Spin & Go, the newest addition to online poker games at PokerStars is facing a burst of outcry in the online poker world with a petition signing by thousands of its players led by the Tiltbook user “masuronike”. Baffled by this tournament format which makes poker seem luck/lottery based, he started this online petition to PokerStars to withdraw or change the game structure.
For the uninitiated, Spin & Go is an Ultra Turbo 3-player poker game where the prize is determined randomly by the spinning wheels and can be anywhere between 2x and 1000x the buy-in. PokerStars launched this fast-paced poker variant 2 weeks ago to lure casual players who want to make quick bucks.
Numerous professional players have raised voices against this poker game variant articulating its adverse impact in terms of low turnouts in the traditional game formats of online poker. Their concern has been justified by Poker Scout reports of a steep 9% decrease in players on PokerStars cash game tables last week. The world poker community is also worried about another long term prospect wherein they see a new generation of poker player shifting to such fast paced random prize games which infuse a sense of luck based gambling rather than a skill based game of stakes.
While launching Spin & Go seems to be a well planned strategy of PokerStars to lure new players, it also promises the company a high return in terms of rakes in the quick time. Thousand of players who already tried out their hand in this new format have complained about the random prize not even reaching the high multipliers of 500x the buy-in and falling to just double the buy-in most of the times. This may dry down the interest of casual players who come to book huge profits in minimal time. In a small experiment done to support the theory, this correspondent played 20 Spin & Go games at PokerStars with the $1 buy-in. Barring one game which boasted of a $4 prize, all others spun a prize pool of merely $2 which is lesser than even a basic Sit and Go prize pool.
Poker players around the world are building up on Tiltbook sending their petition emails to PokerStars. However, the company looks busy launching several rounds of promotion of their new format to draw in more players in coming days. This may result into a big drop in number of players on its cash tables and traditional tournaments but, the company which has become more revenue-centric under Amaya Gaming after being sold to it in June this year is has some other plans which may prove fatal for this game of skill in long run.