i thought I posted this but Idk if it got deleted or what so I will repost. My friend who plays play $ for fun plays on pokerstars.net. So I was trying to get him to play for real $ on bovada and he tells me what PS is doing. I called BS and had to see for myself. Apparently when you open a PS.net account they start you with $1000 in play money chips which you are sure to lose as the lowest stake is 5/10. He told me that once you lose that the balance does not reload. Instead they are taking a Zynga approach only worse. You can buy play $ chips 2MM in chips for $10 all the way to 450MM for $500 payed via CC or Paypal. The sick part is it's not just US players doing this EU players are too. The busiest stakes are 500k/1MM.

Now here is the kicker they actually charge play money rake on all MTTs and cash games so they can get people to go broke faster and buy more play $ chips. So first take away HS rakeback and SNE, now they are so ****ing greedy they are exploiting their play $ games for every $ they can get. Never before have a seen a site so reputable go so bad.

Only a small number of priviledged people, including Mr. RAVENJETBYRNE, are allowed to use an all caps thread title. So that is probably the reason why your thread was deleted. This one will probably suffer the same fate soon.

Did you just figure that out now? They are under the Kahnawakee Gaming Commission. Of course they have zero integrity and unlimited greed. The worst part is, a normal business is greedy whenever it CAN be and that there is a demand (like hotels during high peak season). A gambling site that overcharges rake is equivalent to skinning a sheep vs shearing it. And it's hurting players by slowly reducing traffic. Why not lower the rake or increase the rakeback to bring in more traffic or keep the players playing for longer?

I suggest that this fred gets deleted too. Either that or unban Elimination of Anxious Desires ITT

And you checked your friends statements & found them correct did you? Or did you roll the presses in your excitement to get your news out there?

[A] RELOADING CHIPS FOR FREE 3 TIMES PER HOUR

The image bottom of this post, is from PokerStars.NET: - the bracketed bits are my additions for clarity

[B] BUSIEST STAKES: Did you lie about this? Or incompetent with the filters & tabs in PokerStars? Or you took your friends word?

[1] Cash games on Zoom!: the lowest stakes @ 5/10 has the most players - new players are coming to the table with 1,000 chips. They are free to build this BR in the normal way - by playing well.
[2] Normal speed cash: is also busiest @ 5/10
[3] Tournaments: The largest fields except for the Sunday Billion are ALL for 1,000 chip entry fee [that's the TOP FOURTEEN registering right now in terms of field size]

[C] RAKE/FEES

Chips are constantly being pumped into the internal PokerStars economy by people reloading up to three times per hour for free. Part of the function of rake/fees is to slow the inflation. You can't withdraw play chips from the economy so it is bloating - that bloating is partly what drives the high stakes games. That said there's nothing wrong with charging for chips in those licenses which permit it. The more exciting route is of course to build through your own efforts.

I may look at the rake later to see if it's practical to build ones bank roll or not. Or would you like to gather the FACTS AND FIGURES yourself & report back? Actually fact check you know...

This forum has had its fair share of complete spastics op, but if you can't work out how play money works you really are in a special league of your own.

LOL just realised OP posted this dribble in NVG and the thread got locked.

Dunno why but this had me in hysterics

Ban OP.

I'm not joking either he's posted this crap multiple times now...

Absolute drooler..

My mistake should have read fine print. FLame away

Yes I foolishly took my friends word. I don't play in play $ games I live in the US and am thus unfamiliar with PS now. I should have done more research.

Wow someone on 2+2 admitting they made a mistake.

Make a note of this one guys, these events don't come around that often.

Just LOL op

ye now cant even sell playchips to ******s anymore ((

I remember trying to sell mine to some Chinese site.. way back when (I was underage and couldn't deposit)..

Out of curiosity, why would anyone want to play "higher stakes play money"? Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of "play money"?

Don't try to find logic there, everyone who plays for play money is ******ed.

The only answer I can think of is you get to play Barry Greenstein &/or Chris Moneymaker...

Barry had a balance of around 150,000,000 play money chips [$750?] around 18 months ago - he's probably almost a billionaire by now!

Pretty sure Barry was just playing play money as he had a weekly hourly commitment to stars though and was busto

This is true re the commitment, but I don't think the busto thing is important - he's always been able to make a decent living at the Commerce Casino, LA, limit tables [it is said] - The Commerce is his second home. PokerStars wants California & Barry is positioned perfectly - e.g. I just checked out the results of the last monthly "Billionaire Club Members All-in Shootout freeroll" [July 1st] & 48% of the entrants are USA [169/353].

In a recent video Barry said he's the "unofficial" ambassador between PokerStars & the Commerce. Amaya's coalition of California gaming interests which includes two native American tribes & California’s three largest card clubs [Commerce, Hawaiian & the Bicycle] so I reckon Barry is comfortable financially these days - he's connected in just about every way to PokerStars' west coast interests.

While many of your points definitely have validity I think you are dismissing too easily how much he was losing and also his debt to Pokerstars.

This is in no way confirmed but it wouldn't surprise me at this stage if he wasnt just working off his debt.

Again I'm probably speculating more than not with these things but its definitely not that big a stretch that it might be true.

I personally like barry for the most part so I hope your post is closer to the fact that mine but I'm not so sure these days

I like Bazza too. I had no idea he owed PokerStars - is that a different debt from the $400k he didn't repay to Full Tilt?

you can somewhat get better at high stakes play money. at low stakes play money its just ****ing allins every hand