Beware of PokerStars

[ocreditor]

We recently received this email from PokerStars:

"Greetings from the PokerStars Partners Team. We are writing to let you know that we noticed that you have not sent any real money players (RMP) in October 2013. As per section 5.5 of our terms and conditions, affiliates are required to deliver a minimum of 1 RMP per month in order to continue to receive revenue share earnings. You may wish to have a look at our program Terms and Conditions page located on our website at: https://www.pokerstarspartners.com/public/about/termsAndConditions.html. To ensure that your account remains open, you are required to send 1 RMP in November. Please let us know if there is anything that we can do to help in your efforts to generate new real money players to prevent any impact to your account."

We've been partners with PokerStars for years, and they have suddenly changed the terms (not in our favor) and threatened to close our account. Our new account with PokerStars is after their merge with Full Tilt Poker. (Brief history - we used to have an affiliate account with Full Tilt Poker until they suddenly stopped their affiliate program. Now that the two have merged, the conditions of our account with PokerStars has suddenly changed.)

It's a strange coincidence that after what happened with Full Tilt Poker, there is now a change in the terms of PokerStars. What happened? This is not the norm and we are not satisfied with this change of terms.

Due to this, we are stuck with a lot of content promoting PokerStars, so it's a shame this is the reward we get as an affiliate for promoting them...

[justbookies]

I gave up on pokerstars a long time ago. Found their affiliate department unbelievably arrogant. Another firm that doesn't really believe in affiliate marketing but does it because everyone else does.
If you have all that text on them and you want to dump them then just turn it negative. Keep the reviews etc so you still have you place in the serps for the poker stars keywords but effectively blacklist them and tell visitors to join a better firm(s) (as suggested to them by you).

[casinovegas]

I too got the same email. Sign ups with them despite hundreds of clicks have been minimal! I'm tempted to push people to other companies........

[Roulette Zeitung]

Hello ocreditor,

since years you can watch tennis legend Boris Becker in German TV promotion spots for Poker Stars.
But things changed. Today if you look at the sit 'n go tables, you will find only a few players from Central, North and Eastern Europe.

Why?

From 10 players 9 are coming from Vietnam, China, Belarus and Russia, always the same players with the same spammy user names.

I asked some poker dealers from our land based casino. They dealing over 20 years live poker and confirm, that the cards are going strange at Poker Stars.

There is no other place you will loose a 80/20 or 70/30 hand so often with more than 4 sigma standard deviations.

There is no competition. Everest sucks, and 888 is closing player accounts if you are winning continuously with the Black Jack side games.

Poker is going down in Germany, slowly but surely.

And now you see, the affiliate program internalize the same charming character.

Leopold

[ocreditor]

Hello ocreditor,

since years you can watch tennis legend Boris Becker in German TV promotion spots for Poker Stars.
But things changed. Today if you look at the sit 'n go tables, you will find only a few players from Central, North and Eastern Europe.

Why?

From 10 players 9 are coming from Vietnam, China, Belarus and Russia, always the same players with the same spammy user names.

I asked some poker dealers from our land based casino. They dealing over 20 years live poker and confirm, that the cards are going strange at Poker Stars.

There is no other place you will loose a 80/20 or 70/30 hand so often with more than 4 sigma standard deviations.

There is no competition. Everest sucks, and 888 is closing player accounts if you are winning continuously with the Black Jack side games.

Poker is going down in Germany, slowly but surely.

And now you see, the affiliate program internalize the same charming character.

Leopold

Wow... I hear you.
I still have a decent volume of poker traffic although the focus is casino, I guess there's no point of "doing" anything with regards to PokerStars partners and focus on promoting other brands. its a shame...

Its the first time I hear about poker player account being closed because he wins BJ side games ?! is this real ?

