AmayaStars

[tikay]

I think it's something like $3k in a day and maybe $10k in a month.  It might vary from player to player and you might be able to get them to increase limits for you should your account be appropriate.  I imagine the limits were put in place to stop it being possible for anyone to fx trade for meaningful amounts cost-free  (remember the Scandi tickle on Ladbrokes??)

I recall Camel blogging about that!

[Karabiner]

I think it's something like $3k in a day and maybe $10k in a month.  It might vary from player to player and you might be able to get them to increase limits for you should your account be appropriate.  I imagine the limits were put in place to stop it being possible for anyone to fx trade for meaningful amounts cost-free  (remember the Scandi tickle on Ladbrokes??)

I recall Camel blogging about that!

I remember telling you about the loophole ages before it came to light.

[Simon Galloway]

I think it's something like $3k in a day and maybe $10k in a month.  It might vary from player to player and you might be able to get them to increase limits for you should your account be appropriate.  I imagine the limits were put in place to stop it being possible for anyone to fx trade for meaningful amounts cost-free  (remember the Scandi tickle on Ladbrokes??)

I recall Camel blogging about that!

No-one's memory can be THAT good....

[tikay]

I think it's something like $3k in a day and maybe $10k in a month.  It might vary from player to player and you might be able to get them to increase limits for you should your account be appropriate.  I imagine the limits were put in place to stop it being possible for anyone to fx trade for meaningful amounts cost-free  (remember the Scandi tickle on Ladbrokes??)

I recall Camel blogging about that!

No-one's memory can be THAT good....

I can't remember what I had for tea last night, & I plum forgot Jeff Duval's name on Wednesday, but I remember every Blog Camel ever wrote. Same with The Poker Bastard, too.

[Simon Galloway]

Poor old Keith.  Barely a mention of his blog nowadays that doesn't include "poker bastard" in an adjacent sentence.

[The Camel]

Poor old Keith.  Barely a mention of his blog nowadays that doesn't include "poker bastard" in an adjacent sentence.

I have no idea why people think I was the PB.

Back in the day he was writing I had no hesistation slagging people off under my own name, so why would I hide under a pseudonym to slag off others?

If it was today, maybe I would be a little more discreet. But it's not and for the final time I was not and never have been the Poker Bastard.

[DMorgan]

People depositing and withdrawing using Skrill have been doing this for ages anyway

Sucks for players in non USD/EUR/GPB/CAD countries though, their piece of the pie just got a little bit smaller. Who knows whats coming next


....................../´¯/)
....................,/¯../
.................../..../
............./´¯/'...'/´¯¯`·¸
........../'/.../..../......./¨¯\
........('(...´...´.... ¯~/'...')
.........\.................'...../
..........''...\.......... _.·´
............\..............(
..............\.............\...

It is disappointing though that they want to talk about all of the advantages that spin n go's etc are bringing in terms of getting new depositing players on one hand, but now they want to charge on fee on deposits from countries that don't use the above currencies

Suggestions on 2p2 that this may be a money grab from russian players making their final withdrawl before stars cuts them loose to satisfy US and European regulators. Plausible of course but would create a lot of bad blood in terms of any future return? Probably not enough to make Amaya think twice about it though

[bergeroo]

I used to feel a brand loyalty to Stars, but now it has pretty much gone.

Think about this. Bringing the currency conversion charges in just one week before hundreds/thousands or UK players are forced to withdraw their entire balances from Stars.fr.

The only way to withdraw from .fr is by direct bank transfer. As far as I am aware, although I will double check this next week. Even if you have a euro account with a UK bank, you have no choice but to convert the money to your domestic currency when you withdraw. So therefore, as you can only have a .fr account in euros, fitting in with these new currency charges, you have no choice but to take a 2-2.5% hit on the currency exchange, and I don't see any way around it. So in one swoop Stars have taken 2-2.5% of all balances of UK based Stars.fr players.

I'd like to believe that it is a coincidence that this has come in one week before Uk players are banned from Stars.fr, but I really don't. I'd also like to believe that they might do some kind of exemption or work around for the British .fr player, but I don't think they will. Reminds me strongly of the scummy way that Party brought in 3% charges for most withdrawal methods.

