A Recap of PokerStars and A Look at What Happens in 2025

PokerStars had reigned supreme for 15 years without competitors before GGPoker changed that in 2021. PokerStars has been trying to regain some of its lost glory since then, but with little success. However, we can see that 2024 brought some highs and lows for the brand.

In 2022, PokerStars’ cash game traffic dropped to under 5,000 concurrent seats for the first time in the brand’s history. However, in 2024, the brand tried its best to make a comeback.

Despite challenges, PokerStars worked hard to make some changes and increase their standing in 2024. The first thing they did was finally offer Mystery Bounty events in their Sunday Million tournament. Due to its popularity, it also became a weekly tournament.

Further, the poker room completely revamped its rewards program to offer two new tiers (Select and Select+) with a rakeback of up to 60%. Another significant way the brand aimed to become more relevant is by offering new software and innovations. 

It also saw great success with its Power Path mechanic, and popular tournaments like WCOOP and SCOOP continued with the same guarantees as previous years. One of the best places PokerStars excelled was with live poker, with record turnouts in the Monte Carlo, Paris, and Prague stops.

Despite some of the good that happened with this brand in 2024, there were also multiple challenges. The first is its ever-declining concurrent cash game seats, with the brand actually dropping to third place in the rankings behind WPT Global.

Its exit from several markets, like Poland, Croatia, Czech Republic, and Peru, certainly doesn’t help it regain its golden days. Further, due to these market exits and a smaller player base, the poker room had to streamline its selections, removing the less popular games from the roster.

Further, due to keeping the guarantees as high as in previous years but suffering fewer players, the Sunday Million consistently experienced overlays in 2024. While the brand dominated Pennsylvania’s market, it remained neck to neck with Winamax for most of Southern Europe.

The first order of business for PokerStars this year is to maintain its cash game seats in the face of opponents like WPT Global and iPoker. We expect it to continue its strategy of last year by continuing to offer innovative game formats, maybe with games like All-in Poker, Spin, and Go Six being made available.

Due to its success with live poker, we aren’t surprised to see a scheduled PokerStars Open with six stops across Europe. The Monte Carlo and Barcelona ETP stops are also happening, while the Paris stop was cancelled.

Due to increasingly strict regulations, the new year might bring some more market exits for this brand. However, PokerStars will likely also enter a few markets, such as Alberta in Canada. We’ll also see what further happens to the Flutter integration and how it affects this poker room. For now, we know PokerStars will face significant challenges; it’s just to see how they respond to these challenges.