Hello,

PokerStars has made some changes to currency exchange rates and we thought we should provide a little context to the decision. PokerStars has historically applied the mid-market exchange rate from XE, and before that Reuters, for exchanging between USD and GBP, EUR, and CAD. That rate of exchange is simply not one you would have had from any financial institution or processor.

The policy change to introduce a margin on these currencies does move us more in line with the market, but we’re very confident that the new rate applied to your selected currency is still going to be extremely competitive. In fact, we’d say that it’s better than that offered by most banks, card issuers and payment providers.

The margin on these currencies, applied to the mid-market exchange rate provided by XE, will be applicable only at the point of deposit and withdrawal. There remains no fee to transfer between currency wallets in the PokerStars client, nor for joining or leaving poker tables in different currencies. We frequently review our policies across all parts of the business, which all go towards making PokerStars the safest and most secure poker site to play at, but we will post here again before any future currency exchange change goes live.

Sincerely,

Michael Josem
PokerStars Communications Team

Please exchange with USD again soon...sincerely Emerica...

I deposit/withdraw in GBP only, does that mean I need to change my account from USD to GBP to avoid the new cashout fee?

Hi,

It would be best for you (and anyone else) to email support@pokerstars.com for any questions specific to your situation.

That said, this fee only applies to cash outs and withdrawals where there is a currency conversion as part of the cash out or withdrawal. For example, if your account balance is USD and you are withdrawing in GBP, PokerStars applies a margin. If your account balance is GBP, and you are withdrawing in GBP, PokerStars applies no margin.

Converted $100 to GBP and back again to test, ended up with $99.98. Will there be cents going missing each time you join/leave a table or use auto topup? With the amount of transactions per session that could add up quite quickly if the rounding is always in your favour.

You don't say what is the percentage of this fee, but when I tried USD to EUR it looked like 2.4% which is HUGE. Can you confirm this number for us?

I thought Michael just said there would be no charge for this... hmm.

That said, this fee only applies to cash outs and withdrawals where there is a currency conversion as part of the cash out or withdrawal. For example, if your account balance is USD and you are withdrawing in GBP, PokerStars applies a margin. If your account balance is GBP, and you are withdrawing in GBP, PokerStars applies no margin.

So can we just convert the amount we want to withdraw into GBP and then withdraw margin free?

I'm obliged to withdraw to a bank account in EUR, no other options for EU countries they say. Yet, my main PS account is in USD and they allow me to withdraw only from it. It looks like a steal of 2.4% of my money without any notice.

EDIT: OK, so if I set the "Preferred currency" in EUR then I can withdraw from my PS EUR account. I tried USD to EUR conversion between PS accounts and there were no fees in deed.

EDIT 2: Actually, I can withdraw from my EUR account if I have it selected in the Cashier and it's not dependent on "Preferred currency" option. This is really confusing. I think it's way better to select the account to withdraw from in the first window of the withdrawal process.

There might not be a margin applied to these transactions but it looks like the rounding always goes in Pokerstars favour.

If we keep our balance and "preferred currency" as USD (to play USD games) and only transfer to GBP before cashout is that OK?

The hits just keep on coming.... =(

Granted PS was awesome before for not charging so I guess it was inevitable.

So PS, you make an announcement but dont say what the fee is....

think it's gonna hit the fish way more than it hits us directly, which is awful for us indirectly

lol

"We have decided to add a small fee for joining a table. Keep in mind that to actually drive to a casino you would have to pay for gas, clothes and food to sustain yourself, making us still the lowest cost option out there."

Does Pokerstars realize how much money they're burning by destroying their reputation like this?

I just tried and it seems like they charge 2,5% for a USD--> EUR transaction. No way that that's cheaper than most banks like OP claims. It's just another money grab by Pokerstars. Really bad move to not openly disclose the percentages also...

Long time PS fanboy and 5x SNE here, but these kind of things do annoy me a lot.

+1 this is the first post amaya thing to really worry me that amaya is out for quick money and may sacrifice the long term market position of stars to do it

Jesus


So you guys had 38%ish ebitda last year, I would kill to learn the forecast for next year after these changes.

+1

Juk

Good question! ... If there is no fee for transfers between the wallets in the Pokerstars client, I can change my USDs/GBPs to Euro and withdraw for free to my E-Wallet (in Euro) ?

-Kuta

haha, jokerstars

FWIW they have been stealing money for conversion for a long long time. Now they are just doing it at a higher rate and more out to the public.

Unless Pokerstars has a specific reason why they do not like that (cannot imagine why) then it is fairly simple for those who have accounts in US, Canadian, Euros or Pounds to convert them within the cashier before withdrawing.

This certainly has an impact (just under 3% each way) on people who receive funds in a currency other than those four, and I would wonder if someone has a Skrill account in a different currency do both Stars and Skrill charge for converting the money.

every single time we see a pokerstars rep post something now we expect to see something negative. its never positive anymore will we ever again look in these forums and see something positive.

executives sitting round the table thinking there brilliant for coming up with this cost cutting activity or that or bringing games which are not beatable to generate rake (spin and goes) etc it shows a lack of understanding of what made stars stars.

I have pointed out before that an SNE is worth more then 100 rec players in terms of games running and rake generated I have shown the math to back it to.

then there is all the SNs a large part of the volume on stars is people doing it for a living or hoping to one day do it for a living.

if you take that away from people guess what they will migrate. the thing that keeps me on pokerstars rather then ipoker is simply the game volume however when i can get 80% rake back on other networks and those games start to run much more guess where I am going.

did you know by using the right sotware eg table ninja or something like it people could play there games across multiple websites to get the same effect for higher RB.

just its very inconvenient to do so but keep pushing the extra inch and gradually we will all move.

even if its possible, theres a 3k daily, 6k weekly and some monthly limit as well

Has anyone confirmed this yet?

Pretty dissapointing move by PokerStars.

It's actually a pretty big money grab.

They do not only take 2,5% of the winning players profits (assuming a winning player doesn't have to deposit), but they also take 2,5% off the recreationals deposits. So the decrease the money to be won by regulars as well. And on top of that they also worsen the rec/reg ratio because they take 2,5% of rec's deposits...

And the 2,5% is just for eur/usd and eur/gbp conversions. God knows what is taken from the more obscure currencies.