So many moves by Stars lately to squeeze extra money from players or cut costs.
- Heavy promotion of casino games on Full Tilt
- Heavy promotion/introduction or rake heavy tournaments like re-entry, progressive super KO, deep hyper turbos, deadline satellites
- Removal of WCOOP main event ticket reward for Supernova elites
- Cutting rewards programme of UK players


In the past Stars did a really good job of making players forget/ignore that they are making shedloads of money from us. But right now I'm feeling they are squeezing every last drop from me so I am acutely aware.

It is a pity that every other site constantly shoots itself in the foot and is pretty useless. The only one who in my mind provided consistently good software/service was Winamax, but I can't play there any more,.

[The Camel]

I used to feel a brand loyalty to Stars, but now it has pretty much gone.

Think about this. Bringing the currency conversion charges in just one week before hundreds/thousands or UK players are forced to withdraw their entire balances from Stars.fr.

The only way to withdraw from .fr is by direct bank transfer. As far as I am aware, although I will double check this next week. Even if you have a euro account with a UK bank, you have no choice but to convert the money to your domestic currency when you withdraw. So therefore, as you can only have a .fr account in euros, fitting in with these new currency charges, you have no choice but to take a 2-2.5% hit on the currency exchange, and I don't see any way around it. So in one swoop Stars have taken 2-2.5% of all balances of UK based Stars.fr players.

I'd like to believe that it is a coincidence that this has come in one week before Uk players are banned from Stars.fr, but I really don't. I'd also like to believe that they might do some kind of exemption or work around for the British .fr player, but I don't think they will. Reminds me strongly of the scummy way that Party brought in 3% charges for most withdrawal methods.

So many moves by Stars lately to squeeze extra money from players or cut costs.
- Heavy promotion of casino games on Full Tilt
- Heavy promotion/introduction or rake heavy tournaments like re-entry, progressive super KO, deep hyper turbos, deadline satellites
- Removal of WCOOP main event ticket reward for Supernova elites
- Cutting rewards programme of UK players


In the past Stars did a really good job of making players forget/ignore that they are making shedloads of money from us. But right now I'm feeling they are squeezing every last drop from me so I am acutely aware.

It is a pity that every other site constantly shoots itself in the foot and is pretty useless. The only one who in my mind provided consistently good software/service was Winamax, but I can't play there any more,.

This is very well put.

[redarmi]

Amayas purchase of Stars reminds me a bit of the Glazers purchase of Man United.  Basically they have loaded themselves with debt to pay for the purchase and now they are going to pass that on to the punter to pay for them in every conceivable way.

[bergeroo]

Amayas purchase of Stars reminds me a bit of the Glazers purchase of Man United.  Basically they have loaded themselves with debt to pay for the purchase and now they are going to pass that on to the punter to pay for them in every conceivable way.

I'm not a financial expert, but I think the leveraged buy out method they used was similar, so I thought of this too when it happened. Of course my first response was "wait.... OnGame bought Pokerstars...??"

[AlunB]

I used to feel a brand loyalty to Stars, but now it has pretty much gone.

Think about this. Bringing the currency conversion charges in just one week before hundreds/thousands or UK players are forced to withdraw their entire balances from Stars.fr.

The only way to withdraw from .fr is by direct bank transfer. As far as I am aware, although I will double check this next week. Even if you have a euro account with a UK bank, you have no choice but to convert the money to your domestic currency when you withdraw. So therefore, as you can only have a .fr account in euros, fitting in with these new currency charges, you have no choice but to take a 2-2.5% hit on the currency exchange, and I don't see any way around it. So in one swoop Stars have taken 2-2.5% of all balances of UK based Stars.fr players.

I'd like to believe that it is a coincidence that this has come in one week before Uk players are banned from Stars.fr, but I really don't. I'd also like to believe that they might do some kind of exemption or work around for the British .fr player, but I don't think they will. Reminds me strongly of the scummy way that Party brought in 3% charges for most withdrawal methods.

So many moves by Stars lately to squeeze extra money from players or cut costs.
- Heavy promotion of casino games on Full Tilt
- Heavy promotion/introduction or rake heavy tournaments like re-entry, progressive super KO, deep hyper turbos, deadline satellites
- Removal of WCOOP main event ticket reward for Supernova elites
- Cutting rewards programme of UK players


In the past Stars did a really good job of making players forget/ignore that they are making shedloads of money from us. But right now I'm feeling they are squeezing every last drop from me so I am acutely aware.

It is a pity that every other site constantly shoots itself in the foot and is pretty useless. The only one who in my mind provided consistently good software/service was Winamax, but I can't play there any more,.

This is very well put.

