The myth of PS rakeback

[Scottyy]

-----scottyy? I assumed he got paid to post here, at least in the same way as you do

Yes, I work for Stars and think that is easy to see from my image and tag line.

Scotty

[lubenica47]

Whats the deal with doomswitch Scotty? Does it realy exist?


stars are [censored] for rb until highstakes.

however stress star is nice.

[KSOT]

If it did exist, do you really think the people in charge of Stars would tell all of their employees about it? All it would take is one disgruntled worker to destroy their reputation.

[Sciolist]

[ QUOTE ]
scottyy? I assumed he got paid to post here, at least in the same way as you do.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't work in his department so I don't know what all the job roles are there, but I am under the impression that he posts here because he's a nice guy rather than because he's specifically told to. I read the threads because it's part of my job (it didn't used to be), which is perhaps a distinction between us. Now that I think about it, there're a few other people who monitor certain types of threads as part of their jobs, but they don't post here in response.

[terrellk11]

MicroBob/Scotty/Sciolist:

Two points for you to consider.

1. The problem with using Mircobob's numbers is that it only answers the question for one particular buyin level. When you change the level you're playing at, the math changes dramatically.

At 2/4 NL (full ring) on FTP, the average rake for a hand is about $1.20 with an average of 8.35 players per hand, which when divided and multipled by .27 ends up with the player getting about 4.14 cents per hand in rakeback.

At 2/4 NL on Stars, the aveage hand nets a player .54 vpp. The value of that varies by level as follows (using 1.6 cents per fpp to determine their value):

Bronze: .864 cents
Silver: 1.296 cents
Gold: 1.728 cents
Platinum: 2.16 cents
Supernova: 3.024 cents

Now the stars player above would have to play about 370k hands to hit the 200k vpp milestone bonus. Having played the first 165k hands at 2.16 cents per hand (assuming platinum) and the following 165k at 3.024 cents per hand after hitting platinum, they'd have averaged 2.592 cents by the time they got to 200k vpp and then would get the additional $1200 in value from the 200k milestone bonus. $1200 divided by 370k hands works out to an additional 0.324 cents per hand for a total of 2.816 cents per hand.

If you add in another 130k hands to get to 500k total (which is about what you'd need to hit the 300k milestone bonus), you'd still be coming in at only ~3.23 cents per hand, nearly 25% lower than you're getting in straight rakeback at Full Tilt.

2. The other primary problem I have with the Stars structure is that it ties to the calendar year. If a new player comes to the site now and aveges 20k points per month, they're not going to hit Supernova by the end of the eyar and will have to wait until the end of May before getting to that point. It's completely arbitrary and just doesn't make any sense to me.

[terrellk11]

p.s. - Even if the player in the above example started the year at Supernova, he'd still be getting less than four cents a hand in rakeback equivalent value. With 3.024 cents from fpp, .324 from the 200k milestone and abouve .44 from the 300k milestone, it comes in at 3.788 cents per hand for a drop of nearly 10% less than the 27% rakeback you get at FTP.

p.p.s. - It isn't my intention to bash Stars. I'm simply showing what it is that helps me determine where I play and why.

[MicroBob]

Agreed. And you have made your decision by actually doing your homework instead of just saying "FPP's suck and can't be as good" or something ignorant like that.

I'm not surprised to learn that at 2/4 full-ring NL you aren't likely to do as well RB wise on Stars.
You are frequently getting back the same 1 VPP that you will be getting almost as often at .5/1 NL...but you are paying a lot more rake to do it.

In other words, all those little $10 pots at .5/1 get you the same 1 VPP as all those $50 or $60 pots at 2/4.

Not sure if you would be doing much better at 2/4 6-max instead of full-ring. All those pots that are between $40 and $69 that get 2 VPP's at 6-max that would only get 1 VPP at full-ring would add up pretty quickly.
That's where you lose the most value at 2/4 NL full-ring: The pots that are ALMOST raked the max but are still only earning a measly 1 VPP because they're full-ring.

Obviously if you intend to play a high enough volume where you think you have a good chance of getting to the 400k or 500k milestones then that could make a big difference too.


FWIW - I'm not arguing that Stars is absolutely the best for every single player out there. I'm just arguing against those who say that Stars is clearly inferior for practically everyone. I just don't think this is the case and for many stakes do not believe you need an insanely high volume for Stars to be a better RB value.

I have a variety of other reasons for liking Stars better anyway and I really don't think the 25% vs. 27% vs. 30% stuff makes THAT much of a difference anyway. For that small a difference I'm simply going to go where I like the games and software and cashout experiences better and suggest that pretty much everyone should do the same.

If you like the software better on FT or think the games are significantly fishier than even getting 30% at Stars shouldn't be the difference-maker to pull you away.

But if your FT experience is lousy or you aren't quite trusting them as much then I would definitely be thinking about the switch if the RB levels are roughly even.
Or if your preferred stakes and volume would put you in the 35-45% range on Stars then I would definitely be thinking about it.

It very much depends on your overall site-experience, preferred game, volume of play for milestone-bonuses, and availability/interest in the weekly freerolls and for some players FT is still a better value.

[Bobo Fett]

[ QUOTE ]
I really don't think the 25% vs. 27% vs. 30% stuff makes THAT much of a difference anyway. For that small a difference I'm simply going to go where I like the games and software and cashout experiences better and suggest that pretty much everyone should do the same.

If you like the software better on FT or think the games are significantly fishier than even getting 30% at Stars shouldn't be the difference-maker to pull you away.

[/ QUOTE ]
QFT.

While I can appreciate people wanting to know exactly how much they get at each site, I really don't understand people who will use a couple of percentage points as the sole reason for choosing one site over another. It's not just at Stars/FT you see this either. It seems that there's a group of people out there who will move from one site to another over a 5% difference in RB, and it doesn't seem that they consider the amount of rake paid, the software, the players, the customer service, etc, etc.

[MicroBob]

I'm pretty sure that on some of the games I play on Stars I'm in the 50% range and some other games I play I would be stretching it to claim 25% range.
I frequently play the games with the lower RB% though.
Ditching those games just because my RB% isn't through the roof would be silly.

[terrellk11]

It's not he only factor, but it's certainly a factor. If you're playing 370k hands a year (as mentioned in my post above), a 1.2 cents per hand difference between Stars and FTP is $5,000 over the course of the year (and the difference is larger if you are getting less than 1.6 cents for your fpp).

I'm not saying one is better than the other - just pointing out a difference people should be paying attention to.