A contract? If I play an online tournament, I need a signed contract to collect? That's just silly.

An online tournament doesn't last for two years now does it.

By contract I am talking about the TOS.

JFC, do I have to spell out everything?

The victim blaming is real
Sure, you could have planned ahead, but does that make what stars did any less scummy?
Do players not have the right to speak out against Amaya because "you could have planned ahead"
And inb4 u repeat "star don't owe u a living"

Also, does it matter at all if u are basing ur life on SNE?

What if I'm a rec who happens to be supernova?

I won't starve due to the changes, but that's still money out of my pocket, I'm still going to be angry even though my standard of living will be largely unaffected

The "victim mentality" is real. That's for sure.

What Stars did was scummy. No argument.

Do the players have the right to speak out? Absolutely.

Are the players taking any responsibility? Not that I can see.

How should the players take responsibility in ur opinion?

So u accept what stars did was scummy and u accept players have the right to speak out, then where the **** is ur beef?
The players are speaking out now to hold stars accountable for not delivering the benefits that were promised

Well, maybe admit to being foolish in believing an online poker sites promises without doing proper due diligence for a start. After all we are supposedly talking about intelligent poker players here.

I think if I was going to base my next two years livelihood on the advertising of a poker site I would have a pretty close look at the TOS first.

Then you're treading a very thin wire by playing those games - as soon as bonuses are cut, you lose the vast majority/all of your profit. As long as you knew the risks of that before you begun, you can't complain when it actually happens.

And of course, Pokerstars are perfectly entitled to change those bonuses however they see fit - this is what you agreed to in the Terms and Conditions. So complaining now expecting them to reverse those changes is completely futile, as it will never happen. You will never win that battle, no matter how many times you throw a tantrum on 2+2.

I don't think this is the right thread for this, this is a thread for players speaking out against Amaya not delivering the benefits that were promised, whether the choices players made for their own life's were optimal or not is irrelevant here

It doesn't matter if I'm a billionaire, stars did not deliver the benefits that were promised therefore I have the right to be angry at stars

If u want to read about people reflecting on their life choices go read a blog or something

If spelling is your strong suit you might want to stick with that because the rest of your response sure doesn't make sense.

So they should keep the vip program as it was before, just because a load of selfish players demand it? I also demand the local supermarket decreases the price of all the food I buy - doesn't mean it will happen. Pokerstars are part of a free market - they can charge anything they want for their service. Don't like it? Take your business elsewhere.

No one said stars isn't allowed to change their price

However this is a problem if they say
"If u do x this year u get y next year"
But in November they tell u, "actually, u are not getting y"

If a store states that if you volunteer a certain number of hours over the course of a year working in that store, that you will get certain items for certain prices for the following year, you can be sure that the store will need to honor that agreement regardless of the fact that stores can change their prices at any time.

You sound very naïve - online gambling sites do this all the time. They retro-actively withdraw bonus money to winning gamblers, even when they've not broken any rules. They can do this because there is always a clause in their Terms and Conditions that states they can change promotions whenever they want, for any reason they want, at their sole discretion.

This is what you signed up to, so deal with it.

It's basically almost impossible to win lawsuits against large companies. If you do win, it's usually not worth the time money and effort. This doesn't make what pokerstars did to SNEs any less unethical or evil.

Most times, perhaps, but even outside of this industry there are plenty of examples of promises that are not kept (usually due to financial conditions or new ownership).

I think the players impacted certainly have the right to complain, but realistically the strongest form of protest (as a customer, not an employee) is completely stopping doing business with a company. Week long strikes with imaginative impact statements eventually become a bit silly if the bulk of the players simply returns to give the company business.

let me TL/DR your argument for u:

What pokerstars is doing is ethical because it's legal. Complaining about something that is legal is naive. Also l2r ToS.

sigh...another TOS troll

lol @ using sites do this all the time as a justification, suppose if i said people stone woman to death all the time in the middle east does that make it right??

also suppose if in their terms of service it said, by clicking accept pokerstars owns u as a slave for the rest of ur life, what happens then?
http://blog.tosdr.org/posts/tosdr-in...ead-and-agree/

You couldn't be more wrong. Terms and Conditions can't retroactively change anything. Bonus' can't be canceled after they have already been earned. An expiration date can be put on them but the winner has to be given the opportunity to claim the prize. Almost everywhere there are laws that govern the distribution of prize money that no Terms and Conditions can supercede. Some gambling sites getting away with something dishonest doesn't define what is right. There are people that have run raffles who have gone to prison for trying to pull that stunt.

If you really believed the things that you are saying, you wouldn't be using a gimmick account to say them.

Obviously bankruptcy or the business being bought out aren't what we are talking about here at all, so I don't know why you bring those things up.

I thought Pokerstars was bought out within the past couple of years, but perhaps I am mistaken... In the real world companies do change terms and conditions of reward programs all the times (usually with some notice, but not always).

Anyway, as I said , I completely understand if players want to complain and protest as that is their right. I find MelaB's posts to be a bit dramatic, but I do respect that he is doing what he can as a customer and moving his business elsewhere completely because of what he perceives to be an injustice. In contrast, these weeklong non-employee "strikes" with fictional impact statements will have a diminishing return on their impact.

Amaya buying PokerStars has nothing to do with the rewards. Amaya owned PokerStars throughout 2015. No one on either side of this has made that an issue.

I've already made clear that I don't support the strike - its goals or agree with its methodology - however I don't agree with your comment either - so far as I know, advertising can form a part of the contract. Unreasonable clauses in contracts (Such as words to the effect of "we can change what we like when we like") can be classed as "unfair terms" and thus null and void.

For an example of advertising/promotions forming part of a contract, think back to the Hoover fiasco of the 90's (I think most people of a certain age in the UK will remember all about that) - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3704669.stm

I totally support the players (and am against Pokerstars) from the perspective of previously earned benefits cannot be taken away AFTER they've been earned - that's unreasonable.

If the ToS allows them to change this as they did, then while it may not be liked, and may be considered unsavory, in the end it is allowed, and I do somewhat agree with the poster who suggested that anyone who was dedicating their career to a rewards structure should have been very aware of the potential risks within the ToS.

I get that people are angry, and then people feel empowered being angry as others are angry. However, this is hardly the first (nor will it be the last) significant industry change, and in all of these the loudest voices are the ones who are directly impacted. Many of the very angry people today were not so angry when other changes took place in the past that did not impact them, and again that is typical human behavior.

I do think that some changes with Stars could have been had if the anger/protests were properly organized and presented, but that time has pretty much passed as it seems many just want to be angry for the sake of being angry, while being led by a group who issues 1980s style propaganda accomplishments. I will be surprised if any real changes are had at this point, and again time always shows who was right on that. If these strikes are having the impact they claim then Stars will cave in quickly, and perhaps even offer a seat on the board.

Perhaps I worded it a little harshly, but my point still stands - Pokerstars are well within their right to change the terms of a promotion they are running. If you believe what they did is unethical/unjust or a breach of contract, then your only options are to pursue legal action or report it to some regulator like Casinomeister.

However, if you didn't achieve SNE last year, I'm not sure why you care. No legal action is going to bring back the old VIP program. The only thing legal action may change is giving SNE's their extra 15% rakeback for this year.