No one should want it but the house.

Yes that is far better than I put it. So is it players vs house then? This is what I want to know. Is it a solvable hu game?

If by solvable you mean cut out the middle man who taking the money. Not sure. There have been rake free sites and they did not do well. But that does not mean one could not do well.

Well I think its a game of hidden information of sorts. I think that probably there is a lag here. The industry gets drained of its talent, and players rely too much on stats to tell them if they are successful or not. I mean to suggest that if are winrates were transparent, it might be easier to lobby for change.

Not at all trying to start a revolution with this. I think there is a small point to be made that it would allow the hu game to move more towards optimal.

The hidden information (meta data etc.) sort of costs the costumer/player, I don't know if that makes sense to you, I don't know if I explain it well enough.
wp, balanced!

I think i get what you are saying for the most part. You need to know peoples true win rate in order to make a more solid argument about rake.

That is if stars is opened to argument in any case. Which idk....

Cash game traffic on PokerStars is now going off a cliff with a much more sharp trajectory than their competitors and a dramatic move from the prior twelve months of relatively steady traffic:

http://www.pokerscout.com/SiteDetail...ars&ab=5721170

Can you prove as fact that all these changes are the cause? Probably not. Is it highly likely they have a big part in this extreme decline? Yes and it would never be too late for Stars to reverse course in many of these areas. There will likely be some damage done regardless, but unwinding bad policy is always a positive step and when Stars enacts new changes they always say they will closely monitor how the changes are affecting the traffic so it would seem reasonable that they begin to consider unwinding some of their changes.

It always dive bombs in summer, find and post a 12 month graph.

What if, instead of a boycott, we tried an include-cott?

Not enough players wish to give up the action on stars on sunday. So let them play.

But lets develop a new competitor. What would Patrick do? Give action.

Agree on one or two sites that regs will play the big tourney on that site -- preferably Bovada or ACR so Americans can play too -- and some cash games too. Driving up traffic on a new site is what is needed, not destroying the one site that has traffic.

Sounds like what you'd expect if you were hoping the fish would be spread less thinly across fewer regs, no?

Bracketed numbers in the quote added by me for clarity: [1] Graph in link doesn't show competitors

[2] Graph in link is for the peak period around Christmas/New Year 6 months ago to now. It doesn't show "the prior 12 months of relatively steady traffic". I challenge you to provide a 12 months prior graph [the whole of 2015] which shows this steady traffic. You will not find such a graph unless you draw it in crayon yourself

[3] This statement is entirely nonsensical given that the premises [1] & [2] are not shown to be correct.

There are tons of people who have access to the whole suite of Pokerscout data (he could have provided it in this case ofc), many of them no doubt read this forum. Maybe there are copyright issues but its the internet, copyright sloppyright. Doesn't the data holders' total silence through all these threads say something assuming the many not-so-Amaya-friendly assertions that proliferate are nothing but half court airballs?

Its actually goes back to around the beginning of Feb. I think you would find daily averages of around 18k or so for New Years.

Or he could order it from Pokerscout, if they'll sell. My experience is they're strangely discriminating in what customers they cater to. Even so as I said there are certainly many people who have access to this data. I've never once seen them chime in on any of these threads.


Their daily average at this time last year was probably around 15.5-16k. On the low end of that range a daily average of 12k would represent a 23% decline. That's their core business. Spin as they will, the vice tightens.

??? Some dude posts assertions about PokerStars traffic. He links to data to support those assertions. Some other dude correctly points out that there is not enough data to support those assertions consider OP made some claims for a period greater than 6 months which is all that is available from PokerScout and he compares their drop to competitors without showing competitor graphs. He doesn't dispute the assertions just the lack of support for them. There is really no debating his comment.

And you think that a valid argument is essentially... well people have seen more data and they haven't said anything so OP must be right. You honestly think that's a valid point? C'mon man.

Maybe what he's saying is true but he didn't verify it. If you're trying to convince people that global is real and effecting the whole plant for example... you don't hold up a 5 day forecast from Salt Lake City and say "See! I told you so!"

Don't think that's true. But anyway, we (Poker Industry PRO) offer a unique data platform using data licensed from PokerScout and we don't discriminate at all All your questions can be answered there.

I've chimed in a fair amount amount over the years

Not far off.

So as mentioned by others earlier, six months graphs are worse than useless to analyze trends. Seasonal decline is huge (35+%) and affects sites differently. You need annual graphs and imo a moving average of at least 30 days to get any picture at all.

In dot-com non-US market we're looking at a -18% decline overall based on a 30-day moving avg, over the last year. iPoker -30%, PokerStars -18%, party -14%, 888 -4%, MPN +14%.

Now, caveat always is this is cash game data, with the rise of lottery sit and gos, analyzing the last year in particular requires some caution. For a start, the -18% cannot be used to imply that interest in online poker has declined by anything close to that figure.

Also you'll note companies late to the lottery sit and go game (party only recently launched hero, MPN and 888 to launch this summer) have fared better over the last year than those who've had lottery for a year+ (ipoker and pokerstars), because obviously party/MPN/888 have migrated fewer players from cash to tourneys. Also arguably PokerStars, with their big prizes and constant promotional push to Spins, would have seen a higher migration than iPoker.

