PokerStars New Jersey

Traffic: PokerStars remains second to none

When it comes to sheer volume, there isn’t a single online poker room or network that can hold a candle to PokerStars.com.

Cash Game traffic

According to data retrieved via PokerFuse Pro and PokerScout, PokerStars.com boasts more cash-game players than the next 10 most popular poker sites/networks combined. Its ring-fenced operations in Italy, France and Spain, all of which cater to less than 65 million players, all rank in the top 10 globally.

PokerStars’ main site currently boasts approximately 20,000 cash-game players, on average, with peak volume often eclipsing the 33,000 barrier.

Granted, New Jersey players should expect nowhere near these numbers, but based on the data, it would hardly be inconceivable for PokerStars NJ to attract more ring game traffic than the state’s other major sites/networks put together – approximately 350 during off-peak summer months and upwards of 600 in January/February.

It should be noted that a fair chunk of Stars’ cash-game liquidity comes from its widely popular fast-fold (Zoom) poker format. And while Stars will likely become the second NJ site/network, Party / Borgata being the first, to offer fast-fold, I’d be hard-pressed to believe that without the added incentive of a Zoom focused promo, that Stars NJ’s fast-fold variant will achieve anywhere near the same success that in does in the rest of the world, if only because NJ’s smallish population cannot sustain the high volume demands required by such a format.

At the same time, it couldn’t do much worse than Party / Borgata’s variant, which draws next to no attention.

Sit & Go traffic

PokerStars is no slouch when it comes to the Sit & Go department either. SNGs tend to fill up nearly as fast as players can register, across most formats and buy-ins.

That probably won’t happen in New Jersey, but if Stars is able to offer something resembling the same low VIG and smart payout structure in New Jersey that it does on its .com site, Stars NJ should quickly become the premier site for single table tournaments.

MTT traffic

The stories of Stars tournament turnouts are the stuff of legends: $11 tournaments with prize pools eclipsing $400k, Sunday Majors that enable grinders to turn a $215 tournament ticket into the equivalent of a small house.

Given Stars’ reputation for hosting the biggest guaranteed tournaments, expect it to up the ante considerably in New Jersey, where currently the biggest weekly tournaments rarely guarantee more than $50,000 in prize money.

How much bigger Stars NJ’s guarantees will be relative to say Party / Borgata’s is anyone guess, but I imagine players will receive something along the lines of 1.5 to 2 times the amount of potential earnings per buy-in dollar on Stars that they would elsewhere.

Value/Promotions: Stellar VIP offering offset by average promotional schedule

When your player loyalty program ranks among the best in the business, you don’t necessarily need to rely on gimmicky promotions: At least that’s the adage PokerStars appears to adhere to.

Promotions

PokerStars starts players off with a 100% match bonus up to $600, with $10 of the bonus clearing for every 200 VPPs points earned. That equates to about a 27% rakeback deal.

Players have four months to clear the bonus, which should be ample time for all but the most recreational players. In addition, new registrants receive access to more than $100,000 in free tournament value via the site’s 100k Privilege Freerolls.

Measured up against welcome packages currently offered in New Jersey, Stars’ would rank above average, but not by any notable margin.

Stars SNG promo – Battle of the Planets – resembles the Sit & Go Leader Board challenge currently running on WSOP.com, the difference being that Battle of the Planets awards significantly more in weekly prize money than WSOP’s version. Given this, I would expect Stars to run the most lucrative SNG leader board promo in New Jersey.

Otherwise, Stars promotional schedule is rather sparse (Yes, even Stars has its Achilles heel).

Instead, the site relies on its exemplary VIP program to retain player loyalty.

VIP

Pokerstars, like most other sites, abides by the contributed rake system, where players are gifted loyalty points (VPP) based on the amount of rake they personally contribute to the pot.

For each dollar contributed, be it via cash-game rake or SNG/MTT entry fees, a player is awarded 5.5 VPPs. At lower loyalty tiers this equates to anywhere between a 9 and 25 percent rakeback deal.

Moving up the ladder, Stars most loyal patrons can receive upwards of 78% rakeback.

Compare that with New Jersey, where rakeback percentages range from a laughable 2 to a more respectable 35. Should Stars NJ offer anything that even closely resembles their .com loyalty system, the Garden State’s other operators might as well pack up their things and bid the market adieu.

While it’s unlikely that Stars NJ will throw quite as much money around as its .com counterpart, I would expect its NJ VIP program to offer something along the lines of 7 – 16% rakeback to its entry-to-mid level members, and upwards of 50% for anyone who manages to achieve SuperNova Elite, much like it does in Spain.

