Changes to PokerStars VIP Program this Summer

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Thursday, April 20th, 2017 | Written by Adam Brown

Recently, PokerStars said that it intends to implement changes to its loyalty program at the start of summer, starting in Denmark before rolling them out across its other country specific domains. The announcement states that such changes will significantly change the way that PokerStars customers get rewarded for playing, and in his blog post, Séverin Rasset, the PokerStars Director of Poker Innovation and Operations, stated that the loyalty program will stop being a monthly program in which rewards are gained over time, and instead become a daily program that has more immediate and sometimes randomized rewards.

Instant Rewards

According to PokerStars, most of its customers play in the moment, and want something exciting and fun each time they play. PokerStars has therefore decided to incorporate more frequent rewards within one play session, instead of rewards that have to be earned for a month before being realized. This will also tie into PokerStars’ casino, sportsbook and poker games so that the rewards are readily available to players of all kinds.

Rewards Across all Products

Rasset says that the new PokerStars loyalty program will cover all of these bases without making anyone play on one particular game. In other words, the online site wants its players to feel that no matter what product they play the most, their loyalty is appreciated. The brand’s active reward, StarsCoin, is also going to become the currency for sport, casino and poker games so that it maintains its current value, hoping to strengthen the poker economy, so to speak. PokerStars further wants to reel back some of the trends that have shown up over the last decades where online games have become harder, causing new players to dissipate.

Changes Take Effect in Summer Time

PokerStars plans to test out these changes in May or June of this year in Denmark. If everything goes well, it will then apply this new program to its other markets by the end of 2017. Aware of the backfiring that happened when PokerStars made its first round of alterations in 2015, the online poker room is trying to give its players plenty of warning before this change. With the new announcement, PokerStars’ now has a few months to get ready for the changes. Players everywhere else have at the very least three months to adjust to the idea.

Who Will be Impacted?

PokerStars is still getting the specifics of its new program down, but just like previous rewards program changes made by PokerStars over the last few years, those who play copious amounts and win frequently will be the most negatively impacted on the site. While most players will not notice a real change, those players who rely on rakeback won’t like the new program, as these rewards, measured in rakeback, could be reduced by an astounding 80 to 85 percent. PokerStars is getting in touch with these players to ensure their understanding, but is still expecting hell to be raised on poker forums and social media.

Just Business

All in all, PokerStars wants to be more appealing to depositing and new players, prompting the change on their site. Old players have plenty of warning and new players now have plenty of incentive to join, so the PokerStars makes sense from a business standpoint.

The latest move is part of an ongoing shift in focus for the brand away from its one-time traditional base of online poker grinders, to one in which its primary customers are recreational gamblers who enjoy playing across a range of games, and not just poker. This has become increasingly important for PokerStars, and all other poker sites, as the game has seen a huge decline in traffic since the USA pulled the plug on its iPoker market in 2011, and other jurisdictions across the globe have instigated ever stricter controls on their own regulated online poker and gambling markets.

PokerStars’s new focus seems to be bearing fruit, too, which is highlighted in its 2016 results, which showed poker now accounts for 73.2 percent of Amaya’s overall revenues, compared to 82.7 percent in 2015. Meanwhile, Amaya generated revenue of $1.15 billion last year, representing a 7.8 percent increase compared to the $1.07 billion collected in 2015.