The Downfall of PokerStars?

For regulated sites maybe but the ones in the shadows will take this as Christmas come early.

Boring and uninformed take. The OG PokerStars benefited from the easy acquisition of recreational players, which provided the stream of deposits required to feed both the site operations/profit and the sharks. Once that stream of recreational players dried up (via poker not being the hot new thing, by sharks feeding more efficiently, by every promo aimed at pros rather than recs), the business model changed and Stars changed with it.

Companies have to adapt to market conditions. Blockbuster tried to keep doing things exactly like they always did, and are gone now. Had they tried something else and it failed, would you have said "wow so incompetent, how can you screw up the proven success of retail locations and physical movie rentals?"

"Quote:
Originally Posted by Namaste1974
"Contrasting with my experience at Poker Stars, they had a great site back in the day. The rake was very fair and also very transparent. Security was tight. New ownership must have been incompetent to screw up such a promising company with a proven success.
Boring and uninformed take. The OG PokerStars benefited from the easy acquisition of recreational players, which provided the stream of deposits required to feed both the site operations/profit and the sharks. Once that stream of recreational players dried up (via poker not being the hot new thing, by sharks feeding more efficiently, by every promo aimed at pros rather than recs), the business model changed and Stars changed with it.

Companies have to adapt to market conditions. Blockbuster tried to keep doing things exactly like they always did, and are gone now. Had they tried something else and it failed, would you have said "wow so incompetent, how can you screw up the proven success of retail locations and physical movie rentals?"

"

I haven't played there in a long time.

I'm not sure what you're saying but if you think GG is better than Stars, I disagree very highly. GG has ruined online poker for most online pros IMO.

Glad I'm in the U.S. where we have better options.

So you missed that stars removed normal cash games up to 1/2, you can only join the global pool. Which means normal cash games are basically zoom

and on 50nl zoom there are 25 active players currently btw

I dont like GG but saying current Stars is better than GG really shows that you dont know current Stars but still living in the past

The both absolutely suck.

I agree.

Mixed cash is also dead now, sadly. It was only 8game and 27TD that survived in any way but this past month they are also gone. Currently 1 player across all mixed games at prime euro time.

Most of the weekly mix tournies have missed the guarantees over the past week too.

Lol

Amaya didn't buy pokerstars for their poker business.

It was all about the opportunities it would present on casino and sports book side.

I guess coin poker is the place to play now?

Where will you play at now?

Agree with this and would guess Flutter bought it for the same reason.

You've said twice now that GG has ruined online poker for pros but not given any reasons why.

Whilst the super high stakes cash games were ongoing, pros were making loads.

Tournaments are bigger than ever, I haven't seen any complaints from tournament players on GG.

Given what you are saying and being based in the US, I'm guessing your opinion of Pokerstars is based on a long time ago and you've never played on GG.

Could be worse... could be taxed on the rakeback we didn't win 😆

I'm down a lot on GG, because I was scammed. They told me I would get 60% rake back, but it was a lie. It's the PVI scam.

I made over a million on Poker stars before Black Friday and after seeing the games a couple of years ago, Stars looked pretty meh.

I'm basing my analysis of GG on what Cash Game coaches have told me and my own experience. it's usually not worth playing due to the high rake. Maybe the tournament fields are good, but are there really a lot of tournament players winning full time on there at a pro level? Just asking.

I think for cash you need to get leaderboards to make money. That's the only way to beat the rake.

Both sites currently suck IMO. I have no desire to play on either one. It's unfortunate that a once great company of PokerStars (from my perspective) is no longer worth playing at for a lot of people. I feel like this was self-inflicted to a large extent. They had to work hard to mess it up as badly as they did.

To be more clear (though this is an extension of what you're saying) - it was about all the licenses PokerStars held worldwide (Spain, UK, Italy, France, Germany, and others). Far from easy to obtain.

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Still the best site

I get the deposit now msg
Have played there Spin of the Day promo every day since it started .
Have not had a prize .��
I think this shows , even the freebies are regulated.
The Hubble was the first freeroll on PS and the trans tasman comp between NZ and AUS was great.
45 player holdem was great as well.
Put a lot of input early days , still waiting for a thank you .
GG is by far a better poker experience now.

I really think Casino games on these sites have taken over Poker. Slots etc (so so grim).

I’d love to see a split of Poker Revenue to Casino revenue for Pokerstars, GG etc.

I actually thought the boom of things like Twitch streaming would help with the popularity among younger people but it’s dying and the Slots and non-skill based games have taken over.

PokerStars suck so bad unless u living in usa cuz global PokerStars isn't worth playing

It’s horrible in the US too

Has done nothing but get progressively worse from day 1

Almost everyone from back then took their money and left a long time ago. Not sure why they would care what happens to Stars these days.

That's ok, I wasn't asking for your opinion on other people.

It's not really an "opinion" though. None of the people I worked with at Stars back in the day are there anymore. The vast majority left over the first 1-2 years after the sale to Amaya in 2014. That was a decade ago. Nobody who I'm still in touch with or connected on LinkedIn is even still in gambling. (Unless you count banks)

UIGEA sucked for a lot of people working at PartyPoker. Black Friday sucked for a lot of people working at Full Tilt. At PokerStars, in an industry where almost nobody is in it for the longrun anyway, I doubt too many people were bothered.

Thanks.

Here is an interview with the original owner from last year: https://www.youtube.com/v/18ytnD3_S_I