PokerStars Changes to Rake, Spin & Go Prizes, and Battle of the Planets

The regulars at PokerStars have had rough times in the recent months. The introduction of Spin & Go tournaments, the announced changing of the VIP system in 2015 and the departure of the two pros (Gus Hansen and Viktor "Isildur1" Blom) from their sister-site Full Tilt all received negative response from the poker community. But now PokerStars has announced that they are increasing the rake in almost every poker variant they offer, and the players on the forums are furious at Amaya, the company behind PokerStars. Check out all the details below.

PokerStars Steve has made a post on the 2+2 forums detailing all the changes:

Battle of the Planets

The week ending Saturday, November 1st will be the final week of the Battle of the Planets promotion. Prizes will be paid out this week as per normal.

Rake Changes Effective November 3, 2014

Rake will increase for all stakes of heads-up hyper turbo Sit & Go tournaments.

Tournament fees for all forms of knockout tournaments, including both scheduled and Sit & Go tournaments, will now be equivalent to tournament fees charged for similar non-knockout tournaments. This is a change for all forms of knockout tournaments except for progressive super knockout tournaments for which tournament fees will not change.

Hyper-turbo scheduled tournament fees will increase from 2% to approximately half of the fees charged for other scheduled tournaments at same or similar buy-in levels.

The cap for ring game rake for hands dealt at PL/NL games to exactly two players will increase to $2 for stakes $25/$50 and higher and $1 for all other stakes.

The cap for ring game rake for PL/NL games at $25/$50 and higher stakes with 5+ players dealt in will increase from $3 to $5.

Spin & Go rake will be increased at stakes $3 and above. Details are in the table at the end of the post. Note that the ‘Rake’ row in the table refers to the % of prize pool withheld for rake, as is consistent with our current communication on our website and communication of pricing by competitors about similar products.

Rakes Changes Effective January 1, 2015

Hyper-turbo satellite Sit & Go fees will be increased at stakes below $2,000 from 2% to an amount equivalent to roughly 75% of the fees charged for cash prize hyper-turbo Sit & Go tournaments of the same buy-in. A table at the end of this post includes sample fees for a wide range of buy-ins.

New tournament fees will apply in rebuy tournaments for players whose play is subject to significant local taxes in the form of gaming duty and/or VAT. For such players, tournament fees equivalent to those charged for initial buy-ins will be charged for rebuys and add-ons. We will soon provide a full list of sites/countries affected on January 1, but as examples, PokerStars.be, PokerStars.dk, PokerStars.uk, and PokerStars.bg will qualify due to gaming duty and players from Germany will qualify due to VAT.

Spin & Go Prize Changes Effective November 3, 2014

Spin & Go prize distribution will change to offer top prizes of 3000x the buy-in at each pool, increased from 1000x. Full details of the new distributions are available in the table at the bottom of this post.

Details and Examples of Changes:

Sit & Go