I can see Partypoker doing a $215 , 200k GTD to first or 1 million GTD tourney and would bring in more recs

everyone would move there if they had good satties every single day to qualify for that tourney


This is the end of pokerstars, from reduced GTD like the supertuesday to this. They are flushing out and pulling the plug by squeezing every single penny off customers.

Partypoker can bring something innovative or just copy the old format of the sunday million

I think they've done this once before actually

The lobby clearly states that Sunday Million will run as PKO for two weeks only.

They have already run PKO version of SM twice this year and both were a success.

Well PKO brings more recs who thinks they can get at least even after some KOs, so business wise it seems to be good decision... On the other hand the payout structure will be more flat :/...

Why would offering something that recs like make it the end for pokerstars? If you have missed the memo they are trying to push the regs out.

I didn't say that it will make an end of PokerStars... generally speaking if you want to have succesfull poker site you need many rec players

So because they change milly format for a couple of weeks the end is nigh?

If you're going to start a thread about the pokerstars armageddon then please give a little more reasoning. It would be interesting to see how your brain manifestates such conclusions.

Every day more fear mongering. I'm sure someone is purposely trying to create a self fulfilling prophecy by making these threads over and over just so it enters everyone's subconscious. Ffs now I've got my tin foil hat on!

If Party go back to the 2006 software (with the avatars sitting round the table), there's more chance of me going back to them. They ruined the site when they 'upgraded' the software in 2009/10 or whenever it was.

Since PokerStars have a market valuation of 4 billion dollars... yes, sure.

Two KO Sunday Millions are clearly the end of this poker room.

Interesting that you say that. Fortunately they just released earnings for Q2.

The revenue YOY has gone up significantly from $411M to $637M, so that's all good then right? Well, cost of revenue has also gone up significantly and the operating profit is only increased by a few million. Further more, the earnings per share have actually gone down 20% YOY. Their cash and equivalents total about $330M which is a decrease of 13% YOY and they have about $5B in debt on the books, which they have decreased only about 9% in a full year.

They have also guided down for revenue in 2019, earnings and as a result earnings per share. Their interest expenses are about $300M/year right now. Sure they made some money, but they have stayed flat in earnings despite a 50% increase in revenue. Since most of their cost of revenue is fixed (enter a market, legal hassle is the same regardless of how many players) imagine what happens to the bottom line if they lose some of that revenue. Combined with their huge debt Stars is actually a company that could be severely struck by decrease in traffic. They can take a hit, but they are not a company that can take a few bad quarters without consequences.

Interesting. So what's your conclusion? Telling us stats from reported financial results are one thing, but you didn't provide us any insight, or an opinion on if/when stars will be done.

My opinion is literally in the post dumbass. Not that you're entitled to it.

My reading of your previous post is that you believe a few bad quarters will have consequences. What specifically are you referring to when you say "consequences?" Moreover, what specifically constitutes a "bad quarter?"

Do you even finance?

Nice post kelvis.

If their costs remain fixed and they lose about 20% of traffic they would be eaten up by interest payments, let alone pay it off. They only have $330M in cash and they plan to grow their casino business, which comes with expenses. Then they're going to be running out of money in about 4 quarters.

It won't happen like that, more likely is they cut some markets or reduce spending on growth in their casino business, or raise some capital at a reduced share price and further dilute their investors. They won't go out of business but they are not going to like a hit like that.

A bad quarter would be for example losing 10% in revenue which translates to almost 40% in earnings. Not saying that will happen, but a 10% decrease in revenue would not have been a problem for the old Pokerstars, which was basically free of debt and was literally a printing machine. Stars group is under high debt burden.

So are Stars' cost of revenue fixed or variable? You seem to infer they are fixed. And what is your estimate of their cash burn rate, since you seem to infer Stars will have zero cash in 4 quarters? Are you assuming legacy lines of business will not generate cash while they ramp up into expansion of casino business? And if a bad quarter is 10% decrease in revenue, why do you think that can happen given YoY revenues were actually up, not down?

First of all, nice post.

IMO 20% traffic loss in 4 quarters sounds surreal. Even if Party start a blitzkrieg process to crush Stars like there is no tomorrow given 70% rakeback or hiring 95% of the old Stars Team PRO (like they are already doing), the online poker market are moved by recs and they don't give a damn about it. D'ya know what i mean?

We are talking about a traditional card game and a very strong company. So, trust is much more important in this market than inovation. However, i'm talking about the short term.

I wouldn't be posting here again in this topic, but you raised your point so well... i felt like it was a question of principles to answer you in the best way I could.

maybe you should dig deeper ... they have $5b debt, b/c they bought Sky Bet for a "few billion" last year

this is why the revenue went "up" btw (b/c sky is huge in UK) ... also lol they "decreased only about 9% in a full year." [which btw was paid by cash flow] ... not saying it was easy for them, but this was on pace.


poker isn't even the most important vertical anymore .... i think when they launched casino games a few years ago, poker started declined (in terms of overall share on revenue). now it's almost like it's 1/3 poker, 1/3 casino and 1/3 betting. the latter growing, especially with the plans for the US-market (FOX Sports). they even announced plans to invest heavily ($40m this year, maybe more next) and hope to be "breakeven" in 2020 w/ this project.

not saying i'm happy poker isn't the most important thing to them, but there was one quote in the conference call from Ashkenazi, which described the situation well ... it was like "we went from poker only, w/ 50% money from regulated/taxed markets, to a company with several verticals and 80%+ taxed/regulated markets" ... so long story short, you can hate'em like you want, but so far they are catching up (comparing them to companies like GVC) ... again, not saying this is the best for their poker vertical, but shows that they don't related on poker traffic as you think they do.

the most important numbers from the call, were the quarterly active users and the net yield (can't remember, users down a bit, $ a bit up on constant currency).

but even if you only focus on the poker room alone (poker lost btw not only shares on revenue, but also y2y, which is related to issues on grey markets [e.g. Russia], but is interesting) so you def. could say, it's not as easy for PS to hit the $1M mark week for week as it was some time ago.

But claiming party could run a weekly event (like OP did) is more than hilarious. the latest powerfest (and that one before), has shown, that they have issues to crack the GTDs. so in no way would they pull in better numbers.

and for the super tuesday ... numbers really started to dwindle, when PS created the high roller club (i guess, b/c pp ran so good with their daily high roller schedule). not saying it's not sad such an iconic event is just 'another mtt' now, but right now there are just more events.

even in the pre-amaya area, GTDs slowly (Warm-up, sunday $10, ...). wasn't there even a regular 10K on stars at one point? so while there're plenty of good arguments, what could have be done better for the poker room, not accepting the global decline and just looking at one major to discuss the faith of a company, is a bit silly.

Fwiw, more news about their integration with the sky product, particularly poker, will be around in 2 weeks or so. From grapevine et al.

this will be interesting. i believe it was Ashkenazi who said (earnings call), they relaunch sky poker as "sky poker by PokerStars" and they want give users the opportunity to move money between platforms (PS, skypoker, sky betting).

Sounds interesting.

But when?

And who is Ashkenazi? (i'm not kidding, just don't know)

Trying not to derail.

Ashkenazi is CEO of Stars. Decision on what will happen likely in 2 weeks ish. Then integration or whatever they do will likely take months.

I think the idea of an awesome Progressive KO is great for the site.

However, why change something that already worked into it? Why not keep the classical Sunday Million and add a new huge P-KO? In my opinion, they are losing a chance to have two huge very successful events running at the same time, but, hey, I guess they know better!

its gone

Why add only 1? Just host 853 tourneys besides the Sunday million since apparently demand is infinite.