The best brands I promote and players are generating relatively high revenue are bet365 poker & PokerTime

[JackTenSuited]

Please not another pokerstars is rigged debate, first of they have no reason to rig the site, they generate tonnes of rake anyway, secondly there has never been conclusive proof of such.
People that lose and 80/20s convince themself it's rigged, but you will see in the long run this happens only 20% of the time.
I have friends that play small/medium tournaments on stars for a living, they certainly wouldn't be able to do that if it was 'rigged'

However I agree on the affiliate side of things they are awful, they don't care about afiliates as was proven when they dropped existing full tilt affiliates when they took over.

[ocreditor]

...so I sent an email and this is PokerStars Partners reply... not so friendly after all... I think they want affiliates everyday to start their morning by reading PokerStars T&C with a cup of coffee and get updated with how much money they lost today... why not ?... this standard newspaper is kind of boring anyway...

Big shame!

------------
Hello,

Affiliates use our Marketing Materials to promote our brand and refer players to us, for which we in turn pay affiliates accordingly. One of the essential aspects of this arrangement is that affiliates must bring one new real money sign up per calendar month and unfortunately we cannot make exceptions to this policy.

We understand your concern here but this condition is part of the terms of service. We strongly urge all our affiliates to constantly review these terms and conditions, as failure to comply with them can result in our inability to keep the affiliate account open.

We will keep your account open for this month and look forward to seeing your results.

We appreciate your understanding in this matter.

Regards,

Omar M
PokerStars Partners Team

[Roulette Zeitung]

Its the first time I hear about poker player account being closed because he wins BJ side games ?! is this real ?

Yes, 888poker is doing it!

Quote from 888poker after suspending a German player account:

"you are employing a gaming strategy in order to maximize the return from your game play"

I am talking about a Black Jack side play at 888poker without any bonus!

You see, it's only allowed to play Black Jack at 888poker if you lose.
A smart player will get banned.

Leopold

[Roulette Zeitung]

+++ addendum +++

"play small/medium tournaments on stars for a living"

Nothing against your friends, but if players are playing together, of course this is possible.
In the beginning of Poker it was the phone. Today it's Skype.

The "French Connections" at Everest Poker have shown, why real poker in the internet like at real tables in a land based casino doesn't exist anylonger.

And the past have shown, that most of all poker talk outside the tables is only talking.
I have seen so many people talking in our real casino, that they make their living from poker, and after one year or so they are broken and gone. Not only one, many.

If you look through the statements in the internet, more winners than losers exist, but this is impossible and makes me laugh again and again.

And i am not talking about some bad beats or a few unlucky weeks. Standard deviations math cannot be manipulated, and i am talking about years.

The "rake" argument is no argument. Money greed knows no bounds. If there is a way to make more money, then this way will be followed.

Some "pro's" get busted as criminals or sponsor-feeded one-time-wonders. It's easier to win a tournament if a sponsor is paying your entry fee again and again. It's simple math! Many poker sites are gone because of scams. And more: There exist a German video, that proofs 100%, that the software of 888poker was faulty. I call it "faulty", other people "rigged".

Anybody, who really believes, he will find today a fair play situation in online poker, should sleep longer next day. You only need to look at the Poker Stars 50/50 tables for one hour or two. Look at the usernames and the countries and some other things and you see the pattern.

Yes, with a phone or Skype you have a chance if you are outside these groups. At least two more cards to know is a big advantage.

Leopold

[-Shay-]

I've experienced more collusion in live play than online - although there's no doubt in my mind that collusion online exists.

In terms of rigging software, I do not see any way that doing so benefits the provider. Though, the "super-user" type of account (made famous by Absolute Poker) would be far more effective than "rigging" the software itself.

[Roulette Zeitung]

I do not see any way that doing so benefits the provider.

Rake = Time is money
Action flops = Reduce time

I know personally a WSOP seat bubble boy, cut down by the 1st bubble hand dealed, i repeat: The 1st.
He was holding AA, and the flop shows AKK. The other player goes All-in after the flop ...

