There will be only one change to PokerStars.com and shared liquidity VIP Club rewards effective January 1, 2015: players earning 1 million VPPs will no longer be rewarded with $5,200 in WCOOP/TCOOP/SCOOP entries. Players who earn 1 million VPPs in 2014 will still earn this reward as advertised, in fact some have earned and used this reward already this year.

We are proud to offer what we believe continues to be the best rewards program in online poker.

While we are making only this one change this year, it follows a substantial review of the PokerStars VIP Club conducted earlier this year. We are considering more significant changes for implementation in 2016. Details will be available in the second half of next year.

In specific countries where regulation and taxation comes into effect, we will also continue to reduce VPP multipliers, Stellar Rewards, and/or Milestones. PokerStars UK and PokerStars.bg are two countries for which rewards will change slightly in 2015 as a result.

Changes for PokerStars .it/.es/.fr will be announced separately in the appropriate communities at a later date.

Looks good (for non-snes)

Expected it to be much worse

Thanks for the early communication on the 2015 (and possible 2016) changes Steve.

+1

Thanks for posting in advance.

I'm a little surprised that the cuts weren't bigger.

wowa can we announce the changes for uk i expected a slight reduction in the value of ffps but now in the multipliers this is really not sounding so slightly its sounding like the changes for Uk Players will be substantial.

So basically this is just the warm-up for the real shafting that comes next year?

I guess it's good news that 2015 will be safe.

I would like to know the changes to 2016 ASAP. The email said "Significant changes". If I knew that the VIP system is going to be scraped, I wouldn't focus on getting SNE again in 2015, as a big factor/value of getting SNE is the added rakeback you get the following year.

When do we get the numbers on these two?

Still like 15% of your 800-1mm non multiplier reward equity but could have been worse. Guess since we dont know the changes to be made in 2016 you cant consider the extra 2x multiplier as worth the same either.

It is scary when everyone is clamoring to hit SNE rewards. SNGs at least won't be the same without SNEs, if you encroach much further a lot of regs will cease to exist as plenty are getting killedddd pre rb. This is but a drop in the bucket, generates less then 200k for pokerstars yet is being lauded as a win when they can easily afford this expense. For those saying that they will use this money for recs just look at what they did with BOTP freeroll, took away the freeroll and have provided less promotions this year than years past for SNGs. Pokerstars can feel this way as a lot of players have attacked SNEs in recent years in these forums.

Think the sad part is all SNEs were expecting it to be so much worse that this is actually a win for them too...

lol this is obv just the beginning, **** is going to kick in 2016 lol

I think ppl want to hear what you are going to do with the money saved...
but i guess it will go to Amaya

But what is really concerning is 2016, ppl feel safe, but I would prepare myself for a major cut

This post is sanity (good) and players should not underestimate this seemingly "insignificant" change in policy.

It is very true that we don't want poker profits based on rakeback schemes however the reduced rake back should ALWAYS be guaranteed in to remain in the players pool side of the economics.

Here we have a situation we're governments take a higher cut, and this is passed on to the winners of the game. This causes the game to lose a portion of its "skill" based game-play. Intelligent players leave and the field gets more b/e.

This is in a time where the average field is already quite breakeven based on regulations and policies that are continually being bred into existence. Stars profits and wins, governments profit and win, and poker is stripped of its "essence".

No way that this tax should be passed onto the players IN ANY FORM!!!

If they players cannot rally behind this and see the underlying truth of it...how can we call ourselves "game theorists".

Monies that are taken from SNE and given back to recs is money that gets rake a 2nd time.

I think Stars did the right thing here by announcing the changes in a straight forward timely manner with no intangibles like WC that make things not so clear. I also appreciate Stars' transparency about announcing likely changes for 2016. Players can now predict whether those changes will be favourable for them or not based on how they see the industry/Amaya going.

Pokerstars Steve i got one question. Will pokerstars ever consider lowering the rake at the micros/small stakes? We get raked more and get less rakeback. And in return all we get is these ****ty all-in freerolls. Why should pokerstars profit as much as they do? Its a ****ing online pokersite not a live cardroom.

fyp

Why should live poker rooms profit as much as they do? Its a ****ing live poker room not an online cardroom.

Personally I'd cancel the VIP Club altogether and just have more of those stupid all-in freerolls. Who really wants bonuses throughout the year when you can maybe win $2 over the space of a year?

have a long way to go to recover 4.9bill but its a start.

thanks for the heads up

Wonderful, so I'll have to play more for my ****ty $100 Rakeback, I've paid that in rake in a single day for **** sake but takes half a year to achieve the stellar reward. What's already a crap reward scheme for a micro stake regreational player and will now have to play on the UK site, it's even worse.

I hate monopolies (888 are ****, so is Party/Unibet etc.).

So, Amayaa feels generous and just takes about 1,5M$ away from players with this change to their pockets. Great!