Pokerstars loose EGR Operators Awards

So, on October 25 in London the results of the annual EGR Operators Awards, awarded to operators of the gambling industry, were summed up. We will not touch on all the nominations, of which there are as many as 28, since the overwhelming majority of them have nothing to do with poker, but are more popular among the people means to lighten their wallet (mainly bookmaking, casino and lottery).

There was only one poker nomination - the Poker operator. And, as you already understood from the title of the news, the victory in it was won not by our beloved PokerStars! We remind you that last year PartyPoker, owned by GVC Holdings, won this nomination. And that came after three straight PokerStars wins. It seems that this was not an accident and it is likely that in the coming years we will see a change in the leader of this market, as this year PartyPoker was chosen as the best poker operator for the second year in a row! If last year you could still think about an accidental puncture of the permanent leader of online poker - PokerStars, then two consecutive flights "past the box office" is already a trend and information for thought.

When not everything that is done is for the best

Of course, we cannot say by what parameters PartyPoker managed to outstrip its eternal competitor for the second year in a row, but we dare to assume that this is certainly not a matter of attendance, since for many years PokerStars has no competitors in this regard and superiority in traffic over the closest pursuers from year to year is literally tenfold. But in the final communiqué on PartyPoker's victory in this nomination, the phrase "really understands its customers" is highlighted.

And this once again reminds us that all the innovations of PokerStars over the past two years, with all the desire, can hardly be called aimed at the benefit of players, and we are not even talking about regulars. What is the actual deprivation of all players of rakeback, when both "regs" and recreational players got under the distribution. The system of chests, nothing but laughter in a sane person, does not cause anything about the weekly freerolls for $ 5,000 and $ 10,000, we generally keep quiet. PokerStars got carried away with the slogan "improving the poker environment" and forgot that this concept, in addition to making life difficult for regulars, also includes adding some goodies for hobby players. Yes, at least the same reload bonuses .. but there was not even that.

And yes, how can we not yet mention the constant "threats" to introduce the notorious Seat Me, with the help of which the Spanish and French PokerStars reservations are already being successfully destroyed and the Italian one is next. All these factors do not in any way increase the virtual shares of the poker monopolist as yet.

See how PokerStars is doing, do the opposite and win

What exactly did PartyPoker offer? First, it should be noted right away that while many rooms are cutting rakeback, the Party management has decided to raise these payments, which can reach 50% with a fairly active game! Compare that to the 5% rakeback from PokerStars and it doesn't really matter.

Secondly, a global software update was made this spring. And while it still works and works until the convenience of the PokerStars client, the new design is much better than what it was before.

Thirdly, we cannot fail to mention this year's large-scale series of online tournaments called Powerfest, an analogue of WCOOP from PokerStars. At the same time, the prize fund of this series was $ 60 million. Yes, WCOOP-2018 had a guarantee twice as large - $ 118 million, but you will compare the capabilities of these two rooms to understand that PartyPoker has actually jumped over its head here. The result of all of the above was the move PartyPoker to the third place in terms of traffic among all rooms.

The mysterious IDNPoker network can be ignored, since the source of its traffic is highly questionable due to the dominance of multi-accounts and the inaccessibility of non-Asian players for registration. By and large, the European reservation of PokerStars, which is supported by the big brother's name, can also be ignored in this rating, but let's not be so cruel :)

Finally, some more information

It is worth adding that The Stars Group was nominated for victory in four categories:

• Casino operator
• Operator of the year
• Poker operator
• Sports betting operator

And if last year they were able to grab at least one award in the category "Best Marketing", then this year there was a flight on all fronts. Time to think about the correctness of the chosen path, gentlemen from Amaya Inc., isn't it?