Second PokerStars Boycott Results in 7% Traffic Increase

High stakes cash game players and online grinders have been organizing boycotts against PokerStars in order to protest against the massive reductions to the site’s reward programs introduced on January 1st 2016. However, the dissenting group’s timing seems to be off once more, and having staged its first three-day boycott at the start of December, a time when PokerStars was running its Milestone Hands Promotion, the latest boycott coincided with the traditional post-holiday seasonal swell in traffic usually associated with this time of year.
As a result, just like the traffic surge noted in the first boycott, this time around PokerStars’ high stakes cash games also reached their highest point for two months, and accounted for 1.3% of the site’s total cash game traffic. Whilst somewhat baffling, the inference is that the market share of high stakes cash games received a boost as middle stakes players took the window of opportunity to move up stakes to take advantage of a lack of proficient high stakes pros. The percentage increase was also boosted by less people playing microstakes games which thus improved the percentage share of other cash game stakes.
If this was the case, then not only did this second boycott fail to achieve its intended goal of causing a drop in traffic at PokerStars, but it also helped create a softer playing environment across all the other stakes, thus resulting in a temporarily more recreational friendly ecosystem.
Having said that, PokerStars may have experienced a 7% growth in traffic since the start of 2016, but the site has pumped $2.5 million into its promotions this month, whereas its next biggest rival 888 Poker has managed the same growth without any such promotional activities. Furthermore, other top ten operators have reported even stronger levels of growth over the same period, such as iPoker up 17%, and Microgaming Poker Network (MPN) up 26%.
While the overall results at present are difficult to gauge precisely, a more clearer picture may emerge after Amaya’s releases its first quarter results of 2016. In the meantime, disgruntled pros have more protest planned, with a third boycott expected around February 2nd.