[Double Ice]

This is kinda grubby by Stars IMO. They should have made the prizepool more respectable. Yes I understand they are "paying" Barry for this, but it is still not right to the players, because the reason they are paying Barry is to generate publicity for the site. Because of this, this is not truly a 'service' that is offered by Barry that you are paying for, so it doesn't give Stars automatic right of way to charge for this service. We are talking in the area of $1,000 here, so its definitely not a major deal for Stars.

Stars should of paid out the money for the FPP like normal, and then paid Barry for providing publicity like normal. Instead, they let you pay for Barry (because hes Barry [censored] Greenstein) and then collected the advertising-draw for free. Why? Because they can.

This is exactly like the advertisements being used in big buyin events (WSOP, etc.), where the casino makes millions off the players, doesn't juice the pool from this, and still takes the 3% for dealers, some % for staff, more % for the casino, etc. - and it's a sin if you don't tip 5 figures to the dealers if you win!

They should have given players the fair value, and if that would lead to too many signups, anticipate a more appropriate (read: higher) buyin.

Also the structure should last 2 hours, not one. In the current structure, each "level" is 30 minutes, playing 6 minutes a game. The stack size is 150 and the stakes are 3/6, 9/18, 25/50, 50/100, so it ends really fast. The structure should have been a bit longer to give more than 1 hr with Barry.

IMO, the buyin should have been 80k FPP and pay 7k/2k/1k. It should last 2 hours. Of course none of what I said matters, because business wise Stars should just let you pay for their advertising, the same way that the companies that own WSOP let you pay for theirs.