The Downfall of PokerStars?
I've been playing on PokerStars for close to two decades.
What in the world has happened to PokerStars support? You literally have to chat with an AI bot who can not answer the most basic of questions. There are no email addresses to email and they will not speak to you over the phone.
They've lost my business. If they can longer provide sufficient support on simple issues, can they actually still be trusted in the security of their games?
The dethroning of the king
And the downfall is continuing
PLO 4, 5 and 6 Card, as well as Short Deck up to 25$ tables are all extremly beatable without any losing months for decent players (if you get rakeback).
MTTs that are not NLHE are very soft, too, up to 109$.
Smaller pools and field-sizes are good to lower variance, and you quickly get to know all the suckers, and the very few good regs that didnt leave the site.
I'll keep playing PS exclusively, as long as they dont change their schedule drastically.
If you measure the downfall of PokerStars in terms of peak cash game traffic, then the numbers show that the downfall of PokerStars that started in 2012 seems to have finally ended in July 2023. The following graph gives you a good historical perspective on the rise and fall of different sites (source:
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Pay 3k rake and suppport answers you after 3-4 weeks if at all...this wouldnt fly in any regular service shop.
Did you send an e-mail?
If i contact support in the client, a bot directs me to an actual person with me doing just two or three clicks, usually takes less than five minutes afterwards.
To get into contact with support I used to choose the option "trouble depositing" or whatever it is and then just go ahead with what I actually needed.
Its the only software in regulated States that has games other then Hold'em or O8. If WSOP could ever get its **** together and support a proper Stud8/O8 or Triple Draw I would leave the site forever. There's a community that loves playing 8 Game and other mixes but for the love of god who ever does the scheduling for Stars needs to be dumped. They used to run a Mix game tournament at 2pm then a one or two more at 7-8. They had a pretty steady crowd that always hit the grt at 2pm for their 8 Game. But for some dumb reason they decided to take one of the days and run "5 Card Draw".
This was their last attempt at running it before taking it off the schedule and no more 2pm mix games on Mon-Tue. How brain dead stupid do you have to be in 2024 to say "hey guys I think people would really love to play 5 Card Draw in 2024"
If they run a Series that's not WCOOP instead of doing something that draws like 8 Game, HORSE, Stud8, Razz or Triple Draw they might throw in a lol 7 Stud tournament.
Its the best software run by people who give two shits about poker.
Is it my location or is PokerStars not running the Sunday Million anymore these days? I recently skimmed the lobby and could only find the mini version...
Anyhow, only looking at the off peak MTT offering which I mainly play, I notice significant reduction of buy-ins and guarantees. For example, I recall the nightly 44$ Bounty Builder with 12k+ guarantee and 300-500 runners (not great, but at least something) being now at 2.5k guarantee with 63 participants LOOOL.
Right now, 14:00 in Europe there is around 12k (!!!) players online. I see Flutter disolving this site in 3-5 years if this trend continues. How can this remain a profitable business model, idk...
Is it my location or is PokerStars not running the Sunday Million anymore these days? I recently skimmed the lobby and could only find the mini version...Anyhow, only looking at the off peak MTT offering which I mainly play, I notice significant reduction of buy-ins and guarantees. For example, I recall the nightly 44$ Bounty Builder with 12k+ guarantee and 300-500 runners (not
I think they have got rid of the weekly SM and only run it as a special every few weeks and even then 1st is only about $80K inc boutnies as its a psko. It is quite incredible how far this site has fallen. The SM used to be $150-200K for first, Warm Up $100K now under $10K, the Supersonic used to be $40K for 1st, its now $8K, there used to be random $109 turbos with $20K uptop and now there are none and various other chances are 6 figure or high 5 figure scores now there is literally nothing worth playing or to get excited about, outside of SCOOP/WCOOP which is slightly different because it's mainly fields of crushers. No mid-high stakes SNGs run, cash games are a ghost town in the main at anyhting above 200nl/plo. The same goes or other sites Party Poker, ipoker, theres nothing where you can win huge amount anymore. Porobaly more a poker wide issue, legalities and regulations, deposit/KYC issues than Stars themselves. If you're in the UK its kind of hard to get any real money into Stars, PP, GG or ipoker without deposit limitations and KYC issues. GG or ACR are the only exceptions for a decent sized Sunday, but come with their own issues.
Supernova was a flagship for stars and somehow they discontinued it
But the Sunday Million is such a flagsip for Pokerstars and the fact that its gone its such a huge sign of the poor state stars is in
The problem is that it isn't the main money earner for Flutter, not even close.
It's basically the equivalent of the ice cream machine not working at McDonalds.
Flutter revenue is nearly 15 billion whereas I believe Stars is 5-700 million of that, they don't really care about fewer money coming in from Stars because it's a small part of the company (like ice cream for McDonalds).
PokerStars has been on the decline for years now. Like slugant stated they quit doing the supervoa status and started charging more rake. Another thing I don't like is that you have to agree to have your whole cards shown if you make a final table. Why do I have to be coerced into something I don't want to do to play a tournament?
The problem is that it isn't the main money earner for Flutter, not even close.
It's basically the equivalent of the ice cream machine not working at McDonalds.
Flutter revenue is nearly 15 billion whereas I believe Stars is 5-700 million of that, they don't really care about fewer money coming in from Stars because it's a small part of the company (like ice cream for McDonalds).
