PokerStars offers new players a 100% bonus back on their first three deposits, up to $600, within the first 90 days of real-money membership. To earn your bonus, after depositing, play real money poker to earn VPPs. These are points you earn every time you place a bet in a cash game or buy into a tournament. Collect 17 times the bonus amount to clear your full bonus, released to your account in $10 increments. PokerStars gives new depositors six months to collect their full bonus.
Promotions
PokerStars has one of the best promotional schedules with freerolls, VIP promos, and satellites to the biggest live tournaments in the world. Free unlimited tickets to the monthly $100K Freerolls are available with special deposit codes, or try your hand at Battle of the Planets, a Sit & Go Challenge that pays more than $3 million in cash prizes to Leader Board victors. This is just the tip of the iceberg, though. PokerStars also offers region-specific promotions, as well as female-friendly promos. Other promotions include the Multi-Table Tournament Leader Board challenge, Daniel’s Room, and SuperStar Showdown.
Tournaments
PokerStars hosts some of the biggest online poker tournaments in the world, as well as some of the biggest offline tourneys in the world. At the top of the list is the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), which is the largest online tournament series in the world. The Spring Championship of Online Poker, as well as the Turbo Championship of Online Poker are other big online tourney series hosted by Stars. At the weekly level, Sundays are huge featuring the Sunday Million, the Sunday Warm-Up, the Sunday Second Chance, the Sunday Storm, the Sunday 500, and the Sunday Kickoff, all of which are very popular among PokerStars players and pros alike.
PokerStars land tourneys include the European Poker Tour, home of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, tThe Asia Pacific Poker Tour, and the UK & Ireland Poker Tour.
Games
PokerStars offers every poker game you could desire, including but not limited to, Texas Hold ‘em, Omaha, Omaha Hi/Lo, 7 Card Stud, 7 Card Stud Hi/Lo, Razz, 2-7 Triple Draw, HORSE, HOSE, and on and on and on.
Software
If there were a perfect online poker platform, PokerStars would be it. You will likely never have a problem with the PokerStars software, nor will you have trouble getting used to the interface and functions of the system. The graphics are exceptional, and the features are abundant. Multi-tabling is encouraged.
Deposit Methods
Deposit options at PokerStars include NETeller, VISA, MasterCard, Maestro, Local Bank Transfer, PaySafeCard, moneybookers, Bank Wire Transfer, Money Order/Cashier’s Check, UKash, WebMoney, ClickandBuy, and entropay.
Cash Out Methods
Cash out options depend on your country.
Customer Service
General inquiries will be answered via email 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. In addition, very in-depth FAQ and Help sections are available online. You may also use the Contact Support Form within the Help section of the software.
History of PokerStars
PokerStars was founded in the late 90s when Israeli IBM Canada senior programmer Isai Scheinber began writing the program for a poker site and created Rational Enterprises, originally based in Costa Rica. By 1999, a PokerStars beta program was launched for play money two years later on September 11, 2001. Three months later, on December 12, 2001, the real money version was launched. Scheinberg continues to run the site today with the help of his sons, the more well-known being Mark Scheinberg. The Scheinbergs own 75% of the company; the employees own the other 25%.
In 2002, PokerStars introduced what they hoped to someday be the online version of the World Series of Poker, the World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP), and they accomplished their goal. The first WCOOP series took place in July, 2002, offered nine events, and paid $730K in total prize money to participants.
One major event in PokerStars history rerouted the direction of the company forever. By the mid 2000s online poker was gaining popularity, but it hadn’t taken off at exponential speeds just yet… until average-Joe online poker player Chris Moneymaker won a satellite seat for just $39 to the WSOP Main Event and went on to win the championship title, pocketing $2.5 million for his win at his first live tournament, instantly making online poker anyone’s game. Moneymaker, who was a full-time accountant and played Internet poker online at PokerStars on the side, became a role model for millions of American amateur poker players who believed they could be the next Chris Moneymaker. This did wonders for PokerStars and the industry as a whole. Everyone benefitted from the “Moneymaker Effect.”
Moneymaker’s satellite win also catapulted the popularity of WSOP satellites. Suddenly online poker sites were vying to offer more WSOP seats than any other site. PokerStars qualified 315 players the following year for the $100K Championship Event, which ended up representing 15% of the tournament registrants. Not only did this present an opportunity for players to play in live tournaments whereas they would never have otherwise had the chance, it also served as an advertisement opportunity for the poker sites. If you were at the WSOP via a satellite, you were decked out in gear from the benefactor of your buy-in.
Dan Goldman, then VP of Marketing at PokerStars, said, “Our players continue to prove that their online tournament poker experience has tremendous value in a live tournament environment. The ease and convenience of playing poker online provides millions of people with tournament poker experience before they ever set foot in a casino or card room.”
In 2004, PokerStars launched the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, originally a stop on the World Poker Tour. The PCA continues to grow every year and is a must-play-in event for many pros and amateurs alike. Also in 2004, PokerStars launched the European Poker Tour (EPT), now home to the PCA. The first EPT had seven stops and was very successful and still is today, opening up the live poker circuit to players across Europe.
After Moneymaker won the WSOP, he became the face of PokerStars and was signed as a sponsored player who would be found playing online at PokerStars with the likes of his fans. The second annual WCOOP ran, offering 11 events and attracting Moneymaker’s flock, who hoped to watch and/or play with the poker idol himself. That year, WCOOP cash prizes totaled $2.7 million. By the following year, the event had grown to 12 events and a cash prize pool of $6 million.
