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More rake is better
EvilPingu
Member Posts: 3,462
I'm absolutely buzzing to receive my first rakeback payment of 14 SkyCoin and a chest, and Turbo DYMs will be an absolute goldmine once they're increased to 25% rake because I'll be able to earn SkyCoin and chests even faster!
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-stars-group-sky-bet/canadas-stars-group-snaps-up-sky-bet-for-4-7-billion-idUSKBN1HS0H8
Joking aside: What does this mean for Sky players? Any idea what we can expect to change on here? Obv concerning for anyone making money from the game due to how Stars' reputation has shifted so dramatically since 2014.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-stars-group-sky-bet/canadas-stars-group-snaps-up-sky-bet-for-4-7-billion-idUSKBN1HS0H8
Joking aside: What does this mean for Sky players? Any idea what we can expect to change on here? Obv concerning for anyone making money from the game due to how Stars' reputation has shifted so dramatically since 2014.
Comments
It's a little too early to speculate on how all this will pan out, the news only broke a few hours ago.
I expect it will be Monday or Tuesday before The Business briefs everyone.
For now, best that we don't jump to any conclusions.
For the better, or for the worse, only time will tell.
Fingers crossed for all those we know and love, who work for SkyPoker. I hope this doesn't adversely affect any of you.
Things will be quite different, fairly soon, I would imagine.
Thanks for bringing awareness of the buy out Pingu.
Can't take credit for the post, was @TommyD who made me aware of the situation.
@Tikay10 might be worth merging the two threads on the subject together?
Awful news for our dear friends whom we've grown to love.
Most importantly, I sincerely hope that this does not adversely affect existing Sky employees. Every Sky employee I have had the pleasure of meeting has been great. Their livelihoods are the most important thing here.
From a players perspective...
Just no
One of the great things about Sky is that it is so unlike Stars, meh!
They insisted I supply them with, a utility bill, photographic id, 3 months bank statements, and a photocopy of the front of my credit card. This came out of the blue, and was apparently due to a standard security check.
I refused to provide the documentation, and asked them to close my account. They agreed to do this, but wont send me my account balance until I provide the documentation.
So I cant get my balance, luckily I had withdrawn $4,000 dollars just before this occurred, and my balance was around $300. Which I am still owed.
I had visions of me, after something had gone wrong in my bank, having to say to them, oh yes I did supply all this documentation to a poker site, and look a complete idiot.
Incidentally, during the period that I have been a member of Pokerstars, I have owned the same house, had the same bank account, and used the same credit card.
There was a previous incident in 2009 where one of my work colleagues who was abroad, asked me to place a bet for him. He asked how he could get the money to me. He had just started playing poker, and I thought he had joined Pokerstars. However this was not the case, but he didn't tell me, he subsequently joined Pokerstars and immediately transferred the money for the bet to my Pokerstars account.
They saw this as suspicious, froze my account, and insisted on me supplying all the above documentation at that time.
I complied without thinking and continued to play on the site. At that time all this documentation was exactly the same as it is today.
They have been absolutely intractable on this. The have said that all poker sites act in the same way which is patently untrue.
It used to be very different. I remember when I first started playing Sky, you could only have one credit card on file. The customer service team advised me to open a new account. I had 3 or 4 at one time. Imagine what the UKGC would say about that behaviour now.
The incident with your friend is harmless to you, but to a poker site it is potential money laundering or stolen identity behaviour. If Sky had a money transfer facility, you'd likely face the same hurdles. You would be amazed at some of the stuff that goes down by organised criminals.
I was asked by Stars to provide the same documentation a couple of months ago. I play multiple tournaments on there daily and have never had any issues with fraud. I've deposited, withdrawn and transferred many large sums without a hitch and have used Pokerstars in many different countries and IP addresses.
At first I was angry and tilted but then I thought about it and calmed down. Poker sites do not provide these barriers on their own. These rules are all set by the UKGC. There is zero point to get angry at a poor customer service operator sat in Bulgaria. They are just doing their job. It is not personal. They weren't calling me a criminal.
Just one of those random security checks that is part of living within the most regulated gambling industry in the world. The regulation is a very good thing. Try dealing with an Asian site....that's a whole different level of fun.
Well done on your recent score!
The point I was making is that, what would my bank say if my account was emptied, or my credit card abused if I readily parted with all these details to a poker site?
The organisation maybe honest and above board, but all their employees with access may not.
It is not like nobody has heard of anything dishonest or underhanded that has gone on at any poker site.
During the time I have played poker, no other site has asked me for all that information.
They say it was a random check, yet none of my details have changed since I joined. All my details are exactly the same as I provided on the security check in 2009.
Pokerstars don't refund master cards, so any withdrawal I have made over the last 10 years, have been made to the same bank account.
If you asked your bank manager if you should provide the requested details to anyone, he would say no.
I suspect the cause of your case is between 2009 and now, there's been a ton of regulation changes. One such change is the introduction of "Know Your Customer", or KYC. Chances are that Stars won't have been able to check the KYC criteria because your old documentation pre-dates the implementation of KYC.
I assume your "3 months bank statements" is actually "Bank statement within the last 3 months", because it usually is.
I'm similarly paranoid about giving out any more than I have to, and I've found that I can usually give them less info in a couple of these spots.
It's totally fine to go onto your online banking, filter down to "Stars" so that only Pokerstars deposits show up, then screenshot it or download a PDF of the reduced statement. Alternatively you can just send the first page if you haven't deposited to Stars any time recently. It's the name, address and deposits to Stars that they are interested in, not anything else.
The "Front of credit card" thing, you are usually allowed to cover up most of the number. Most sites say you can cover all but the last 4 digits in my experience. I would send them that and see what their response is.
I get that it's a pain in the ar$e to do, but there's no point being stubborn about it and not getting your money back. ^ This.
When I enrolled on poker stars, lets say 10 years ago, I gave them all my standard details, name, address, email address, mastercard details, bank account details.
So for the last 10 years I have deposited using a mastercard with my name on it, and as all the deposits have gone through, you may think that, that in itself would be proof that I am who I say I am. If I wasn't then you would think that the real Tony Hayes might have come forward to say that someone had been using his credit card on poker stars for 10 years.
On top of that as they don't withdraw to master cards, all the withdrawals I have made have been to the same bank account which is also in my name. I would suggest that even if you were robbing someone elses credit card for 10 years, to withdraw to the bank account belonging to the same person that you were robbing would somewhat defeat the purpose.
The banks and the credit card companies do enough checks on establishing who you are, before they give you an account or credit card, without poker sites doing the same. To use this nonsense as an excuse to rob your money is nonsense.
When they asked for the extra documentation, I immediately said that I wouldn't provide it, and asked for them to close my account and refund my balance. Sending me the balance is now a security risk.
rom: "security@starsaccount.uk"
To: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, 22 February 2018, 17:00
Subject: RE: Re: Stars Account verification
Hello ,
Thank you for your email.
For Security reasons we cannot allow a withdrawal of your account balance without the documents that were previously requested.
Please let us know if we can be of further assistance.
Regards,
Carolina
Stars Security
Just done it for him Phil.