Neil Johnson, Head of Everything Live, PokerStars, has confirmed in a blog post on the ‘Live’ section of the company website that the payout structure used in EPT13 Malta will be used throughout 2017 and beyond.
You may recall that PokerStars set Twitter ablaze in the summer when they announced plans to expand their payouts from 15% of the field to 20% in a bid to ensure more recreational players left with money they could then reinvest in more tournaments or buy their partner a new dog for Christmas.
The PokerStars Live team, spearheaded by Johnson, also changed the minimum buy-in to 1x-1.2x.
“The impact is overall a positive one for all players and also fits our goal of having more winners,” said Johnson at the time.
A significant portion of the professional playing contingent complained loud enough that Johnson and his team decided to change the rules for High Roller and Super High Roller tournaments and revert to the 15% payout structure. They also increased min-cashes to 1.5x and made the payout ceiling 20%. All the other decisions remained unchanged.
The newest blog post effectively confirms that the brave new world will remain in place when the new PokerStars Championship and festivals format begin in 2017, as well as using it for the last ever EPT Festival in Prague.
Here is confirmation of the payout changes:
• All events of €/$/£10,000 or more will retain the previous 12%-15% payout structure.
• All other events will payout an expanded 17%-20% of the field, but adhere to a 20% ceiling.
• For the expanded payouts, a min-cash will be about 1.5x the buy-in of the event.
PokerStars Set to Return to Portugal
PokerStars will return to the Portuguese online poker market 16-months after they pulled out after the country’s gambling authorities began an overhaul of their regulation.
Pokerfuse were first to break the news that PokerStars are preferring to launch within a segregated player pool rather than wait for the local gambling regulator, Serviços de Regulação e Inspeção de Jogos (SRIJ), to finalise plans for widening liquidity with potential share deals in the offing with other ring-fenced markets such as France, Italy or Spain.
The last time we covered this news, the Portuguese regulator said they would start handing out online poker licenses in November, and it looks like they are an organisation of their word.
A spokesperson from PokerStars had this to say about a return to the Portuguese market:
“PokerStars is currently undergoing regulatory review for licenses in Portugal. We are hoping to launch there as soon as possible and add to the long list of regulated jurisdictions that we successfully work in partnership with.”