Zoom

LOL well this is ******ed question. If no one is winning, there is no carrot on a stick to keep us grinding. Why would Joe Smo even deposit any money if they know no one can even win, then poker is just as dumb as any other gambling and that's what seperates the 2. Gambling is gambling and poker is a strategy game with high variance. This isn't a game for tads....

unibet has higher rake than the other pokersites from nl50 onwards.

It's a small sample size but every losing player I know believe they are unlucky or run bad, not that they are or 'should be' a losing player.

lol at the stockholm syndrome ITT

Minor note: There have been no significant bonuses to selectively target in the last 8 years or so, and it's not particularly relevant anyway. Your inclusion of HUD talk is also irrelevant to the point being made. People should stop using Grinder and Winner synonymously, especially if they have a negative c.2008 impression of what a grinder is.

Most importantly and the main point: I'm not saying any players have a right to make a profit (as was made clear)- I'm saying the game needs to have winners (i.e. Stars should not offer only unbeatable variants of poker.) Simple as that.

B&M casinos seem to do alright offering unbeatable games.

Why does Joe Smo spend money on unbeatable casino games in real casinos?

The previous Stars owners at least appeared to care about traditional poker and profit while the new Wall Street owners appear to mainly care about profit. I'm not sure what we should have expected differently. If driving casual players towards casino style games increases Stars bottom line....they will do that. If reducing rewards that go more towards pro players creates profit....they will do that. Everyone is angry that they are very likely hurting the long-term future of traditional poker and I agree but they appear to not care very much. They hold a different long-term view of poker and that is one where the site makes way more money than it does now. I imagine it would be more difficult to improve the ecosystem by minimizing bad actors than it is to just try and get rid of all winning players by doing the above. Improving the ecosystem is likely to cost Stars more in the short-term and only possibly bringing benefit in the long-run but that is not something they are likely to want to do with their monopoly status and massive amount of debt.

This is definitely also a story about monopoly and the increasing amount of monopolistic activity we all face in our daily lives. I am actually now potentially happy that Stars has not been able to exert itself more in the US market. If poker comes back to the US in a strong way the last thing we need is a monopoly site with "poker" games. We need a competitive playing field so that the consumer wins and not the house. How much do you like Comcast as your only choice of internet? In that same vein why is PokerStars the only choice of poker? Even if other sites are not up to par maybe it is time to reach out to them and show the monopoly the door.

IF you are right, and that that the market was "way over saturated with professionals" then wouldn't professionals leave of their own volition because it was too tough? In other words, why wouldn't this correct itself?


More generically - and without reference to PokerStars or any other specific operator - there are two basic ways for a poker operator to increase their poker revenue:
a) Increase the amount of money that comes into your poker economy;
OR
b) Decrease the amount of money that leaves your poker economy.


Until now, almost every online poker operator has spoken very much about option (a) with regards to product innovation, marketing, and growing the game into new audiences and new jurisdictions and so on. I think it's fair to say that there would be a widespread consensus amongst players on this forum that this is a good option, so it is surprising to see Bloomberg writing about The Stars Group choosing option (b). Hopefully that's just an error on the behalf of the Bloomberg journalist.

such a good point for many folks ITT to ponder.

time perspective.

many live games are unbeatable over time. but anyone can have a winning session. live or online.... thats all many rec players want. occasional thrill of winning a big pot or a winning session, or pulling off a big bluff against a reg. they do not require nor expect long term positive win rate nor more than they do playing craps or BJ.

circling back to OP. this is pretty much what Stars CEO said, which I still dont understand why people got so bent out of shape or thought it was the work of the Devil. he was simply stating a fact that he understands to be true about a large segment of his customer base.

The degeneracy carrot works just fine for every other game in a casino.

They want their customers to just enjoy the entertainment of it and not care that it's impossible to win.

There are other long term issues(liquidity in dozens of various games/stakes for example), but the overarching issue is that the whole idea goes against what poker is and always has been.

Poker isn't a casino game. It isn't the lottery. It isn't sportsbetting. The idea that is okay to make it more like those other things so a business can profit in the short term is absurd. Poker and pokerstars succeeded because both were unlike other games and other companies.

