm not sure it's all that bad if it also slows down the rate of loss for the net depositors. The incremental increase in their rake isn't nearly as significant to them as reducing the average number of grinders per table so they're definitely losing at a slower rate. The only question would be how much does them losing less this year impact their willingness to deposit next year.

I haven't read the article, but the Cliff Notes for EVERY Stars thread are:

*Stars has been actively trying to gradually eradicate winning players since Amaya took over. Their long-term plan has always been to reduce the skill element in their offerings whilst also increasing the cost.

*Ignore anyone who talk about HUDs, grinders/nits, rakeback/rewards and eco-systems as to being the reasons behind any changes.

*Ignore EVERYTHING (literally everything) that Lee Jones et al say.

*I think that Stars' greed, short-sightedness and dis-honesty will cost them in the long-term.

i agree with a few posters who've said the true narrative is targetting customers who don't know or care about giant rake increases.

as a rec player, i will say that the multi-tabling rake back pro's are very bad for the enjoyment of the game.

i don't think pokerstars owes anyone a living playing poker. there seems to be a suggestion that they do.

i also think poker players have not been supportive enough of low rake sites. you need to make a commitment to playing where game selection isn't that great to build something valuable in the long run.

so people who make between 0 and 5% pre rb are a problem? interesting.

There was a period 6 - 10 years ago when "rakeback pros" AKA winning players who split their earnings approx 50/50 with Stars (not to be confused with the mythical losing player who was able to turn a profit because Stars very generously gave away lots of free rewards) could have reduced the enjoyment for the fun player, I suppose. However I find it strange that the best solution to preventing bad players from losing to winning players is apparently to simply eradicate winning players!

"In Q1, approximately 2.5 million quarterly active uniques played poker, an increase of 2% year-over-year. We have been successful in marketing and cross-selling casino and sportsbook to our poker players with about one-third of them already playing casino." - CEO Rafi Ashkenazi

Everyone shut up and play casino games ok?

it doesnt " seem" anything and it isnt " preceived as a bad thing" , it is a bad thing.

i posted a quote earlier that really applies to people who think like you.

NOBODY plays poker with the idea that they are ok losing money to people in spite of what they say otherwise . EVERY SINGLE player that sits thinks that they have some intangible talent that will allow them to best a pro.

poker has always been a game thats player against player. a player should take the loins share at the end of the day. if people were ok playing boring games at which they couldnt win they would be playing slots or table games. stars being the greedy little *********** that they are found ways to turn poker into carnival games. they will go under eventually , they cant see the forest for the trees and something better will replace them and personally i will enjoy watching it happen.

That has always been the plan. Baazovs old interviews he talked about 90 million consumers on Pokerstars. They're canabalizing the poker games to sell casino games. It's apparently working overall revenue is up. However it is very risky. Old stars got 87 cents out of every dollar, which I believe by any metric was a good business model. The Anaya model is much more likely to kill the goose than boost revenue long term..

please expand. also how did you estimate this ?