Historically, a PokerStars promotion has been something people can get excited about. So when I tell you that PokerStars is running a promo to celebrate the site’s 100 millionth player (including Full Tilt and all country-specific sites), you wouldn’t be crazy to get your hopes up. But don’t. I mean, yes, it is a promotion and yes, you can win something of value, but frankly, it’s a bit of a disappointment. But you know what? If you are going to play at PokerStars, anyway, and these promos end up fitting in to your game selection, go for it.
For the first two weeks of the month (starting yesterday, of course, but don’t worry about it – it shouldn’t be a bid deal), PokerStars has a couple VIP Steps Challenges for its players. Those who complete VIP Steps Challenge 1 by leveling up three VIP Steps during the two weeks will have a chance to win up to 1 million StarsCoin. VIP Steps Challenge 2 is similar, but it requires the completion of 10 VIP Steps for up to 2 million StarsCoin.
“Up to” is the operative phrase here as the chances of winning a million or two StarsCoin are extremely low. Like with Spin & Go jackpots, the prizes are determined by a probability table. The odds get better the higher up in the VIP tiers a player is, but don’t count on any sort of StarsCoin windfall.
For example, at the BronzeStar level, there is a 54.695 percent chance to win 5 StarsCoin for VIP Steps Challenge 1, a 27.50 percent chance to win 50, a 15 percent chance to win 100, so on and so forth until the 1 million chip prize, which has a .005 percent chance of hitting. The minimum prize is 100 starting with ChromeStars. ChromeStars and up will win 100 or 1,000 StarsCoin the vast majority of the time. The odds for the grand prize only elevate to 0.15 percent at best.
The VIP Steps Challenge 2 prizes are bigger, ranging from 50 to 2 million rather than 5 to 1 million. Odds are a little better to win something of note, but again, whatever.
For the final two weeks of the month, including Leap Day, PokerStars will offer challenges associated with milestones from the site’s history. PokerStars has not revealed what the actual challenges will be, but here are the milestones:
2001 – Launch of Real Money Poker Games
2002 – First WCOOP Main Event
2003 – Moneymaker wins the World Series
2004 – Launch of the EPT
2006 – The Sunday Million is Born
2007 – Daniel Negreanu joins Team PokerStars Pro
2008 – PokerStars hosts World Record Online Poker Tournament
2012 – Launch of the Mobile App
2013 – Launch of Zoom
2013 – 100 Billionth Hand
2014 – $10 Million Guaranteed in PCA Main Event
2015 – Football Stars join PokerStars
2015 – 13 Millionaires Made in Spin & Go’s
2015 – 253,692 Players in an Online Poker Tournament
2016 – PokerStars obtains license in New Jersey, USA
Once again, there is a prize probability chart for the challenges, which come in two flavors: Silver and Gold. Most of the time, the prize will be a seat in an All-in Shootout tournament (77.294 percent for Silver, 60.299 percent for Gold), but the rest are cash prizes. For the Silver challenge, the cash prizes range from $2 to $10,000 (.001 percent chance at the $10,000) and for Gold it’s $5 to $100,000.
The last part of the promo is a simple tournament. For 50 StarsCoin (guess you can use what you earned form the promo the rest of the month), players can enter a $100,000 Added VIP Club tournament.