... with his two queens.

Turn and river shows the other two queens.

Of course this can happen. But it's always very interesting in which situations things like that happened.
This is only an example.

It's like online Black Jack. If you add some 5s into the virtual decks, -nobody can see it- then it's to the favor of the casino because the dealers stiff hands don't bust so often but the players splits and double ups are more often worse.

Do you believe, a player is looking after 10.000 hands if the dealer bust ratio of 28% was dealt or if it's only 23% or less?

And that from the beginning of online gambling the possibility of cheating exist, is an old story (Look right (Admin Feature) - "Set Casino Payout/Profit")



Source: http://web.archive.org/web/200406220...ur-casino.com/

Leopold

[JackTenSuited]

I've experienced more collusion in live play than online - although there's no doubt in my mind that collusion online exists.

In terms of rigging software, I do not see any way that doing so benefits the provider. Though, the "super-user" type of account (made famous by Absolute Poker) would be far more effective than "rigging" the software itself.

Yep, I'm sure collusion exists in cash games and STTs, almost impossible to do in tournaments as you obviously can't chose your seats.
The superuser case is interesting, what amazes me about that case was people were still prepared to play on Ultimatebet and absolute poker after it was revealed.

[-Shay-]

Rake = Time is money
Action flops = Reduce time

I know personally a WSOP seat bubble boy, cut down by the 1st bubble hand dealed, i repeat: The 1st.
He was holding AA, and the flop shows AKK. The other player goes All-in after the flop ...

... with his two queens.

Turn and river shows the other two queens.

Of course this can happen. But it's always very interesting in which situations things like that happened.
This is only an example.

It's like online Black Jack. If you add some 5s into the virtual decks, -nobody can see it- then it's to the favor of the casino because the dealers stiff hands don't bust so often but the players splits and double ups are more often worse.

Do you believe, a player is looking after 10.000 hands if the dealer bust ratio of 28% was dealt or if it's only 23% or less?

And that from the beginning of online gambling the possibility of cheating exist, is an old story (Look right (Admin Feature) - "Set Casino Payout/Profit")



Source: http://web.archive.org/web/200406220...ur-casino.com/

Leopold

I agree in theory that keeping players playing longer translates to increased rake. I do not understand "how" such things could be decided in poker.

In casino (like the picture is for), I "get it" - but not in poker. How do you decide who to "protect" , when to "protect" them, and how to "protect" them as opposed to "bad beating" them? I feel like there's too many variables to do this without being caught and that simply dealing fair cards would accomplish the same results.

[Roulette Zeitung]

If a software is creating more action flops, and believe me, this is very easy, then it does not matter who it affects.
If you are sitting on the "unlucky" seat...

And for the other things...
Player flags because of e.g. deposit pattern...
Then adapt some "special" Roulette airball machine software...

Furhtermore, I don't want to know, how much Ghosts are playing online in Limit Holdem.

It's easier then you think.

Online (!!!) Poker is not the "better" game although many players believe.

If you play real skill poker like Stud or Omaha, maybe then you have a chance for a decade or longer.

Leopold

[Nick.RevenueJet]

If a software is creating more action flops, and believe me, this is very easy, then it does not matter who it affects.
If you are sitting on the "unlucky" seat...

And for the other things...
Player flags because of e.g. deposit pattern...
Then adapt some "special" Roulette airball machine software...

Furhtermore, I don't want to know, how much Ghosts are playing online in Limit Holdem.

It's easier then you think.

Online (!!!) Poker is not the "better" game although many players believe.

If you play real skill poker like Stud or Omaha, maybe then you have a chance for a decade or longer.

Leopold

@Leopold: your claims that Pokerstars and/or online poker is rigged are just plain false. At any given moment there are tens of thousands of poker-tracking software clients recording every single hand, every single flop, turn and river cards dealt. Any one player being abused by a rigged system would float in those systems very quickly.

