Josem this is a cheap money grab and you know it. Amaya is doing a great job of ruining the goodwill Stars has built over the past decade. These individual steps won't kill your playerbase overnight, but one by one... if you run your poker site like PartyPoker, you're going to go the way of PartyPoker and throw away your dominant market position

I don't understand why they compare themselves with banks and currency exchangers for this. They are NOT banks or currency exchangers. They are (or used to be, at least before Amaya) a poker site, with measures in place to avoid trading.

They are not introducing this to cover expenses from currency exchange. This is an excuse to get an extra margin, and it feels like an insult.

Thanks for the summary Monteroy and the response by Josem.

I think the biggest takeaway that players are having from this decision isn't the immediate effects it will have on us, but the intent and motivation of the new PokeStars Organization as a whole. Every move that's been made since the acquisition has been slanted in one specific direction.

It's like..... do they even understand HOW Stars became the number 1 poker company in the world in the first place?

That's sad. Trying to cover up this like always but that's the part of their job, can't blame workers. But from the players perspective.. to make it erasier: PS obviously won't do such kind of things unless their get profit from it, so their are getting profit. Players lose cause of fees. So PS wins = Players lose, and that's coming from players pockets. Very obvious link there. That's the fact that PS and their players faces..

No answer to two important points - what date did this margin start being applied? What about the rounding being in Pokerstars favour every time?

It's interesting to place emphasis on competitors policies - Stars wouldn't be so far ahead of these competitors (for now) if every decision had been made to fall in line with them. Party Poker were at one point the market leader and synonymous with poker, look at them now.

Also comparisons with banks are off base, we are forced for the most part to play games in USD. The core part of your business relies on a currency trade from most players. A regular bank customer will trade currencies very infrequently.

Since Stars has failed to inform people properly, can we have a NVG thread without a mod/stars worker closing it down within minutes?

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/29...houts-1484123/

Pretty disgusting to add a fee and silently steal from your customers, since when has this been going on exactly now?

Not surprising. Used to be a big fan of Pokerstars and used to tell ppl IRL about how great a company they were.
Now there was no reason to think that Amaya would be any different from all the other sites that only care about their short term profits.
If Isai opens a new poker site I am in from day one.

To me, this is a big neon sign that says: We bought PokerStars and now we'll make it look much more profitable. And when it shines, we'll sell. In a hurry, before these decisions make a negative impact.

It's a pretty common business.

OMG I just bought a loaf of bread and it was double what I paid a decade ago. **** Canada Bread and their rising operating costs and desire to turn a profit.

Cmon guys, smarten up. Sure I'd prefer it the old way, I like money, but Michael is 100% right in saying they offered by far the best currency service in the world.

The fact we could transact at mid-market and have unlimited cheques FedEx'd to us overnight for free was a luxury PokerStars afforded us - they weren't obligated to do so. Any investor who understands the nuts of bolts of the currency market would be livid if they didn't alter their existing method.

It does cost a lot of money to run this program and they are under no obligation to operate a currency program as a loss-leader to gain our rake.

I would have expected much better from PokerStars in terms of initially communicating the message, but sadly this is the norm (think banks, credit cards, utilities, tv/internet, loaves of bread ..)

Thanks Michael for taking the time to answer questions and address points.

Can you confirm conversion limits can be increased again & again without hitting a limit. For example, if someone with a GBP bank account wins a million USD in a WCOOP main event, they can increase conversion limits repeatedly so that they can get that full $1,000,000 into GBP to be able to withdraw it without paying a 2.5% fee?

I am amongst the sceptical ones who think this is much more about a way to skim money from players. That the announcement is here rather than in an e-mail to all players with a clear breakdown of how players can avoid such fees, that seems quite underhand and in line with Ryanair style customer relations, where the customer is to be fleeced at every opportunity.

I deposit in GBP, but the vast majority of content on PokerStars is in USD. Do you actually operate in any markets that have USD as the currency? As it is, the vast majority of people will deposit in one currency, buy into USD events and those unaware who cash out into GBP/EUR/CAD accounts will be paying a 2.5% price for their ignorance. If people feel ripped off by you, they will leave the site, that's not good for you or for us.

No one playing voted to be playing the bulk of our games in a foreign currency. And if the previous arrangement was such a bad deal for PokerStars, why are you so successful?

I am very brand loyal, I only play on Stars, I like the brand, I like the people. This move makes me very suspicious of your motives. It will generate terrible PR. It appears to be a move against the interests of the players. A sharp U-turn on this might prevent a lot of damage. Whatever short term gain might be made from it, is it really worth your customer having no trust in your motives?

The poker economy feels very fragile just now. This feels like your rocking the boat for no good reason.

This is what amazes me as well. Everything looks to go towards how the other smaller sites are running their site. PokerStars became #1 by pure chance or what is the thoughtprocess, customers will stay loyal no matter what?

Stars actually did become #1 by pure chance, but they kind of made use of their opportunity.
IMO they've run the site as you would expect from a business milking that much from their customers, it wasn't anything special.
The competition was/is terrible so Stars has been shining for a while, long time ago.

They kind of are under an obligation to facilitate a common currency so that they can attract a market worldwide players can play in. USD is their choice, but no one from a USD market can play, so almost everyone is involved in currency conversion, just to play on the site.

They have the alternative to break up the world market we all play in and have a Canadian only client, a GBP only client and a EUR only client, or as they have been doing successfully for the past decade, they take and hold the deposits we make, make us play in their chosen currency, then convert that back when we want to cash out.

What it costs them to hold our money for us, this isn't clear, but taking our money in our home currency, holding it for us, then paying us back in the same currency we deposited, suddenly that costs them and they have to pass that cost on to us.

