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PokerStars Changes Rewards Program – Makes it More Difficult to Earn Rewards

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Last month, PokerStars announced that changes were coming for their Stars Rewards program, and the news was not well received by the poker community. A month later, the planned changes have taken effect, and it is now nearly three times more difficult to earn player rewards at PokerStars.

Higher Rewards But Nearly Three Times Harder to Earn

Under the old system of Stars Rewards, players earned 100 points for every $1 collected in rake or tournament fees. With the newly revamped system, players only get 45 points for the same amount of money earned,

What that means is that chests will be almost three times more difficult to earn than they were prior to the implemented changes. However, with that increased difficulty comes higher payouts. Below is the new range of prizes you can earn from Stars Rewards chests:

  • Level 1 – Blue: $0.50
  • Level 2 – Bronze: $0.60 to $12
  • Level 3 – Silver: $1.50 to $30
  • Level 4 – Gold: $5 to $100
  • Level 5 – Diamond: $12.50 to $250
  • Level 6 – Black: $35 to $700

Of course, not everyone gets the same value for chests and the following is the expected value from each chest:

  • Blue: $0.50
  • Bronze: $1.20
  • Silver: $3
  • Gold: $10
  • Diamond: $25
  • Black: $70

For those that played under the old system, you probably notice that the Red and Platinum tiers have been replaced by the Diamond and Black tiers. On average, the tiers will pay out between 2.5 and 3.2x more than before.

A couple of additional changes to the system have been made. The first is that players do not have to play a ton of poker each session to move up or down levels. Now, you have 28 days to earn 10 chests and move to the next level.

Also, the Boost option is no longer available to speed your progress of making the next tier. Instead, you can exchange partial progress to the next tier for a chest from a lower tier.

Changes in Company Focus Lead to Rewards Changes

It’s no secret that the Stars Group has been focusing less on online poker and more on casino gambling and sports betting. In fact, online poker is only about a third of the company’s overall focus. When the company initially announced these changes, they touted them as a way to support larger guarantees.

Quoting Severin Rasset of the PokerStars Blog, ”This is a reduction in the overall amount of rewards some players will receive, but made in an area that we believe will have the least impact on their experience and enable us to place even more focus where we know it matters most. This includes offering the largest tournament guarantees like the €20m Winter Series guarantee in Southern Europe as well as record-breaking COOPs and Sunday Millions, and providing the most exciting live event experiences in poker.”

Of course, this is the latest in changes that PokerStars has implemented, and ones that players do not seem to really want.

Are These Changes What Players Really Want?

After the initial announcements, several top online poker players staged a boycott of a Sunday $5,200 Turbo Series Event. That protest came and went without a ton of fanfare and of course, PokerStars still moved forward with their plans.

Of course, there isn’t much that players are really doing about these changes other than complaining. The site is still as healthy as ever as a large segment of the international poker community frequents it. Complain as much as they like, they still play there and as long as PokerStars is still able to milk money from players, they will do so.

There are other players, such as Gerald Twigge that are taking a different view. He tweeted the following:

So what do you think of the changes? Are you upset or does it really make all that much of a difference to you?

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