POKERSTARS

The most historic event in recent American history happened to occur on the day PokerStars launched its beta play money site. The date was September 11th 2001 and four coordinated suicide attacks took place in New York & Washington D.C. Naturally there is no connection between the two but it is a bit ironic that five years later the attacks indirectly led to the SAFE Port Act 2006, which would turn PokerStars into the World's Largest Poker Room. There is absolutely no proof of a connection between PokerStars and global terror despite of the fact that certain American Republicans tried to connect all online gambling companies with terror and criminal organizations.

To find out how PokerStars came to be the World's Largest Poker Room you can read the article "PokerStars Era" and the articles describing in detail how the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act unwillingly caused PokerStars great success.

PokerStars' real money tables were opened on the 12th of December the same year. The company was originally based out of Costa Rica having the Scheinberg family as majority owners¹ but PokerStars later applied for a license in the Isle of Man where it is currently operated, licensed and regulated.

PokerStars Statistics

On December 27th 2009 PokerStars set a new world record by hosting the World's biggest online tournament. The buy-in was $1 and it attracted a record high number of players amounting to 149,196.² 

The flagship of PokerStars is the Sunday Million Tournament where $1 million is guaranteed every week. The buy-in is $215 and it is the biggest weekly online poker tournament in the world. On March 7th 2011 The 5th Anniversary of Sunday Million broke records with 59,128 entries creating a whopping prize pool of $11,845,600.³

You can find more information about Pokerstars by reading the article about how PokerStars lost 1/3 of its active players on Black Friday but still managed to retain 50% of the Poker Market Share.

Since PokerStars has primarily offered CPA-deals⁴ to its affiliates, the company has never had any major problems with rake back. Also they have never provided individual rake stats to affiliates which is why PokerStars' business model made it really hard for affiliates to pay rake back to players.

PokerStars was amongst the first to offer a great VIP Store and enable players to earn Frequent Players Points (FPPs), which could be used in the VIP Store. The VIP Store was so extensive that it managed to compete with the aggressive rake back offers on the market.

The VIP Store basically served as a "rake back provider" controlled by the network. The VIP Store with its FPPs were a more sophisticated way of offering players value. Controlling the 'rake back' in house kept players from making multiple accounts. The incentive to make new accounts in attempts to undercut the original affiliate (if any) was not present within this model.

We do not know if PokerStars predicted this in their business plan in 2001 but it undoubtedly turned out to be a clever strategy.

PokerStars' rakeback policy is clear. It is strictly forbidden for affiliates to offer private rakeback deals.

PokerStars has in the latest years introduced VIP Player Points (VPPs) in addition to the FPPs.⁵ The combined VPPs and FPPs enable players to earn from 10% up to as much as 150% value back⁶. We have not been able to validate this information and the standard perception is that the maximum value you can get is 83%. The key is supposedly that you select the right bonuses when you redeem your points. 

The highest VIP level is called “Supernova Elite”. The first player to receive this status was the current PokerStars Team Pro Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier.⁷

	PokerStars own its only brand on the network