Yesterday, Eric Hollreiser, Vice President of Corporate Communications for Amaya Inc. and PokerStars announced that PokerStars will increase the rake for a select number of games. Here is the full statement:

«Following a review of the current business environment and the pricing policies employed across the competitive landscape for online gaming, PokerStars will change its pricing for a select number of games in its shared liquidity market, effective March 28, 2016.

Even after these changes, PokerStars will still have the lowest overall pricing (known as «rake») of any major online poker operator. The pricing changes apply to certain games while others will remain unchanged. In Cash Games and Sit & Go competitions, PokerStars still has significantly lower rake than competitors.

Key pricing changes include:

• Spin & Go rake will be increased by one percentage point for buy-ins from $1 to $30 (two percentage points in $3 buy-in). $0.25, $60 and $100 buy-ins will not change.
• In multi-table tournaments, PokerStars will match the practices deployed in our closed liquidity markets where rebuys and add-ons incur fees similar to the original entry. These tournaments represent approximately 12% of the current main schedule.
• MTT hyper-turbo rake will be increased to 5%.
• Cap and percentage of rake will be increased in some no limit and pot limit ring games, mainly heads-up. Some rake caps will be lowered. Limit games will not be affected.

As a result of these changes, PokerStars expects that the overall impact will be a rake increase of 4%. PokerStars will continue to monitor its games and make regular adjustments to pricing whenever necessary. For details on specific changes for cash game rake click HERE. For details on Spin & Go rake click HERE.»