De grootste online pokerroom ter wereld PokerStars begint het nieuwe jaar methet terugdraaien van de begin november doorgevoerde rakeverhogingen. Na veelkritiek, maakte ‘PokerStars Steve’ op 2+2 bekend dat er een streep gaat door demaatregelen: ‘All rake increases announced in October, exceptfor Spin & Go changes, are cancelled effective immediately’.
Op 30 oktober publiceerden wij een groot artikel, waarin stond dat PokerStarsrakverhogingen ging doorvoeren. De hele pokertop viel over PokerStars heen,Mike McDonald voorop. Alle argumenten zijn kennelijk aangekomen bij PokerStars,want de pokergigant krabbelt nu terug. De vraag is of er blijvende imagoschadeis opgelopen, maar in ieder geval is het blazoen weer wat opgepoetst.
De rakeverhogingen golden voor veel sit ’n go’s, knockout toernooien encashgames (vooral bij heads up en highstakes). Dit wordt dus allemaalteruggedraaid naar het oude niveau van voor 3 november vorig jaar, behalve bijde Spin & Go’s.
Als het goede voornemen van PokerStars is haar klantentevreden te houden, dan zijn ze 2015 in ieder geval goed begonnen. Hieronder decomplete verklaring van ‘PokerStars Steve’:
In Brief
- All rake increases announced in October, except for Spin & Go changes, are cancelled effective immediately.
- VPP multipliers will be reduced within the next few months for players in several additional countries where VAT and/or Gaming Duty are payable. These players will be informed directly in the coming days.
- At some point in the future, we may deploy rake surcharges for countries that charge gaming duty or VAT. We will not do so before July 2015 at the earliest, and we will maintain our policy of passing on no more than half the tax to players and absorbing the rest ourselves.
- Other than this, we will not implement rake increases in 2015.
- The above apply to PokerStars.com and shared liquidity, not for our segregated sites in Italy, Spain, or France
Rake Change Rollback
We announced several rake changes on October 29th, 2014. The changes to Spin & Go rake will remain as implemented on November3rd, 2014. All other rake changes announced in October, including those not yetimplemented, are cancelled. As many of you have noticed, the rake rollback hasalready been fully deployed.
We will not implement any additional increasedrake in 2015 other than possibly in jurisdictions where we experience gamingduty or VAT as described below.
VPP Multipliers for Taxed Countries
Within a few months we will reduce the VPPmultipliers for some countries that are subject to gaming duty or VAT but thatdo not have their own software clients. We will deploy the change as soon as weare technically able, likely within the next two months.
These changes will be enacted consistent withour previously communicated policy of sharing up to 50% of taxation withplayers. VPP multiplier reductions have already been implemented previously inother taxed markets including Denmark and Belgium.
Adjusting Rake and Rewards due to Taxation
For our segregated markets of Spain, Italy,and France we use varied combinations of higher rake and lower rewards as weaim to pass on half of the tax cost to players. For shared liquidity we havethus far only adjusted for tax increases by lowering rewards. The primaryreason is the technical challenge in charging different rake or fees fordifferent participants in the same game. As a result, to date we have passed onsubstantially less than half of the tax.
Reducing rewards by 10%, for example, does notcover half of a 20% tax. Tax is generally calculated based on rake/feesgenerated, not rewards. Consider a case where a player pays $10 in rake andearns $3 in rewards. If we are taxed 20% of revenue, that is $2. If we passhalf on to players, that is $1. In order to reduce rewards by $1 out of $3, wewould have to reduce rewards by 33%, all to pass on half of a 20% tax. Thesenumbers are just examples to make a point, not figures from any particularmarket.
More and more countries are introducing taxation,increasing the impact on our business. As a result, we plan to develop theability to charge different rake/fees for different players within sharedliquidity.
Rake increases will be paired with theexisting VIP Reward reductions, so significantly less than half of the tax willbe passed on through rake increases. As an example, a player in a country with20% tax would expect a rake surcharge of significantly less than 10%.
We may not implement such charges this year,but if we do it will be in the second half of the year.
Closing
As always, we would like to thank those whohave taken the time to share their views with us here on the forums andelsewhere. We do regularly read and discuss the perspectives shared here. Your input is valuableand important.
