In October 2014, PokerStars disappointed a lot of players in announcing slew of cash game rake and tournament fee increases, scheduled in for two separate dates, November 3rd, 2014, and January 1st, 2015. The world’s largest online poker room had built up a fantastic reputation amongst players for always having its customers in mind with its policies, but ever since its purchase by Amaya Gaming earlier in the year, it had made a number of changes that rubbed players the wrong way. For many, the changes, rake increases being one of them, smacked of a money grab rather than something that would actually improve the games or the customer experience.
Color us all surprised, then, when PokerStars announced this morning that most of the rake hikes previously announced would be reversed.
In a blog post Tuesday morning, Eric Hollreiser, Head of Corporate Communications for PokerStars, got straight to the point:
On November 3, PokerStars increased cash game rake and tournament fees in various games; we also planned to implement several additional increases on January 1. After additional analysis and consideration, we have now returned the rake to pre-November 3 levels in most instances and have cancelled the planned additional increases. Spin & Go tournament fees and payout changes implemented on November 3 will remain in place.
We will not increase any rake in 2015 other than in jurisdictions where we have already or will experience increased gaming duty or VAT.
He goes on to explain that rake increases are a necessary evil in the countries that are introducing a VAT (value added tax) on internet gaming, but that PokerStars is trying to mitigate the damage a by also reducing VIP Club rewards. Of course, reducing rewards isn’t good, either, but a split between that and higher rake may very well be more preferable that only increasing rake.
Hollreiser gave a little bit of insight into some of these loyalty reductions:
For instance, within a few months we will reduce the VPP multipliers for some countries that are subject to gaming duty or VAT but that do not have their own software clients. We will deploy the change as soon as we are technically able, likely within the next two months. We are also developing the ability to charge different rake/fees for different players within shared liquidity.
We may introduce small rake and tournament increases in the second half of the year for players in countries that impose VAT or gaming duty charges for play on our site. We will inform players about any such changes as soon as possible.
The rake increases announced last year appeared to target high volume, higher stakes players. Many of the increases were for heads-up, hyper-turbo tables, both Sit-and-Go’s and cash games. Intense grinders often play these games because it is easy to get through a lot of them in a session, but because of the lower payouts and high variance, profit margins are small. Thus, any rake hikes are tough to swallow. No-Limit and Pot-Limit were also targeted, with the most significant increases coming in games with exactly two players or high stakes games with five or more players.