Edit: so another way of putting it is PokerStars cash game traffic has declined in step with the market overall over the last year, although others in the top 5 have performed better. It maintains the same 59-60% share as it did 1 year ago.

Its circumstantial but if statements that an entire class of people, Amaya investors and employees, have an obvious interest in refuting go serially uncorrected for months or years when that same class of people possess evidence that would instantly settle the debate then it suggests that the data don't easily refute those statements, adding weight to OP's argument if not rigorous validity.


That would be loco. Its a lot less loco though when you have people, I think its fair in this context to say experts, like OP making specific, well reasoned predictions then months later when those things come to pass saying "I'm not sure I'm correct, but what I've been saying has mapped pretty closely to reality so my theories have not been proven wrong".



I tried to buy a report from Pokerscout a while back and it felt like signing up for Adsense or something. Litany of questions over a couple email exchanges then never heard back. Guess they would have sold it to me if I persisted but its kinda like why can't you just add to cart then check out? But thanks, I'll take a look at your service.

Thanks. Wow, that seasonal decline is bigger than I thought. Last year though wasn't Stars' seasonal decline taken on a monthly basis closer to 20%? If true that could be a reflection of fewer recs than in years past, because regs are unlikely to significantly reduce volume in summer months. Has there been a recent upsurge in PS players from the global South?


A while back someone linked to a site with spin n go data but I'm having trouble finding it again. It seemed to indicate that spin n goes were a maximum of 5% of Stars revenues at the time. Does that sound right? If so that would indicate, assuming cash traffic is 50% of their business and spin n goes rake the same per player as cash, that a maximum total of 10% of cash traffic had been cannibalized by spins over their existence, and that assumes all spin traffic is cannibalized cash traffic. I'm assuming the initial migration from cash to spins was larger than at later dates, all this would seem to point to spins being a small part, maybe 3 points, of that 18% total decline. Casino growth has likewise slowed per an Amaya press release. It would seem continued siphoning of cash players to casino could account for at least as much of the decline as spins. But migration to casino does indicate a waning interest in poker. If spins only account for 3% of the decline then it looks like PokerStars might need to retool its philosophy sooner than later.

But that also means it exerts a huge influence on the market average. What would the market look like for the top 10 if you removed Stars?

HAHAhaha nah man, ordered posts shill math >> regular math ...

Both Bodog and Party are showing stability over the last 6 months while Pokerstars cash game traffic has gone literally straight down. It's not complicated. If you take away games people enjoy playing like heads up (or 6card PLO when closing FTP), you will lose some of those people. If you charge more for the service, you will lose some customers. If you restrict the lobby so that only the best players can sit and thus the tables are extremely difficult, you will make the games feel unbeatable for a higher % of players and will lose customers.

The only one of those factors that really creates a serious cost benefit analysis for PokerStars is whether they lose too many customers relative to the increased revenue from charging higher rake. The other three are terrible things for them as it is assumed they care very much about getting as many depositing customers as possible. The way the cash game traffic is rapidly in decline, I'd say their changes have been a massive failure that will cost the company many many millions. The long term future may be bleak regardless of what they do, but they have a ton of power to slow the bleeding or accelerate it based on good decision making. When they make decisions and players rapidly leave the site, the prudent thing to do would be to unwind those decisions even if their intent was positive for the company. Digging your heels in when bad decisions need reversing is almost certainly bad business.

Of course traffic is going down.

Everyone knows poker is a Rake Trap now.

Paid $30 for 3k hands at 10 NL.

That's 300 big blinds at that stake for 3 hours of a grind

It's a Fuc***g Joke

But how much did u win?

$2 dollar pyramid cash promo obviously.

I wish the stock market would figure this out, I shorted it and it keeps going up.

is it? massive fields at the micro millions...

Lemme ask you some Qs:

Sm gtd now vs 3 years ago
Sw grd now vs 3 years ago
Sunday 500 gtd now vs 3 years ago

Cashgametables 400-600 friday 8pm eurotime now vs 3 years ago

Cashgametables nl100ring friday 8pm eurotime now vs 3 years ago


Yes, traffic is going down exponentially and a massive field for a 1.10mtt isnt gonna change that

Ps: just realized you prolly trolling wpwp

players online 300k in 2010 8 pm eurotime
players online 120k in may/june 2011 8 pm eurotime
players online 220k yesterday july 2016 8 pm eurotime

poker aint dead.

The only reason there was 220k players online on July 2016 8 pm euro time was because it was peak time on a Sunday and it was the first day of the micro millions.

Stop altering the facts. That was the busiest night of the year

grunched after first half of thread.

Anyone listening to an Amaya earnings call knows the plan is with casino gambling and sports betting, leveraged by the poker reputation and player base. their dream scenario is rec players enjoying poker while they trade chips to each other and bleed the rake. then they click a little button and go dump to the sports book or casino. the sites take is exponentially better in this scenario, particularly over large time horizons. they run a for profit site, and it seems like their plan is quite well thought out. truthfully all they owe a depositor is a safe regulated environment to gamble. they don't owe sharps a place for a living, or perks, or anything else. I think the sooner people become at peace with this, the better. otherwise you just sound like cabbies crying over the existence of uber. poker sites are big casinos, and the house always wins.