PokerStars Rolls Back Rake Change

PokerStars Rolls Back Rake Change

Wednesday, 7 January 2015

A forum post by PokerStars Steve gave the community a reason to smile yesterday after he announced that the site's planned rake increases have been scrapped.

Following a review of the proposed changes, PokerStars has decided to cancel its plans and look for alternative ways to tackle the rising tax levies it faces across regulated markets.

Naturally, the news was met with approval from virtually everyone in the industry, including those that had begun to write off PokerStars following Amaya Gaming's takeover.

Posted on Tuesday, PokerStars Steve's message said:

"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."

One important point to note is that the above conditions will only apply to PokerStars.com and shared liquidity platforms and not for segregated sites in Italy, Spain or France.

Despite calling time on its proposed changes for cash games, MTTs and SNGs, PokerStars is still looking to increase rake charges for Spin & Go tournaments.

Moving forward, as taxation across regulated markets continues to change, PokerStars has stated that it will be looking to "develop the ability to charge different rake/ fees for different players within shared liquidity markets." However, should there be any further changes, the site has explained that nothing will happen until the second half of the year.



Tags: PokerStars