What do you think about PokerStars decision to end its freerolls?

[yuriko oyama]

I believe that everything is done out of necessity, the PS at this moment no longer sees it as useful to continue with the freerolls.
the site has already reached a demand where it no longer needs this model.

 

[fundiver199]

I am not playing there in few years, there are 0 freerolls on PokerStars?

There are zero affiliate games but still other kinds of freerolls.

 

[fundiver199]

and none of them were available to the general public without needing to earn your way into them.

Exactly. Having freerolls as part of a reward program can make sense. But rewarding people for signing up to an affiliate site or finding leaked passwords on the internet makes a lot less sense for the poker site. So if anything one has to wonder, why this was allowed to continue for so many years

 

[Comboss599]

I've been usually playing freerolls because poker is fun and hobby to me but i still play some cash game however i think PS lost many players because of this decision.

 

[iwont20]

Not true. They recently held freerolls giving away Sunday Million tickets during the EPT Paris event and on Sharkscope I see people, who play a lot of hyperturbo freeroll satellites. So what they abondoned were only affiliate games, as Debi informed us about on 26. january 2024:

Yes, they have satellite-like freerolls, but it's not freerolls for affiliates, nor it's rewards for active players. It's just satellites.

I dont know what the majority does, but we have seen posts from people complaining, how they faced problems withdrawing their freeroll winnings from whatever site. So for sure this behaviour does occur.

Well, I'm not talking about the affiliates freerolls specifically, I honestly don't care about them. I'm rather talking about the gradual decision of PS to get rid of freerolls of all kinds throughout recent years and abandoning them altogether in the end. Add to this their other regular decisions like always declining rakeback and promotions, and then yes, I stand by my first sentence to you in this thread.

Apparently their decision is, that all freerolls must reward tickets. Which in my opinion makes sense, because in that way the regular games are propped up, and the money has to be turned over at least once, before it can be withdrawn. Also a promotion as the one outlined by Debi below would reward people, who actually play and pay rake instead of randomly giving away money to someone, who found a leaked password on the internet

I meant tournament dollars, not tickets, the big GG freerolls award in C$, which would promote people to play further on the site (they have no choice). PS considered the option of awarding in tickets, but then got rid of all freerolls in the end.

But there is still no such promo to my knowledge.

Some forum members have had "challenge" threads about, how they build a $500 "bankroll" solely from freerolls. I agree, this makes little sense, but it does happen.

I didn't see such threads, I saw people playing other stuff too to achieve it, but maybe I'm wrong. Either way it's not a majority of players, and it's ridiculous to say that this small amount of players are shrinking PS revenues so bad, that's PS decided to cut freerolls altogether.

I guess, we will just have to wait for the terrible poker room PokerStars to disappear then. So far though I dont notice any decline in either SnGs or MTTs, since the affiliate freerolls were taken down at the end of 2023. So it seems to be a rather slow process

that's funny, but no need to exaggerate, please, to such extent I wrote above why I replied to you initially.
of course it's a slow process, but their aim to focus on revenues and not players of any level has resulted in the lower volume of play and lower guarantees, and they are not the #1 room anymore, which was unimaginable at some not that recent point.

 

[iwont20]

I thoroughly disagree with this ^ AND I'd suggest that most pros (even low stakes regs.) NEVER played freerolls except perhaps some that were VIP rakeback type ones.
When I began playing online poker (2007) I began with a deposit on all sites I wanted to play on except for 888Poker in 2008 when I won $280 for 3rd place in a special Cardschat freeroll. Back then there were many fantastic freerolls available for things like raking a few hands but these were games that had an equivalent of a $10 buyin (ie. $10,000 freeroll with 1,000 entrants) and none of them were available to the general public without needing to earn your way into them.

Well, yes, everyone knows that fields got a lot tougher as years went by. And majority of newcomers would lose their deposits again and again now, opposite to what would be happening to them in 2005-2011.

