In before the Durrrr Challenge is completed on a play-money site. (Unfortunately, the $1.5 milly in non-escrowed money will appear on Zynga.)

Absolutely.

The key to play money poker is to put a man to a decision for some of his play chips.

Buying play money chips is no different than one buying 'costumes' for their video game character. At the end of the day people buy chips, costumes, map packs, etc. for entertainment purposes.

The top price for Stars play money is $400. How sick do you have to be to spend that kind of money?

The rake is so big it's actually tougher to beat that you might think

It's a little known secret, but if you can beat play money you can beat any stakes online. I can't believe I'm saying this actually, but if you can't beat it you might as well play the highest stakes and skip the high rake bs Actually some Highstakes regs might be very mad if they know I say this...

Then I must be one of the best players in the world! I ran 2K into 4.5million!

I miss PokerRoom play money games...they were fun.

Yeah but you can get solid rakeback deals on most sites

You might wanna stick to what you are good at, poker.

There are play-money online customers that have spent upwards of $250,000.

There's a very short list of ppl on here that would make me believe that and you are one of them.

The only reason stars sells play money chips and rakes them nowadays is because it used to be a lucrative business for players to grind play money and sell it for like $5 per million .

this literally made me LOL

Any further details on this?

That just seems insane, I take it you cant convert it back to cash if you 'win' too?

I wonder what ppl like that went through pre shutdown.

I have no idea, but Pokerstars sent me an email giving me 250k free play money chips yay.

Correct, there is no real-money output, that would be illegal (unless licensed in NJ, DE, or NV.)

Social casinos are a money making industry. It's hard for us real money players to put a handle on it.

Here are some other fun facts:

WSOP-play money makes upwards of $150K/day.
There are fake-money slot apps that make twice as much.

Caesars Entertainment bought Playtika, a social-casino software company, for 90M in 2011. Applied their WSOP brand to the poker and marketed it to their database, to sell it for 4.4Billion in Aug 2016.

As a USA player, I had to cash out from real money games. I didn't play for a while and then decided to do play money since I still do like to play online.

Started with 2K and now have $650 million in my play money account. Play mostly MTT's for 5 million or more.

Never would or have bought play money chips but have asked ppl if they have and many do and still do.

I expect Poker Stars has quite a lucrative business in selling play money poker chips.

I know they have a billionaire club, not sure how many members.

tygrayfox

WOW! I thought I was hot for running 2K into 4.5 million!

You are really proud of that huh lol

Why would play money die? It's fun. People like doing fun things.

Also, I switched from play money to microstakes on the stars .eu site after I seemed to crush the play money stuff enough. That's probably one of the big goals of running play money servers, wherever real money play is legal.

I'm a winning player playing real money, but at micro level that doesn't mean much. No worries, I do it for fun. But it's almost not worth it because of the barrage of promotional emails and lottery style games being shoved in my face.

Yes, tbh, I did it playing Stud8, not by binking a tourney. But now not only have I been outclassed, upstaged and made small I also have to stop w/ the brag.

Pretty much. It is one of those things that don't make sense only if you have been in poker long enough to assume that financial gain is a requirement to set off a pattern of compulsive behavior. It isn't.

The same things that keep a lot of losing real money players from moving down in limits or quitting apply to play money players. Stars gives 12K every four hours on the app. The thing even counts it down, and you apparently can get chips for watching ads. 12K is barely a buy-in at the lowest limits and sngs, and not enough for a MTT.

Play money compulsives wind up buying chips for the same general reasons real money degens borrow money and insist on playing games they can't beat rather than building a bankroll from disposable income and being realistic about their skill level.

They need a cushion so they don't have to worry about being busted, they are really winning players but are running bad. They can't go back to the lower limits because people play stupid in those games and it is just bingo so it isn't much of a game. All the standards.

The reward does not have to be financial to create this kind of compulsion. The promise of staying in action in a desired game is plenty.

This is more or less the reason that stupid phone based "strategy" games are able to buy ad time during the superbowl and pay big names to appear in ads. They get people invested with the free to play fiction, and then slam them with in app purchases in order to keep playing if they lose. Those they hook spend shocking amounts of money to keep in action and maintain their status within the game. Same thing.