PokerStars' Rake Revenue Takes a Hit During Player Protests

PokerStars collected a total of $465,460,000 in rake from Multi-Table Tournaments (MTT), Sit & Go (SNG), and Spin&Go games in 2015. Spin&Go games contributed $143,400,000 to the total rake, making up 30.8% of the market share. The biggest contributors to the rake in Spin&Go were players at the $100 limit, generating $40 million.

In MTT, tournaments with a buy-in of $150 and above collected about $41 million, or a quarter of the total MTT rake. 6-Max Hyper-Turbo SNGs collected $51 million, nearly a third of the total SNG rake.

During the protest, the number of unique players in MTT increased by 4.5% in medium and low limits. The protest resulted in a 10.7% decrease in collected rake, with SNG seeing a 13.5% decrease and MTT an 8% decrease. Significant traffic increases were observed in Azerbaijan, Georgia, Greece, and Norway during the protest. PokerStars estimated direct losses from the protest at $150,000 in SNG and MTT, with potential additional losses from Spin&Go and cash games.