What do you think about PokerStars decision to end its freerolls?

PS have already lost their leading positions and many players. So far their decisions have not contributed to increasing their popularity.

It started years ago, they are slowly falling down.

It is no longer profitable for the room to put money in players who withdraw it instead of playing it. I think it's the right decision for them.

Frankly, I'm disappointed. I thought PokerStars was a reliable partner of our community, but it turned out not to be the case.

They have already attracted enough players, now they have addicts who can pay

Poker Orifice said:

Why not start playing $0.50 & $1 tournaments?

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but it needs money and why should I spend my money if there is no 100% guarantee that I will win

luckyfish98 said:

but it needs money and why should I spend my money if there is no 100% guarantee that I will win

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think about this ^ comment for a moment. Now think about all of the other people who are also playing poker online.
You have the same chance at winning as they do... although these 'chances' go up if you put in some time studying this game.

Why would anyone own & operate a company like an online poker site where they are investing MILLIONS of dollars to operate without charging a fee to play?

There's also no guarantee to win money while playing a freeroll. It still takes 'time'.... and the amount that can be won in that time period is very small vs. even a micro buyin tournament.

If you go out to a movie, do you not spend money to do this? (or to go out for dinner.... or bowling... or skiing... or ______ < insert some other recreational activity that costs money).

As a freeroll player, of course I didn't liked the decision. But PS was far from be a good poker room to freerolls players. I used to only play there because of the CC freerolls. I'm sure they are going to lose players, but if that's going to make a difference in their profits I don't know and they probably only going to know in a few months. I hope they lose revenue otherwise we are probably going to see others rooms doing the same decision.

Hi
Bad decision.
PokerStars has been losing players for a long time, not the first month or even the first year. And such stupid decisions will only contribute to the further loss of market positions. But this is their right and their choice.

I don't think it is a smart decision in long term. New players often starts playing freerolls. I can't see how the power path would be attractive to new players.

Canaldo Kao said:

PokerStars has removed many freeroll tournaments but still has satellite tournaments which are a very interesting challenge!

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I don't like those satellite bingo games. It's a company like any other and they work for profit. For us, freerolls are always good, but possibly for the company (Pokerstars) they were bad and didn't make a profit.

Pokerstars keeps losing players.
The first was when the rakeback was abolished or reduced to such an extent that it was already a joke.
Next was the new software.
I think they are headed in a very bad direction.
I haven't played there in over a month.

Andyreas said:

From my personal view:
The freerolls definitely helped me build my bankroll in the beginning and I'm grateful for that but once I started growing it (and not withdrawing), I didn't see the need to play for 2-3 hours to win a $1.

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Definitely agree with this. I played some CC freerolls on Stars, when I was still living in Denmark several years ago. But even if they were still running, and I was allowed to play in them, I would mostly pass today. If I remember correctly, they typically began at 8 pm CET, which mean playing until 10-11 pm CET to win $1 and until 12 pm or 1 am to win the top prices, which for a $100 game was $20 and change.

If you can have a 10% ROI in $5,5 games, your hourly winrate will be just the same playing those, as it is by competing with 200+ people for a $100 freeroll price pool. Then you can play, whenever it suits you, and running deep is vastly more rewarding, when the winner gets $200+ rather than $20+. So for winning players the freerolls did not make to much sense. But of course they were a good opportunity for beginners or people, who had lost most of money in the their poker account