PokerStars Responds to Closure Complaints

PokerStars closed multiple s this week, according to reports in several poker forums.  The most prominent thread was started at Poker Listings.  Markus Sonermo, owner of Poker.org, started a thread reporting that his PokerStars would be closed.

“The reason given was that they felt I had too many old players generating revenue to justify my monthly payment,” Sonermo stated in his initial post.  Other s posted about similar experiences in the same thread.

PokerStars used line 8.4 in its and conditions as justification for closing the s in question.  That term reads:

We may terminate this Agreement at any time on 7 days’ written notice.

Term 8.9 has also been cited:

Following the termination of this Agreement and the payment to the of monies due to it as at the time of termination, Rational shall have no obligation to make any further Commission payments to the .

This change angered many in the community.  The move has created concern that more contract terminations may occur in the future.

PokerStars representative Michael Josem issued a statement to USPoker that “PokerStars has agreements with thousands of third-party websites (‘s’) to market our services to new players and encourage them to play at PokerStars.”  Josem continued, “PokerStars routinely reviews its agreements with these s to ensure that they are productive for the company.”

Josem also stated that this only affected “a very small number of s that were not recruiting many new players, and who were doing little active promotion of our services”.