The 2005 WCOOP saw 20,000 participants vie for the $12 million in cash paid out across 15 events. Also, the online poker giant announced that they had hosted more than 10 million online poker tournaments—more than any other poker site. Online poker was officially a world-wide phenomenon and had proven itself to be much more than a fad, and to increase its already exponential popularity, PokerStars announced in November of 2005 that it had signed three WSOP champions as part of the Team PokerStars Pro team: 2003’s Moneymaker, 2004’s Greg Raymer, and 2005’s Joe Hachem.
In that same month, which was a good month for Stars, and they must have been celebrating big, they were named “Best Poker Operator of the Year” at the eGaming Awards, an honor highly-esteemed in the industry. PokerStars had rightly earned the honor, as by this time it had hosted more than 14 million online poker tournaments, awarded more than $1 billion in cash prizes, and dealt more than three billion hands.
Also, in 2005 the company was relocated to the Isle of Man due to the 0% corporate tax and the fact that the Isle of Man has no laws against companies taking bets from US players. PokerStars was granted an eGaming License under the Isle of Man’s Gambling Regulation Act of 2001, regulated by the Isle of Man Supervision Commission.
In the beginning of 2006, the Scheinbergs thought about either floating their company, which was valued at around $2 billion, or selling it. PartyGaming had already gone public, and many believed PokerStars would follow. Others speculated that Stars would merge with 888 Holdings, another Israeli-owned company. However, things happened (UIGEA-see below), and the Scheinbergs decided to keep the company as it was. The family’s plans to float $1.6 billion of the company’s worth, to be carried out in the spring of 2007, would never see the light of day.
The company continued to grow, especially after the then biggest online poker site in the world, PartyPoker, which was at the privy of its shareholders, withdrew from the US market following the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. Because the UIGEA made it illegal for banks to process online gambling funds transfers for players residing in the US and did not target the player or the poker sites, many online poker sites including PokerStars made the decision to remain in the US market and reap the benefits of PartyPoker’s exit.
In 2006, the WCOOP continued to develop, consisting of 18 events and $18.7 million in prize cash, and by 2007, more than 40,000 players were attracted by the newly introduced short-handed tournaments and the near $25 million in cash payouts. Players from more than 100 countries participated in 23 events. In 2008, the $40-million series hosted 33 events, and by 2009, the WCOOP broke an online poker record when players from 140 nations played together in 45 events across 18 days and shared the more than $51 million prize pool.
Also in 2006, Stars introduced the weekly Sunday Millions online tournament, attracting 5,893 players that mustered up a prize pool worth more than $1.1 million. In 2011, the event attracted its biggest field at just under 60,000 with a prize pool worth $11.8 million. Today poker pros and online poker players around the world still anticipate this massive event every week.
In 2007, PokerStars signed world-renowned Daniel Negreanu to its Team PokerStars Pro lineup. Negreanu joined an already impressive group of poker pros including Moneymaker, Hachem, Barry Greenstein, and Vanessa Rousso, among others.
Following the success of the EPT, in May of 2008, PokerStars launched the first major poker tour in Latin American, the Latin American Poker Tour (LAPT) including stops in Costa Rica, Brazil, and Uruguay.
In July of 2008, Stars launched the first dedicated Mac online poker software, opening up the site to Mac players. The PokerStars Mac platform surpassed other online poker systems for Mac users, making PokerStars all the better.
By 2009, the company was netting more than $1.3 million ever day and around $1.4 billion per year.
Continuing to stay on top throughout 2010 and 2011 and incessantly growing, PokerStars, as well as Absolute Poker/UB.com, and Full Tilt Poker took a massive hit on April 15th, 2011, otherwise known as Black Friday in the poker world. On this day, the FBI seized the domains of these three biggest online poker sites serving the US market, as well as player accounts and the money contained in them. Fortunately for PokerStars players, PokerStars was quick to recover the funds of their loyal players, despite the fact that they would no longer be able to play online poker at PokerStars from within the US.
PokerStars.com relocated to PokerStars.eu and continued to serve the rest of the world without their US players and has managed to stay afloat in spite of the gaping hole in their player base, hoping someday to re-enter the US market once legislation for legalized online poker in the US is in place. A previous partnership with the Wynn brand Las Vegas casino, which came up in March, 2001, was quickly dissolved when Black Friday hit only about a month later, but PokerStars still looks toward the future and will eventually come back to the US if at all possible.
Milestones
February 2005 – PokerStars breaks the all-time record for biggest weekly tourney, registering 2,556 players in the Sunday No Limit Hold ‘em tourney. It is also the first tourney in poker history to exceed a $500K prize pool.
2006 – PokerStars has achieved 100,000 simultaneous players and announces they will up weekly tourneys to $1 million guaranteed, something that would have been inconceivable only one year earlier.
March 2006 – PokerStars surpasses its five millionth signup, double that of only one year before.
December 2007 – PokerStars sets a Guinness Book Record for most players simultaneously playing at an online poker site at 151,758.
December 27, 2009 – PokerStars sets the Guinness Record for the “Largest Online Poker Tournament.” The $1 buy-in tourney attracted just fewer than 150,000 registrants.
March 3, 2011 – PokerStars deals its 60 billionth hand.
December 4, 2011 – PokerStars breaks its own record and hosts a $1 buy-in tournament with a $50K prize for first place, registering 200,000 players—the most amount of people playing in one tournament online simultaneously, which actually crashed their server, causing all other action on the site to be suspended for 20 minutes in order for the massive tournament to continue.