Seconded. I get the feeling it will be a really interesting twelve months for them, especially when they launch casino.

[dreenie]

I haven't given this too much thought, but at first glance, I don't see a big problem for UK players?  Sure, if you live in Poland (or any country for that matter that doesn't have CAD$/US$/GBP/EUR) then it's going to be an issue for those players.. and maybe there is a knock-on effect when that slice gets removed from the ecosystem.  But historically, providing fx is not free so Stars have been wearing the financial cost of such deposits/withdrawals.

Back in UK-land, it looks like it can be avoided by poker players learning to be more careful when moving money across currency boundaries.  AFAICS, you deposit in GBP, your Stars cashier gets credited 100% of that GBP.  You can then subsequently move that to USD to play games, profit, move back to GBP within the Stars client and withdraw, with no "line loss" whatsoever?

The only Uk players to suffer would be the ones who clumsily go to their USD cashier page and withdraw money to their GBP bank directly.  In which case, they deserve what they get.

If I have misunderstood it, grateful if someone can put me right, ty!

That's a big enough reason to drop them out if any. All well and good for the professional type player who knows all the angles of how to do this stuff but what about the thousand upon thousands of average joes rocking up on a Friday night depositing 200 quid after the pub?

They get hit 2.5% on every deposit which goes to stars pockets which in turn takes it out the economy. So for all the pros saying it's no problem I think it's completely the opposite as those players are their bread and butter, so the moment average joe loses money before he even played 1 hand then the pros/regs lose longterm.

And to say it doesn't effect the UK so it's ok is quite a bold statement. Do you think the same about the war ? That attitude will never unite anyone imho and although this is completely different it is something everyone on this forum and our Community is passionate about so I think it's good if the majority were voting with their feet not just their voice.

[dreenie]

I used to feel a brand loyalty to Stars, but now it has pretty much gone.

Think about this. Bringing the currency conversion charges in just one week before hundreds/thousands or UK players are forced to withdraw their entire balances from Stars.fr.

The only way to withdraw from .fr is by direct bank transfer. As far as I am aware, although I will double check this next week. Even if you have a euro account with a UK bank, you have no choice but to convert the money to your domestic currency when you withdraw. So therefore, as you can only have a .fr account in euros, fitting in with these new currency charges, you have no choice but to take a 2-2.5% hit on the currency exchange, and I don't see any way around it. So in one swoop Stars have taken 2-2.5% of all balances of UK based Stars.fr players.

I'd like to believe that it is a coincidence that this has come in one week before Uk players are banned from Stars.fr, but I really don't. I'd also like to believe that they might do some kind of exemption or work around for the British .fr player, but I don't think they will. Reminds me strongly of the scummy way that Party brought in 3% charges for most withdrawal methods.

So many moves by Stars lately to squeeze extra money from players or cut costs.
- Heavy promotion of casino games on Full Tilt
- Heavy promotion/introduction or rake heavy tournaments like re-entry, progressive super KO, deep hyper turbos, deadline satellites
- Removal of WCOOP main event ticket reward for Supernova elites
- Cutting rewards programme of UK players


In the past Stars did a really good job of making players forget/ignore that they are making shedloads of money from us. But right now I'm feeling they are squeezing every last drop from me so I am acutely aware.

It is a pity that every other site constantly shoots itself in the foot and is pretty useless. The only one who in my mind provided consistently good software/service was Winamax, but I can't play there any more,.

Great post

[bergeroo]

The sad thing is that most people really can't vote with their feet as there really isn't many viable other places to play at least for MTTs. I've dropped some stars tournies to be replaced by ipoker, but for example
the 888 client has been unusable this week due to crashes,
microgaming has very few tournaments of any size and also a shady past, ditto for ongame.
Party has awful software, also hidden fees, although the rake is often less.
ipoker has pretty bad glitchy software
Full Tilt is very reg heavy and also owned by Stars anyway
I like Winamax but this is our last week there
I like sky too but they don't let me play there when I am not in the UK, plus their tournies are generally not that big fields and also always 6 max and a lot of heavily raked bounty tournaments.
There are other tiny sites such as Unibet, but I don't really see any traffic at all.
PKR is pretty tough to multitable

That is literally all the choice now. Pokerstars have destroyed the market and most independent sites have joined ipoker.

Surely even the 'average Joe' knows you lose money by exchanging currencies. If they don't, maybe they should learn? Knowing everyday things like that have nothing to do with poker ability imo