It is their business model to take deposits in one currency, then have us play in another currency. To charge us a further 2.5% on top of the 10% rake, people won't accept that and we'll vote with out feet.

That's not good for the site or the players.

When you consider that this is no longer the same Pokerstars, then changes are to be expected. Amaya likely recognizes that they could stop losing money through currency conversion by just being aligned with what everyone else in the industry does (and at the same time being able to say that they are still one of the most competitive) and they can also remedy these security risks that weren't a big issue before. Why should they cover all the costs of currency conversion when nobody else does so? The point that people made about how players live in countries without the dollar is a good one but Stars answer to that is the same - they are still being highly competitive with the new model and in line with the industry while at the same time reducing costs for themselves for services rendered.

These changes overall won't be geared towards any specific types of players and they are just bottom line changes. This change seems to hurt recreational players who don't follow threads like this while other changes have hurt winning players. I would say that a change of perception needs to be made that this just isn't the same company anymore. It is less disappointing that way IMO. Amaya is making sure to tighten the books and to really take advantage of the monopoly this company currently has. Who knows, maybe in the long run this will be good for the poker economy as other companies may see that they can compete with Stars and might invest in doing so?

Wow, stars response just terrible.

Most players that deposit/withdraw in euro/gbp will have USD set as there preferred currency in stars, this makes logical sense since the games available are in usd.

For these players (which represent what, a third of the site maybe more?) you could;

1. Only enable deposits/withdrawals to be made into the appropriate stars wallet (euro/gbp)ensuring that these players do not pay any avoidable fees.

Or, 2. Email all players, explaining the fees and how they should consider changing their preferred stars currency, so they can make an informed decision as to how they can best deposit/withdraw.

Or, 3. Post the info on a subforum that >99% of your customers don't read. Profit.

This.

Wake the **** up ! YOU CAN`T COMPARE YOURSELF TO A BANK, BECAUSE YOU ARE A CASINO !

Most respectable casinos in the world, usually give you an exchange rate much better than banks, sometimes even better than xe.com.

Why they do this? For the some reason they give away free meals and hotel rooms. They want to keep their players there.

Its something old pokerstars understood and applied brilliantly, but new pokerstars, not so much. And i`m not talking only after amaya`s takeover, but in the last couple of years after black friday.

Also, someone in this topic mentioned that this we`re the conditions in the pre pokerstars era. That might be true, but he failed to mention how big the edges we`re back then and how players could afford to pay extra for the services.

In the present it looks like every move pokerstars lately makes just speeds up the falling of online poker. Between taxing the transactions, reentry tournaments, spin&go sngs, hyperturbos raked 10%, progressive ko`s raked double than normal ones, etc, it looks like they only take and take, whereas a CASINO needs to give back now and then, so people keepl playing there.

+1

Other than your previous exchange rate being completely irrelevant to what is being discussed now, isn't this misleading? I understand carelessness on Pokerstars' part may have allowed scrupleless individuals to exploit this to their advantage (by exchanging currencies back and forth) but could your everyday players really use it as a currency exchange? E.g. If I was going on holiday to the USA, Ibiza or Timbuctoo could I really have used it to exchange my money?

Do you even need to convert currencies in most instances (i.e. When common currencies are used)? Is it not as simple as having accounts in GBP and EUR and just accept deposits/pay withdrawals from whichever account the individual deals in? Are there actually any real exchanges to/from USD? Isn't the choice of using USD just an arbitrary decision for the most part, and couldn't you use "Pokerstars Dollars", Rubles, or Space Bucks?

Company like the aforementioned Transferwise hold accounts in multiple currencies. When I want to transfer money from the UK to the USA, I send from my UK GBP account to their UK GBP account and they then forward the funds from their USA USD account to my USA USD account (I believe.)

I may be missing something but to me it seems these fees are artificial, unnecessary, and just a way for Amaya-Pokerstars to make more money.

The fact that you don't employ an automated process (to first move money from the USD wallet to the wallet of the required currency) when someone withdraws from their default USD wallet to a GBP/EUR bank account strongly supports that idea.

Also, using USD as your main currency, and then taxing your players for the exchange, being that the 90% + of your player pool don`t use USD for the day to day is really unfair

^ yeah what MeleaB said

While enquiring about conversion limits, I have accidentally had my conversion limits increased to -

USD 10,000.00 - per day
USD 20,000.00 - per 7 days
USD 50,000.00 - per 30 days

Which is still 5 months and 100 transactions to withdraw a WCOOP main event win, but probably suitable for 99% of players needs.

I've enquired if these limits can be increased further, I'll report back when they do.

+1

It is despicable that there has been no announcement of this change other than this thread.

+1

Someone can asnwer this then?

Very informative. Thank you.




My question is; when I do this, will I be able to withdraw straight away or will I have to have to deal with other obstacles like playing enough rake to withdraw?

and if the above is true, I have to play with EURO so that means I lose a penny for each game due to rounding? Also, since I now have 2 currencies, When I join a USD game, can I choose which currency it withdrawals from?

Post 162 from Monteroy is must read and I think I agree with it all

Especially that anyone who doesn't have one of stars offered currencies is kinda in a lame spot, but makes sense since there are fees that stars obviously have to incur in addition relating to cash outs (some may argue they should)
Just make a usd/eur/cad/GBP account, withdraw that currency and then Hifx or similar similar money to your main bank account and currency. Takes a little longer but should save a little bit.

Really doesn't seem right that some people who unknowingly face this fee though, especially in cases where it can be literally completely avoided by changing in client. Such as a eur player withdrawing usd by habit into eur account instead of converting to eur first then withdrawing. Should have warnings in client or even suggest it in cases where it's clear based on location or bank details.

Btw I want to make sure if you pay out on stars in a different currency for live poker the players aren't getting a worse rate than before please?