I specifically remember one player of mine (talking about 3-4 years ago) complaining about the Microgaming having too many "paired flops". I asked MGS to export his entire hand history in a CSV format, and compared the expected "paired flop" scenario to what the player experienced as "too many".
The expected percent was 16.7% and the actual result was 16.54% (from a DB of 15k hands).
And this is coming from Microgaming Poker, which, at the time at least, was one of the least trusted poker networks in the industry...

What I'm saying is - people may cheat (collusion, poker bots), but the software itself is 100% secure.

P.S.
In Texas Holdem, even if you get half of a 6-max table to collude (show their cards to each other) will not divert the result at a dramatic way.

[-Shay-]

If a software is creating more action flops, and believe me, this is very easy, then it does not matter who it affects.
If you are sitting on the "unlucky" seat...

And for the other things...
Player flags because of e.g. deposit pattern...
Then adapt some "special" Roulette airball machine software...

Furhtermore, I don't want to know, how much Ghosts are playing online in Limit Holdem.

It's easier then you think.

Online (!!!) Poker is not the "better" game although many players believe.

If you play real skill poker like Stud or Omaha, maybe then you have a chance for a decade or longer.

Leopold

"Action flops" created on purpose would kill a game sooner, as you'd have players firing into a pot thinking they have the best hand. The rake would max and stacks would change hands. If stacks change hands in this nature from an "unlucky seat" to a "lucky seat", you'd see money flowing from unlucky to lucky and the "fish" would be starved. That's not an ideal business model for a poker software company or anyone they licence the software to.

If you were rigging a game to maximise rake, you'd be better off dealing hands that would generate some preflop action and then kill action on the flop so that you get more hands dealt.

Give this article a read, as it discusses in a bit more detail the ideas you've presented and looks at them with a critical eye.

[Nick.RevenueJet]

Just to continue -
I've worked on the operator side between mid-2006 and late 2011, dealing personally with bracelet winning VIPs, micro-stake grinders and mid-level pros. Most of my players were winning players, and as a small poker operator we didn't have any "green buttons" to help our players - they just don't exist. All have worked with poker tracking software such as PT or HM. It is impossible to generate "action flops" without exposing it to the ultra-cooperative poker community.
Again, I heard many complaints about the software, and always went out of my way to make sure the software was legit - and never found anything wrong.

[Planet Mark]

This always feels like one of those 'prove a negative' type arguments to me (this is logically impossible of course).

Literally billions of PT tracked hands, billions more via the player tracking services too... Yet some vaguely plausible ideas about motives and 'my mate is an expert and agrees that X' type arguments are good enough?

Not for me! (that has not saved a coffee cup or two when the river brings that 3-out miracle to bust me mind...).

[Roulette Zeitung]

Words sometimes are only words.

There exist an irrefutable video proof, that online poker is faulty or rigged!

===> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttTW4yY0YQo


Multi-Table tournament
70.246 chips after folding 7-5.
Tournament break.
During the break...
3 tables left.
The other players at his table disappered...
One after the other.
At the end the German player was alone at the table.
His table was closed in the break.
2 tables left.
And his stack?
Was bigger and bigger...
Without playing!
Surprise, surprise!
At he end of the break his stack was 175.222!
And he was able for play after the break with a manipulated wrong stack size!

---

He was cheated to his favor!
And it's irrefutable proven with this video.

If they can manipulate this, and it's proven they did, then they can manipulate all other things and not only at 888poker and not only to his favor.

The player was able to play after the break with a manipulated wrong stack size, manipulated from the poker side! It's irrefutable video proven and not only words!


The problem of online poker?
That which must not, can not be.

Leopold

[Nick.RevenueJet]

What you describe is not rigged poker, but just a bug.
I've seen in my life a super-rare Microgaming bug in which the turn and the river were both the same card - or so it appeared, as it was a display error, and not a algorithm error.