Value

Outside of its VIP program, the best value of playing on Stars NJ will come in the way of its tournament guarantees.

In the most likely scenario, one of two things is going to happen:

• Stars’ hefty guarantees are going to hit on a somewhat consistent basis, offering final table participants the opportunity to win bigger prizes than they would elsewhere.
• Stars’ MTT will frequently offer overlays, increasing player ROI rates.

It’s really a win-win situation for players.

Software: Exemplary, but questions linger

Now available in Beta form, PokerStars 7 is an extensive upgrade to Stars’ already robust poker product.

Perhaps the most notable overhaul was to the client’s main lobby, where players now have access to myriad game selection filters, not to mention the ability to save their preferred filters for easy future access.

“Quick Seat” is another handy tool that should prove be a hit among the recreational crowd, especially those who care more about finding a game and less about table selection. Niche features like the ability to observe a table that matches a certain criteria catapult PokerStars’ “Quick Seat” over any like-minded version offered in New Jersey.

PokerStars 7 replaces its traditional drop-down menus with sleek icons. Clicking an icon triggers a sliding panel display where players can readily view all of the same information that was available via the antiquated drop-downs. The whole process proves responsive, intuitive and above all, clean.

Speaking of responsiveness, PokerStars’ client is virtually devoid of lag, hangups and bugs. Its servers are able to handle upwards of 200,000 simultaneous log-ins with unparalleled ease, despite the complexity and visual nature of the software.

PokerStars truly enables players to tailor the software to meet their unique needs. The “Settings” tab includes dozens of options by which players can customize the table display, main lobby and gameplay.

Furthermore, grinders gain access to a whole bevy of educational courses and tools, most of them highly visual in nature.

PokerStars is also a pioneer in the mobile sphere. The functionality of its iOS and Android compatible apps vastly exceed anything currently available in NJ. Auto top-ups in cash games, preferred seating options, access to a multitude of game formats, and the ability to multi-table: it’s all present in PokerStars mobile software.

Sounds like New Jersey is in for a stellar online poker playing experience, right? It all really depends on what version of PokerStars it receives.

Whether or not PokerStars NJ will closely mimic its ROW software will hinge on a few yet to be answered questions:

• Will Stars NJ launch with version 6 or 7 of its software?
• How many of Stars’ customization features will make it through the regulatory process by launch?
• Will Stars’ geolocation technology function as well as say, WSOP NJ’s does now, on Day 1?
• Does Stars’ wait to launch its mobile poker product in NJ? If so, how long?

Depending on the answers to these and other questions, the initial roll out of PokerStars’ New Jersey client will range in quality from good to top notch.

Customer service: Stellar, yet limited

PokerStars’ customer support team is renown as the best in the business. And while I haven’t had the liberty of dealing with them on any sort of consistent basis since prior to Black Friday, all of my recent queries were answered via email within a four hour window.

Reps tend to be courtesy, professional and knowledgeable of both poker and PokerStars’ specific policies and promotional roll outs.

From the .com site’s help page, players will find answers to most of their most common questions, including ones pertaining to account validation, tournaments and mobile devices. Answers are laid out in a highly visual, clear and concise matter, leaving little room for ambiguity.

The one and only drawback of PokerStars’ approach to customer service is that players lack the capacity to contact reps directly via the phone or live chat. This limitation is partially offset by the ability to request a phone conversation via email, but not entirely.

How Stars NJ’s customer service department will stack up against its ROW counterpart will ultimately depend on how well reps are screened, the site’s level of representation on the Two Plus Two Internet Forums and the amount of resources allocated to what will amount to one of Stars’ smallest bases of operation.

Overall: Meeting expectations may prove troublesome

PokerStars’ ROW poker product resides head and shoulders above that of its closest competitors, so much so, that I fear there is virtually no chance of its New Jersey roll out meeting players expectations – many of whom earnestly believe that Stars’ New Jersey launch will hail nothing short of a new era in US regulated online poker.

While I have full faith in the company’s ability to deliver, the problem is that due to New Jersey’s regulatory processes and limited population reach, Stars NJ may end up being a shadow of what pre-Black Friday players grew accustomed to.

Granted, I’d still rather have access to a stripped down version of PokerStars than no PokerStars at all, but it may take some time for the NJ site to merit the same grades that its .com, and even its other ring fenced operations, do.

That being said, expect Stars NJ to rank #1 among NJ poker sites in nearly every category.