Who Will Benefit From PokerStars Reward Changes?

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Thursday, October 6th, 2016 | Written by Charles Washington

The last time that PokerStars revamped its VIP Rewards program, long-time regular players were outraged, protests were held, and social media was thrown into a frenzy. Ultimately, PokerStars stuck to its guns and has subsequently reported no real sustained negative effects from the modifications to its operations. Within the past month, however, the world’s biggest online poker brand has once again caused controversy after announcing yet another revamp of its VIP rewards policy.

What Are the Changes?

So far, PokerStars has only hinted at what’s coming for their VIP program; however, the vague information that has been given has already caused a panic. The operator has stated that the new program will go into place sometime next year and that it will no longer include monthly tiers like the current system. Instead, the revamped program will somehow be more personalized to a player’s recent gaming activity and history. The operator has stated that starting in January 2017, the SuperNova top tier will move from being an annual tier to a monthly tier. Many industry insiders are speculating that the PokerStars program will be similar to the 888 program that no longer uses rakeback as a reward, providing rewards for frequent play instead.

Furthermore, rewards will be awarded to players who play across all of the site’s verticals, including its sportsbook and casino products, rather than just poker. Elaborating further, PokerStars VP of Corporate Communications Eric Hollreiser, explained:

“Although players won’t have to play any specific platform in order to progress, [they] will receive rewards for many different things, rather than solely being rewarded for playing a lot of poker hands as is the case currently.”

Who Stands To Benefit?

While it is hard to know for sure what impact a change to the PokerStars VIP program will have without knowing all of its details, most industry experts agree that if changes are similar to those made at 888 then players who use the online poker site as a source of income will be hurt by the move.

Grinders who play at multiple tables at the same time in order to maximize their rakeback potential will no longer be able to profit from this strategy. As a result, they will have to adapt and make further modifications to their play beyond the changes they made following the last PokerStars VIP revamp earlier this year.

Professional poker players who are able to find success through skill rather than simply profiting through high volume play will likely do well. In other words, by no longer having to play at multiple tables to make the most money possible, these players will be able to hone their skills at one table at a time to win, resulting in a higher percentage return on their money.

Nevertheless, the category of PokerStars customer that will see the most benefit from the new VIP model is undoubtedly the recreational player. With rakeback systems, recreational players typically never have a chance to earn rewards, as they are not able to play at the tables often enough to ever achieve a high level of volume. A PokerStars VIP program that eliminates rakeback would therefore make it possible for them to receive more rewards from playing even if they do not have the skill yet to win every hand at the virtual tables.

Industry Shift to Recreational Model

While there is likely be plenty of outrage over many of the changes that PokerStars announces, it seems that this move is in line with the operator’s overall goals of trying to cater more to recreational players, who it believes is the key to the site’s success going forward.

Nevertheless, PokerStars is hardly a pioneer of the recreational model approach, as back in 2011 Bodog became the first online poker site to institute changes designed to favor its recreational players after it introduced anonymous tables. In 2013, PartyPoker subsequently instituted a slew of recreational-friendly changes, which formed part of an overall series of steps aimed at optimizing the poker ecology. Only recently, PartyPoker also announced that it would make all hand histories anonymous, as well as ban seating scripts, all of which have elicited similar disapproval from its regular grinders. Ignoring the anticipated criticism from disgruntled regulars, PartyPoker’s Group Head of Poker, Tom Walters, stated:

“It’s important for us to provide all poker players with a fair and ethical product whilst still allowing them to learn and improve. We want PartyPoker to offer a level playing field that allows players of all abilities to compete fairly.”