High-stakes pros end boycott of GGPoker after reaching a deal over rake rises
Industry’s leading poker site bows to pressure and agrees to lower rake cap two weeks after doubling it for most ‘VIP games’
Around 90 high-stakes poker players have called off their boycott of GGPoker’s ‘VIP games’ after the operator agreed to significantly reduce recent rake cap increases.
At some cash tables, the rake cap – the limit on what a site takes from a single pot – more than doubled when GGPoker quietly rolled out the changes at the beginning of April.
The rake cap hikes affected the $25-$50 (small and big blind) tables up to the $500-$1,000 games.
While GGPoker’s rake remained unchanged at 5%, the five- and six-handed tables from $25-$50 up to $200-$400 saw their caps double overnight.
This meant, for instance, the maximum that could be raked from a $200-$400 cash game leapt from $50 to $100.
High-stakes pros who play on GGPoker felt the changes made the games unbeatable and as a consequence around 90 players took part in a coordinated boycott of the site earlier this month.
One player taking part in the boycott posted on poker forum TwoPlusTwo how GGPoker’s new rake structure was up to 15-times higher than that charged at rival sites.
However, the high-stakes players announced on Twitter yesterday, Sunday 16 April, that the community voted to reach a deal with GGPoker to end their strike.
The outcome is some rake caps at certain levels of the VIP games will return to their original levels while others will see far smaller increases.
Yesterday, the HS community voted to reach a deal with @GGPoker ending the boycott of their VIP games.
The net result is:
– 90% roll back of the increase 4+ handed (~4.2bb @ 5k)
– Decrease in rake 3h + HU
– GG promises to consider further trial of decreases in 3h + HU rake pic.twitter.com/b4kJ6qb4Cp— George (@George_ymb) April 16, 2023
Phil Galfond, the founder of poker site Run It Once Poker, which was bought by Rush Street Interactive in 2022, tweeted that he couldn’t remember the last time there had been a successful boycott of a poker site and an agreement reached.
Launched as a B2B poker network in 2014, GGPoker expanded into a B2C operation in 2017 and went on to topple PokerStars to become the largest poker site in the world.
Despite the already high rake cap even before the increases, GGPoker is where nearly all of the high-stakes action on the virtual felt takes place these days as many rival sites have closed their tables at the higher limits.
According to traffic-tracking site Poker Scout, GGPoker has a seven-day average of 8,400 cash-game players at the time of writing, more than double PokerStars’ 4,000 players.
EGR contacted GGPoker regarding the agreement reached with its players to end their boycott but the operator declined to comment.