PokerStars Returns Card Collections with the New Player Promotion: Pocket Rockets

PokerStars might not enjoy its position at the top of the poker world anymore, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to the brand. The poker room is constantly announcing new promotions, features, and games on its site, and the latest one is excellent for anyone who hasn’t signed up yet. The Pocket Rockets promotions run for the entirety of January, so learn where it comes from and what it offers to new players.

History of Card Collections

In 2016 and 2017, the primary promotion PokerStars ran was the Card Collections. This promotion was a series of mini-games provided at cash game tables, which offered rewards based on specific hands. The games available were ones such as Jacks or Better, Card Hunt, Cash Quest, Pyramid Card Match, and Cardex.

This promotion encouraged users to play daily and became popular, with platforms and networks like 888Poker, Winamax, iPoker, and Adjarabet adopting it.

New Pocket Rockets Promotion

The newest iteration of card collections is called Pocket Rockets, and unlike its predecessor, it’s only available to new players on the dot-com market and specific countries. You must make your first deposit in the promotion period to be considered eligible. Once you opt-in, you can receive daily prizes of up to $5,000 for specific hands.

How to Play

The goal of this promotion is to chase specific hole cards, which award you points, unlock tournament tickets, and award cash prizes. Players must win with a King-Queen or better hand to start collecting points, as indicated below:

• King-Queen: 10 Points
• Ace-Queen: 20 Points
• Ace-King: 30 Points
• Pocket Kings/Queens/Jacks: 50 Points
• Pocket Aces: 100 Points

You can collect up to 100 points each day, with pre-flop and post-flop wins counting. However, a player is only considered a winner in a split pot if they end with more money than they started with. You can participate in this promo with real money/Zoom cash games and Hold’em Spin & Go tournaments.

The minimum buy-in for these games ranges from $0.02/$0.05 to $1. However, new participating players should note that they can only participate in one challenge each day. While this promotion started on December 14th, it’ll run until January 31st.

Payouts and Probability

There are various random prizes players can win, ranging from $1 Spin & Go and Power Path Tickets to $5,000 in cash. However, the probability of receiving each prize is different:

• $5,000 Cash: 0.01%
• $500 Cash: 0.1%
• $100 Cash: 0.5%
• $50 Cash: 1%
• $25 Spin & Go/Sit & Go Ticket: 1%
• $11 MTT/Power Path Ticket: 2.39%
• $5 Spin & Go/Sit & Go Ticket: 10%
• $1 Spin & Go/Sit & Go/Power Path Ticket: 85%

What Lies Ahead for PokerStars

We found the twist to who can participate in this promotion interesting, though it makes sense if you consider that PokerStars is looking to increase its customer base. Further, this poker room announced its plans to overhaul its reward system on January 22nd. All of these changes point to the brand becoming more transparent and generous in its rewards, with the idea of providing a more equitable distribution of rewards to all types of players. PokerStars will unveil more details on the new rewards program on January 15th.