PokerStars Half Price buyins for their main Sunday Tournaments is the poker news sweeping round the poker world! Sunday 17th June PokerStars have reduced the buyins for the Sunday Kickoff, Sunday Warm-Up, Sunday Storm, Sunday Million and Women’s Sunday by 50% while keeping the guarantees at the standard amount.
Are these just fantastic PokerStars promotions or are they a Goodwill or apology promotion by PokerStars for their Tournament players due to recent events?
PokerStars Half Price Tournaments
$100,000 guaranteed Sunday Kickoff (08:00 ET) Buyin $54.50
$500,000 guaranteed Sunday Warm-Up (11:00 ET) Buyin $107.50
$300,000 guaranteed Sunday Storm (13:30 ET) Buyin $5.50
$1,000,000 guaranteed Sunday Million (14:30 ET) Buyin $107.50
$10,000 guaranteed Women’s Sunday (14:30 ET) Buyin $27.50
Regular Sunday Major tournament tickets cannot be redeemed for entry into the Half Price Sunday events. There will be limited support for splitting existing ticket values of $11, $109 & $215.
Good to see that PokerStars are still catering for all their USA players and US market by showing the start times for their Half Price Sunday Tournaments in American time! So useful and helpful for their minority European players.
Or should the DOJ be checking out PokerStars allowing players from the US using VPN’s (Virtual Private Network) like Tunnel Bear? And perhaps bumping up the amount of bribe money (fine) PokerStars will have to pay to be allowed to apply for a US online poker licence when the US market is regulated?
PokerStars #Apology Promotion?
Are these Half Price buy-in tournaments a sort of apology by PokerStars for the recent – same day as the 50% reduction buy in promotion was released – technical tournament issues they had? Normally poker networks run added money or freeroll promotions. In the case of Ongame’s disastrous migration to Gibraltar they allowed their skins to offer players an apology reload bonus for their players .
Have PokerStars again showed they are not just one step but perhaps a whole hop, skip and a jump ahead of the rest of the poker industry with this latest apology promotion? Instead of giving freeloading scum the chance to get free money they do not deserve PokerStars will be doing targeted reinvestment into their own money poker tournament ecology. Where due to PokerStars payout structure the money will keep churning over and over and they will get a bigger percentage of it than other sites with less flat payouts would.
Did PokerStars have a meeting that planned ahead for such technical issues and had a list of apology promotions to instantly spin out? Depending on the severity of the issue and apology needed they could pick the appropriate apology promotion?
PokerStars VALUE VALUE VALUE
What ever the reasons for the 50% off the normal buyins for the PokerStars Sunday Tournaments it gives immense VALUE VALUE VALUE to all its players and should see massive numbers of runners. That PokerStars will also be able to positively promote.
Random US speculation is random. Canada is a place, too. Get a map.
The promotion isn’t an apology or anything, it’s just an advertising gimmick. The guarantees will still be met, this will cost Pokerstars exactly $0.
PokerStars are not US facing, Europe is its main market, its servers are based in Europe and its head quarters are in the Isle Of Man. With respect to Canada and the rest of the Americas we doubt they are PokerStars largest market or its core market.
Your point that the guarantees will be met is a very good point and is one that we considered and is very likely true but there has to be some sort of potential risk involved, even if it is only in theory. Although the fact that PokerStars do not increase their guarantees, when they easily met each week or night would mean virtually zero risk, it is still a risk. This promotion would have needed to be signed off by someone. As you say it is an advertising gimmick and a great one.
Unless someone works for PokerStars we do not know if it is or is not a normal promotion or an apology promotion, or a co-incidence. PokerStars has so few technical issues that the timing is a “what are the odds of that happening?”.
It does show that PokerStars are easily the best, most innovative and well managed of all the poker sites. Which is why we would not put it past them to actually have a set of apology or emergency promotions to use, unlike any other site or network. If you work in the industry It is a very interesting idea and this event was also a way for us to discuss this idea that we have previously had.