Plus you confirmed my points twice, actually. That freerolls attract players. And help maintain players (=to keep customers), who made deposits, played, lost (=95%, eh?) and still can remain on the site, not just quit.

 

[ga25x]

Very very bad

 

[iwont20]

I believe the majority of the CC members probably were. It was easy enough to see... just run their name through a game tracking site and you'll see that they ONLY play freerolls... so unless they are cash table players (also very doubtful) I'd suggest they are (were) all withdrawing those Freeroll $'s

But who are those invited players? Someone who paid a lot of rake, or someone who signed up for an internet forum or found a leaked password on the internet?

Plus every time someone ask advice about building up a bankroll, they get numerous answers recommending them to not deposit and only play freerolls. If a poker site representative read those posts, I honestly dont know, why they would still want to offer freerolls....

But I'm not talking about CC freerolls only!! Why do you assume I'm talking about the Cardschat freerolls? I'm talking about all freerolls, about the idea that "freerolls cut PS's revenues, so they got rid of them". No one stopped PS from doing any promos or similar freerolls rewarding active players. But they cut them first (freerolls awarding current active players ), they cut promos regularly, now they cut all freerolls, it's a final step, and to say it's all justified is silly for me. You got to focus on your customers, not on maximizing your revenues here and now, to be a long-lived business.

 

[Pokerpoet2]

I feel the reason for pokerstars reducing their Freerolls is because of the declining popularity of On-line Poker, It hit its peak because of the Lockdowns and now the casinos are open again, It has to be in decline. I heard recently partypoker.com are up for sale probably for the same reason.
Poker will always be a volatile Market and another reason for it's decline is the Current Inflation rates, People just don't have the same kind of money to play with, Especially with high Mortgage rates, Food prices, Rent etc etc.
I was recently invited to a birthday party, held in a Town just 9 miles away and being the only driver I had to stay on soft drinks so I could drive there and back, Taxi Fares were just too expensive at £20 each way, I used to be a taxi driver and only got that kind of money after Midnight, and off the Rank, the firm I worked for charged £10 before midnight and £15 after So the fares are now double.
In effect I am still in Lockdown because I don't want to pay out that kind of money for a booze up!

 

[bablovod]

as far as I remember, poker stars has always had few freerolls: draws:

 

[antonis32123]

Yeah . They removed freerolls , yet they have a tone of freebuy sats in their lobby , which gives away everyday thousands of dollars seats .

So I try to figure out what was on their mind when they decided to stop freerolls . They could continue them but award $T instead of cash ..... Or reward 0.55$ , 1.10$ , 5.50$ or 11$ tickets .... They shouldn't have stopped them .

 

[Kinalha]

After many years, stars put the bets and the slots over the poker. Now they try to recover some ppl with the new rakeback promotion... so the freerolls for the room (i think) it's waste of time and money, their focus it's not in players who don't put money in the site (probably the most part of freeroll players) on my vision, it's better to offer some promotions or any thing like that for players with low cost, than any cost. IMO

 

[Dimidrol2]

This is their decision and we users will not understand them, I just stopped going there every day.

 

[Poker Orifice]

Well, yes, everyone knows that fields got a lot tougher as years went by.

Plus you confirmed my points twice, actually. That freerolls attract players. And help maintain players (=to keep customers), who made deposits, played, lost (=95%, eh?) and still can remain on the site, not just quit.

You seem to have misinterpreted my comment(s).
I didn't mention anything about the playing fields being tougher or softer. I mentioned that they had lucrative 'bonus' freerolls that were earned based on rakeback, or deposit/sign-up bonus freeroll (ie. the CC one on 888 back in 2008)

The freerolls attracted 'depositing' players & players who put in some volume (contributed rake). Nothing to do with those who played & lost.

 

[ToNy70929]

I remember the good old poker room Pokerstars, thanks to which my love for poker appeared. What a choice of games there was, everything was simple. With the arrival and change of owners, the elementary greed of the new owners will play a cruel joke on them.

