Scaling is everything. The fluctuations in that Party graph are a minor wiggle in the PokerStars graph.

No, the trend is everything. Stars may be suffering from a seasonal fluctuation but other sites don't seem to be. Stars is most likely losing customers to these sites.

Other than the uptick at the end of the Party graph the trend in both graph is similar. Even if the values were of the same order, they are not they are litieraly an order of magnitude different, but even if they were the same it would prove nothing as it could be a flyer.

I think what PokerStars is doing is complete crap but these graphs do not show or prove anything.

I'm willing to bet money stars is gonna lose market share of "total real money online poker traffic" to other sites as of one year after the introduction of new reward system (to exclude attributing changes to seasonal effects and/or other interference factors). Would've to make a few definitions and select a valid source for traffic measurement. Anyone calling?

I would not bet against that. Time will tell. But in any case Poker Scout numbers are far far from a valid measurement of "total real money online poker traffic", since by definition it only measures cash game traffic. If you want a more meaningful measurement you should look at financial results. That is going to be the best apples to apples comparison. But that only gets reported quarterly for publicly traded operators so it is not as sexy as daily/weekly/monthly graphs. These changes may very well create a discontinuity in the relationship of traffic and revenue/profits but financial results are the better measure of the effects of business decisions which is what this is.

Agree, hence gotta make some Def before betting

If alternate site gains in withdrawers but not in depositors, wtf?

site has, say 300 depositor types for average monthly deposits of x, and 2000 withdrawer types.

x - rake / 2000 = y

what happens to y when withdrawers increase to 3000? it stays the same but has to be split 3000 ways instead of 2000.

Maybe it's time to go back to stars?

That it is not live in Canada yet.

Currently live in Denmark and Italy, rollout to other markets to happen over the summer and into Q3.

Relative change over last 30 days, 7 day moving avg. Party up ~13%, PokerStars actually just ahead of everyone else, down just a couple of points.

My post was about Amaya share prices. If I was rich, I'd be shorting the **** out of that ****.

That would apply more if the none of the people behind Pokerstars were facing charges for white collar crime.

Well I think you're being unfair to single me out and accuse me of some kind of internet forum "jerky-boys" routine simply because you disagree with my opinion. I truly believe that these changes are going to be beneficial for the game. To make an omelette you have to be willing to break a few eggs and in this case the eggs are the trashbin regs who haven't improved and have become financially dependent on the rakeback-teet of 'Stars generous bosom. Well, it's time to ween away from the bosom and stop thinking that playing breakeven poker is some sort of career.

Zoom is a disgraceful game and encourages all the wrong things and I, Sir, think you are an idiot. The games will not only become softer but because of the lack of unskilled regs filling up the seats, it will become much easier to jesus-seat the casuals.

I can't see any scenario where this isn't a win/win for 'Stars, decent regs and casuals (the casuals will enjoy better rewards). The only losers are the non-powerful regs. Boo Hoo.

Source? Link? Anything with that you can back up this claim. No?! Yeah, thought so.

Under the old VIP-System a casual (assuming something in the range Bronze-Silverstar) would have enjoyed 8-21% rakeback (even more when playing Micros, up to 14-38%). As long as i don't see Stars given more than that to RECs it's just a huge money-grab and "idiots" (to use your wording) like you are to blind to see it.

Well you're coming across as very angry and hostile but I'll respond. Please try to calm down.

The new system will provide recreational players with something exciting with the possibility of winning huge prizes just for playing poker -- something the old system didn't offer them. The recreational players didn't care about the old VIP system. The time it took for them to earn enough StarsCoin for that $10 VIP store credit would have meant they lost hundreds at the tables. Now they can potentially win thousands.

Fwiw evanertv opened his first golden chest streaming (playing stars.it NL100+) and raked ~100€ for the day. The reward was 3€ in coins and 1€ bonus so 4% rb and it seems to be that in the long run.

Waste of time to read your posts/responding to you. Your latter post didn't deliver a single arguement for the claim you made.

It's a rereg troll (PocketDucks), the writing style gives it away. His whole gimmick relies on people responding to him.

Whilst I am devastated that you feel that way, it doesn't change the fact that I'm right and that overall this is a positive step for 'Stars and online poker in general.

this is going to be like watching the Roman Empire fall. Loads of popcorn already ordered for early July.

Since when this Rakeback thingy came?(would like to know the history) and why it was introduced in the first place?

Me,as a rec player on Stars or every site that I play,not really care/paying attention to rakeback,I mean I understand if you want to use the site services you need to pay(rake)..so any rake(back) that I received is a bonus..

According to recent stars mails, it will be launched in July to the main site.
It was introduced cause amaya decision makers think it suits what they want to achieve. Fair assumption is it increases short-term earning via increased prices for their products but leads to decreased traffic (already happening significantly tho system isn't even active) thus hurting long-term earnings.


The reward system is directly part of the price u pay, it's not a bonus.

If u pay 1$ rake in your game and get 40% rb (e.g. current partypoker cash structure), u are paying a price of 60c.
If u pay 0.9$ rake in your game and get 3% rb, u are paying a price of 87c.
Decreasing rewards is equivalent to increasing rake and the method by which this is done is as intransparent as it gets to hide that and market it as a cool thing with funky chests that pay potentially huge prices. The latter is irrelevant to any players cause u could just take the cash flat in a non-rnd payout and buy whatever lottery/sports-bet/roulette/poker products u like and gamble (or yeah, just take the cash if u're not into gambling ), cash is cash.

Concerning the latter:

Would you consider it a bonus to pay 20% more on your grocery shoppings and receiving a x% chance (with -ev) your shopping is free and a funky chest opens at their front door if u bink that price?

It is a bonus, and more precisely a "marketing strategy".
According to your explanation, if Stars never offered rakeback at first but instead lowered their rake (instead of paying 1$ rake and getting 0.40c back, you simplay payed 0.60c without rakeback at all), do you really think that it would have had the same impact in players minds ?
Rakeback/cashback is just a marketing illusion to convince people they "win" something on long-term, but it remains an illusion, only the effective rake isn't.
In the poker boom's context, it was a very smart strategy to adopt for poker rooms and it suited well with the "grind it out to the max" motto.
If you're simply unable to understand that this motto changed in 15 years and that the "average Joe player" doesn't have the same goals than before, then you're just an old fart that can't evolve in time. In biology, not evolving means to die.

Ppl aren't taking your posts seriously, u're just using space itt, not for me anymore tho, ignore list solves it.