Yeah, actually I have to retract that idea. I think it would seriously deteriorate the lower stakes environments where regs will start to multiaccount in order to get cheaper rake. High stakes & nosebleeds might've been safer as it's not so easy to move large amounts of money. And the regs who play by the rules, end up paying more rake and might end up being against other regulars who gain unfair advantage by multiaccounting & lower rake. The SNE argument by JonIrenicus is very strong, as it encourages people to play on the same account which is good. Maybe the play more pay less -model is actually optimal for online poker. Too bad it's being ditched.

Wouldn't mind mods deleting post #1180 so that Amaya doesn't get any more ******ed ideas.

I don't see any reason to believe Stars can't stop players signing up for continual multiple deposit bonuses. If so, why isn't rampant deposit bonus abuse much more common? Many players were unable to create one new FTP account to get lifetime rakeback if they were stupid enough to sign up through the main website.

Also even if some evil reg were to hugely abuse it and always have the highest "unfair advantage" vs the honest reg on his long-term account, it isn't any more "unfair" as the previous situation except in reverse.

If you're going to lie to the readership, could you please duly disclaim it?

Are you familiar with the history of online gaming? It kind of was common, common enough to radically change the way every online gaming company operates.

Are you suggesting rake is generated when no one is playing?

You are overvaluing Stars

It was very common in the sportsbook deposit bonus section in the early years. It still is even now to avoid being limited on bets.

On Stars there was no need to until recently where as stated you see new players popping up and able to multitable and beat small and midstakes right off the bat.
Part of the russian army of halfstackers appears to have switched to that type of thing while previously they were better off going for SNE.

Stars can stop some idiots that will just login to the same PS installed folder and just change their username every time.
We're not talking about those types of cheaters, we're talking about the ones who actually know what they are doing.

P.S: Stars will find a solution to this as well -> They will just remove deposit bonuses too. :-)

I was suggesting that Stars, last time I checked, had ≈$700 million in player deposits. It requires only games being played, not both depositing and playing.

Money. Q.E.D.

Meh, profit isn't really a good indicator, a company like Zynga burns so much money into R&D and staff. I took the conversation down a tangent because I was interested in PokerStars' success thus far in their free play app.

However, it is a fact that Zynga makes crazy amounts of money in poker. After PokerStars real money poker, it is almost certainly the second largest online poker room in terms of revenue generation.

so, after all the cuts will it still be profitable to play zoom or the majority will be better on regular cash game tables?

They're removing table/seat selection as well.

The devil will be in the detail and sadly we have had none yet that can answer your question.

when will the VIP change kick in ? june ?

@stars rep:

1) What about that announced tester for denmark? Haven't read anything of it yet, did it start?

2) Can u give a reason y u want to test a big change in a small poker market rather than Spain or France?

if they remove withdrawers, old depositors will become the new withdrawers.

No they don't. I and others have gone over the reasons for this above.

so someone binks mtt or a spin highest multiplier, you are saying they won't cashout as well?
and the sites are moving towards format with assymetrical payouts

and why are you repeating the same old tune everytime, are you a human or a parrot? (serious)

No, of course there will be cashouts when people bink a big score in a tourney or whatever. However a few people withdrawing these big scores is not comparable to the scale of money being withdrawn every day by the thousands of regs that populate the site.

so the guy you quoted is correct, no?

A few fish that bink some scores and withdraw are pretty much irrelevant compared to the regs that are currently withdrawing the bulk of fish deposits every day. If these regs disappear, they will not be replaced by any new withdrawers.

they kind of will be, some of the better fishes will become the regulars

The may become 'regulars' but they won't be withdrawers. If the current regs disappear, it is because the games are no longer profitable. If the games are not beatable for the current regs, the current 'better fish' don't magically become able to beat these games.

if you think removing current winners from any player pool won't make some current losers, winners, you either believe all net depositors are equally unskilled or that these players can't evolve (let alone that new players join the pool).

besides that, you forget about all those regs, that don't rely on RB to be net winners and stay. those are skilled and will have less skilled opponents.

so bottom line: there will be winners, less in numbers and the total withdrawal volume will be lower, but there will be still winners.

anyway ... 888's recent announcement clearly shows, that the big three switch at the same time, so we'll see, who welcomes all the rb-champions with open arms.