Most importantly I believe the environment this creates leads to worse and worse conditions until its so bad that even those who "don't care" can no longer bear the costs of the changes. For example, if stars decides they can't have long term winners in MTTs how do they adress that? Create even more awful MTT formats? Have 40% rake?

here is the thing tho...if the majority of regs quit then the recs who will join to the lobby and see everything empty and nothing to run then they will stop playing too or they will move to other site...so they want to keep the regs and the lobbys full

You're viewing it solely from the lens of ring cash games.

The new focus is tourny's and all the new variants like Beat the clock, spin-n-go, spin-n-go-max, etc. Some of these new formats are designed to operate like a slot machine, where on a random basis someone can play for a huge prize, much larger than the buyin would warrant.

Maybe new Recs joining the site are more likely to want to play these new variants with potential huge payouts, rather than sit at a cash ring table with bum-hunting regs armed and ready with their huds and 10 other programs running simultaneously with the poker client.

you are so much right about that...but i as a sng reg i dont think that a rec who deposit 200$ will play an sngs if the lobby is empty,and he will go to the lottery aka spin and goes,thats why we need regs,although the trill of big wins make those games irresistable to an addicted

Well said except the looking up to DNegs part (cough insert Sauce instead) as far as the way stars is headed I say . . .

The reason Ultimate Poker went bust is "both software reliability and banking became an issue for the site."
All the other sites listed that started after BF and went bust is due to poor management or scams. All of those sites were US only too.
I hope RIO poker is ROW only and then we`ll see if they go bust too...

That may be a valid point if none of Stars' player pool currently played casino-type games AND all of them would also happily drop playing poker if pushed in such a direction AND they spent as much money playing their new-found games as they did poker.

Of course, in reality any traditional form of poker (that includes a significant amount of skill) is a very different game from all of the offerings introduced by Amaya. It's illogical to presume a player pool attracted to a particular skill-based game that permits them to dream of becoming a superstar will be just as content playing something completely different from what they set out to play, with no such dreams. My prediction remains as it was at the end of 2015 when I forecast games dropping to such a point (because players will leave- especially valuable players who seed games and drive traffic) that Amaya autocanibalises and someone else takes over as the largest poker room operator.

Zoom is awesome and I also really like Party's system... (though if Party had Stars level rakeback, it probably wouldn't be very attractive)

Melea, I have alot of respect for your knowledge in the online poker space (your anon video was the nuts)

However the bolded is big disconnect for me that I hear echoed repeatedly from many posters. Though its true, its such a small % of addressable market for sites that they really dont care whether the dreamers play or not.

Undoubtedly There are SOME that play online with the dream of being the next isuldur, but I gotta believe that in the real world outside of 2+2 vast majority of online poker customer segment just dont look at the world in terms of long term win rate in the same way they dont think nor care about rake.

I love the B&M example because if expectation of long term win were true, 1/2 NL in live casinos would not exist. Yet 1/2NL is 75% + of live casino market.

In this regard live and online are very similar imo.

idk what your doing in them but live games are very very beatable.

" they do not require nor expect long term positive win rate" this is where your going wrong and all your logic after is falling short. i deal with these people everyday and this is not how any of them ever speak. in fact its exactly the opposite with excuses of reasons other than themselves that are responesible for their losing streak and in time they will win . but not one of them is ok punting hundreds or thousands of dollars for the satisfaction of your good company.

Most sponsored "pros" on Stars are losing players who Stars pays to play because they are entertaining to their fans who become depositors, who watch these terrible people play and continue to lose.

I can tell you right now that the power of marketing does work.

2 months ago if you told me to buy a PokerGo subscription I would have laughed.

Put Tom Dwan on the show and boom, you got my $10.

Other than the thinly veiled brag that you are winning live reg, I don't understand the words coming out of your mouth .

Just a heads up to any soon to be "unemployed" online pros, we don't want you in the live games either. Please keep your giant headphones, backpacks and tupperware out of the casino. Seriously, you're the worst.