Regardless of revenue it is quite remarkable to spend what they did to buy it and then treat it like they have and how much lower would the value of Stars be today?
Unfortunately their site, their rules and if we don't like em then we can leave.
I haven't played on Poker Stars in 16 years or so. I live in California we aren't allowed to play on the site. I did my due diligence from posters who are smarter than me keeping me informed on what is happening. You are victim blaming me Mark do better alright.
It’s not just stars as I said above but the fact the SM is once a month if that now is really dire - every other non GG (which is a rake trap) site, is a ghost town for big money. Apart from perhaps ACR on a Sunday at a push. All the old euro sites - Party, iPoker, micrograming (does that still exist?), Unibet etc are all absolutely pathetic stakes wise - you can’t even win any real money, no large guarantees, no action above 5/10, seems utterly pointless and a waste of time and energy. Even coinpoker is rather lackluster - strange/borderline scam rakeback, lots of regs and no huge guarantees.
It’s a sign of online pokers general decline, it’s largely game over - too much cheating, RTA, bots, have made it insanely boring to play - add in KYC and legality issues and perhaps the economy you’ve got a recipe for disaster. It’s just not exciting to play anymore. As a pro you could print 6 figs consistently year in year out, and aim for huge money, those days and the dream are gone unless you’re the very elite and dedicated your life to it - open up a lobby and see micro stakes all over the place with bullshit guarantees or higher buyins with only crushers. Sad **** really not sure how it makes a comeback.
PokerStars has been on the decline for years now. Like slugant stated they quit doing the supervoa status and started charging more rake. Another thing I don't like is that you have to agree to have your whole cards shown if you make a final table. Why do I have to be coerced into something I don't want to do to play a tournament?
2005 Pokerstars would never believe what 2025 Pokerstars has become. It is quite sad, really.
2005 Pokerstars would never believe what 2025 Pokerstars has become. It is quite sad, really.
2005, i.e. pre-UIGEA, PartyPoker probably had >50% market share in the US with FullTilt & PokerStars as the two biggest of the "newcomers". Compared to those other two, PokerStars isn't doing that poorly today.
Back then, MySpace was the leading social network. That year YouTube and Reddit were started and Facebook was on the way to opening to the general public.
If you told anyone at 2005 PokerStars that they would dominate the industry for a decade, they would have been thrilled.
Could someone tell me the blind structure at the hu sngs at Stars? I heard they changed them. I'd just be interested to see the first few levels. Starting stacks, blinds, how fast the levels are.
dappadan - 2010s you could definitely comfortably make at least high 5 figures into 6 figs with dreams for more. Bot regs and solvers ruined the games. It's sad really. I think pure poker sites with no sports platform to them are near unplayable because there aren't enough casuals. I think the overall interest in poker is down. Younger people don't have much money. It's very boring to even play with all the mechanical gto regs. I was never a big GTO guy. I understood it, but I just learned how to counter what others were doing. I was one of few regs who you could play and you could tell I'm not a by the book raise this exact % preflop bet this exact % into this type of board postflop. But there were just too many others like that. And they came in droves. BOL got wiped by a bunch of Russians. They had $500 at hu sngs with regular blinds 10 years ago. Now you start with 25 bb at 2 min levels lol and the max buy in is 100. ACR has unplayable SNGs. Bovada changed their structure just a month ago. Bovada had a massive amount of regs come in post covid
Seems like GG poker or nothing. So if you're from the USA, nothing. And if you're outside the USA, you got high rake games at GG. Heard they only have spin n gos too very low EV
I get the feeling that not only is the casual to reg/bot ratio terrible, but as it's gotten worse the sites have tried to make the games less and less beatable for everyone
It's been repeated many times, but eliminating Supernova was just a bad decision.
What really took out pokerstars was being bought by a conglomerate, all the new regulations that were implemented in the last decade, and following them because of the group they are in.
GGpoker isn't on them, that's why they have people from more countries playing, easier to deposit, even some agents from non-afilliated countries etc.
I don't know about tournaments or sng, but it's probably similar to cashgames. If you just want to play one site it's probably ggpoker. But you can still play multisite confortably and have at least 6 tables running most of the time until HS Nl1k. Above that, it gets thinner.
Something that pissed me off about Pokerstars was changing rakeback to a mystery box instead of just giving cash. GG gives you whatever you earn as $ every Monday. GG also give away the daily free tickets with $1 on Saturdays.
It feels like PS software has got less intuitive and more bloated over the last 10 years. GG entered the market with 10x better product and PS has made no attempt to catch up. GG also have better servers, I haven't disconnected once, whereas PS have had so many outages over big tournament series.
As a rec who mainly plays tournaments and isn't a huge fan of KO formats PS really dropped the ball on making %90 of tournaments KO including Sunday Mil. GG's daily $25 classic or $150 Sunday classic are way better than anything PS offer at the same price point.
When I was 6x supernova (too lazy for elite:p) I got around 55% rakeback IIRC
Then you got those mystery boxes and over a year span I got 2,1% rakeback
GG also scummy how they advertise 50% rb but with as a steady winner with 0.25 pvi I only got around 12% rb in the end. Still, not the huge slash that stars provided.
After supernova ended it all went downhill very quickly.
