PokerStars Promoting Behavioral Changes Amongst Its Players

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Thursday, March 17th, 2016 | Written by Charles Washington

When PokerStars announced its VIP Program changes last year, its parent company Amaya was subject to widespread outrage. The negative response even included an organized boycott of PokerStars during the first few days of December by its regular grinders. As part of their grievance, these online poker professionals lamented that they would subsequently have to alter their playing approach in order to make money at the tables, and it seems that’s exactly what Amaya is hoping will happen. In other words, it seems that the ultimate goal of Amaya is to change player behavior.

The Old Way to Make Money

With the previous PokerStars VIP Program, winning was a secondary consideration to frequent play. By rewarding voluminous play, PokerStars sought to maximize the amount of rake that they generated. Under the old system, it was possible to play at a low stakes table, lose many hands and still come out ahead. As a result, players that wanted to make a good hourly rate playing on the site would play at numerous tables at one time, splitting their attention between the action at each one, and just trying to complete the game or break even rather than trying to make an outright profit.

The New Way to Make Money

Under the new PokerStars VIP Program, the incentive for high volume play has been eliminated. Now, to make a good hourly rate, players will need to visit higher stakes tables and stay more invested in the game. Skillful play will be rewarded rather than frequent play. In other words, the new system emphasizes quality over quantity. It’s clear that Amaya is hoping to make PokerStars players focus on fewer, more expensive tables and play poker to win, and not just earn an income from the game via the PokerStars reward scheme.

Motivation Behind the Change

So why is Amaya interested in changing the way that players use PokerStars? The biggest reason is to help raise interest amongst casual players. When a new player visits PokerStars for the first time, or an occasional player takes to the tables, they expect to experience an online version of what they would receive at a casino. They want to play against other players who will engage in conversation, who interact and who make skilled, strategic decisions. Under the old system, a casual or new player could end up feeling as if they were playing against robots, rather than actual human beings, leading to a disappointing experience.

By removing the incentive to simply show up at a table and grind through, PokerStars hopes to give new and casual players that casino experience that they came for, so that they will continue returning to the site. The ultimate goal is to attract new players and build a larger player base.

Benefits of Changes

In the end, this actually helps serious players in two ways. First, it boosts liquidity, and therefore the size of the player pools taking to the virtual tables. Secondly, it makes the actual games softer, as when playing against casual and new players, it is the experienced poker players who inevitably end up winning.

While it may take some time for seasoned players to adapt to the new way of being successful, it will still be possible to make money on PokerStars. Ultimately, the new structure could eventually result in a better gaming experience for everyone at PokerStars, regular and casual players alike.

Shifting Focus Towards Casino Games

For most of its 15 year history, PokerStars was predominantly a poker only website. In March 2012, however, the site rolled out the first of its poker-style gambling games, called Zoom Poker, and since then casino games and a sports book has been added to its product mix. The sites current owner, Amaya Inc, has already acknowledged that PokerStars needs to develop beyond just poker if it wants to remain competitive in a challenging poker market, and so branching out into other gambling verticals was obviously a smart choice by its CEO David Baazov.

How successful PokerStars has already been in this endeavor can clearly be seen in Amaya’s latest annual financial results, with revenues increasing by 8% to $1.37 billion in 2015. Importantly, while poker generated 83% of Amaya revenues, the rest was accounted for by its casino and sports book verticals. Furthermore, in the last quarter of 2015 online poker actually represented just 78% of revenues, down from a 93% share for the same quarter a year earlier. Commenting on its latest results, David Baazov explained:

“.. our brands are delivering on a sound strategy for growing the business through multiple gaming verticals, particularly through the strength of our emerging real-money online casino offerings and maintaining a market leading high quality consumer experience in our core online poker business.”