 

[fundiver199]

I remember the good old poker room Pokerstars, thanks to which my love for poker appeared. What a choice of games there was, everything was simple. With the arrival and change of owners, the elementary greed of the new owners will play a cruel joke on them.

The change of ownership was like 10 years ago, so time to get over it and move on. The 1960`s are also not coming back

 

[Gallarado777]

Of course this is not right for us, but they decided to do it in favor of their poker site because many players just played free tournaments won money and are leaving poker sites want them to spend this money online, of course, will not fall to the poker site, but still, many players will play a little less than before

 

[valanddon]

Poker stars is a joke!!! The bad beats are more common then any other site. They are going to lose new people sign up
if there is no freerolls to test how the site works. You will see more people moving to other sites.

 

[john_entony]

Do you believe this was the right decision?

Or do you believe that the PS will start to lose its users.

Express your opinion here.

This PokerStars solution helped me rediscover a poker room I had forgotten about - 888. I haven't played there for more than 2 years, because I failed to pass the verification once. But I was patient and passed it successfully now, after which I got all the answers to my deposit and withdrawal questions, and I discovered a lot of great tournaments at 888, which are much more profitable than at PokerStars. So I'm thankful PokerStars canceled their freerolls and tightened up their loyalty program, otherwise I would never go back to play at 888.

 

[fundiver199]

Poker stars is a joke!!! The bad beats are more common then any other site.

Really? Do you have any sort of evidence to back up this claim? Its the same as saying, that burgers from McDonalds are not made with beef but with meat from cats, dogs, horses and rats. You probably dont want to say that publicly without having some sort of evidence, since you could risk ending up in a slander lawsuit. Also may I recommend this thread, if you want to share more conspiracy theories about "rigged" poker sites:

https://www.cardschat.com/forum/bad-beats-and-vents-71/rigged-megathread-all-rigged-roads-lead-297777/

 

[Igor G]

Do you believe this was the right decision?

Or do you believe that the PS will start to lose its users.

Express your opinion here.

Of course, most of our community members will say that this decision was wrong. But probably if you asked this question to the management of PokerStars, they would answer you that it was a correct and considered decision. Who is right in such situations is a relative question, depending on where you are and who you are

 

[Poker Orifice]

Poker stars is a joke!!! The bad beats are more common then any other site. They are going to lose new people sign up
if there is no freerolls to test how the site works. You will see more people moving to other sites.

THey do need to 'tighten up' the RNG a bit. I'm sure that'd help grow their customer base.

 

[R.Melnyk77]

I only got platinum level in September 2023. In fact, I only played these freerolls for two or three months.
This is clearly a wrong decision that will lead to bad consequences. I even think that most likely PokerStars will go bankrupt....... without our community, this site has very little chance to survive in the conditions of fierce market competition

 

[fundiver199]

I only got platinum level in September 2023. In fact, I only played these freerolls for two or three months.
This is clearly a wrong decision that will lead to bad consequences. I even think that most likely PokerStars will go bankrupt....... without our community, this site has very little chance to survive in the conditions of fierce market competition

Yeah no way they can survive without VIP customers like this forum member, who play for an average of $0,11 with the majority of his 4.606 games being freerolls. Pretty typical stats for the people, who most commonly played the CC freerolls

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[Andyreas]

Of course this is a discussion forum and everyone is open to post a question or answer as he wishes to.

But just for the sake of perspective:
Asking about the view of freerolls being removed in a poker community that largely consists of freerollers will not really give a representative view of the overall poker community.

It's the same as asking about meat consumption in a vegan forum. The answer is already predetermined by the audience. ☺️

From my personal view:
The freerolls definitely helped me build my bankroll in the beginning and I'm grateful for that but once I started growing it (and not withdrawing), I didn't see the need to play for 2-3 hours to win a $1.

So while I'm sad to see them go, I can imagine the intention of Pokerstars to find better ways to invest their budget in.