PokerStars is known for offering special promotions when it comes to milestone hands. A milestone hand is a numbered hand that is particularly high such as 100,000 hands or 1 million hands dealt. For PokerStars, the brand has dealt a ton of hands, essentially too many to count. However, the brand is relatively new to the state of New Jersey and their online poker gaming site recently hosted a Milestone Hands event during the Christmas Festival. The segment was a success and sent the cash gaming volume of the site to new heights once completed.
From the 19th of December to the 28th, PokerStars NJ offered a ten day stretch in which the milestone hands could take place. Players involved in every 5,000th hand, as indicated by a hand counter, would receive $30 in cash. The winner of the hand would earn an additional $30. The rewards are not super high but a great way to earn extra cash while playing real money poker gaming. The market in New Jersey is also pretty small so players had a good chance to win a prize.
During this time, the player volume at the site soared to amazing numbers, higher than ever for the brand in the US. According to resource sites like PokerScout, the 7 day average liquidity for PokerStars was 122 when the segment for Milestone Hands was launched. By the time the promotion was towards its end, the average had almost doubled to 209. This is more than 70% more than the amount when the promo started.
According to the figures compiled by PokerScout, the Milestone Hands is essentially the most successful cash game promo that the brand has hosted. With Milestone Hands, PokerStars tends to draw in traffic towards the smaller microstakes games. This is because players will be able to maximize the ratio of risk to reward. They are buying in at smaller amounts than they normally would. For PokerStars, this means the rake that is generated per hand will decrease.
To minimize the impact on the site, PokerStars will offer the promotion but exclude Zoom and Heads-Up tables. However, this still leaves plenty of penny tables and other low stakes options. And while PokerStars would not make a ton of cash during the promotion, they did gain a nice average in cash game liquidity. The number of players is down from when the promo ended but the average cash game liquidity sits at around 168, which is still more than what was taking place at the beginning of the promo. So the long-term effects should be noted.
The Christmas Festival overall impacted the site in a positive manner. The Big Monday event took place on the 26th of the month and saw the guarantees increase by 20%. All five majors surpassed their guaranteed with the Supersonic and Nightly Stars up by more than 50%. The Big Monday Special created just over $60,000 in prize money while the High Roller event was up almost $10,000 more than usual.
It seems this high point in cash gaming traffic may soon come to an end as everyone gets back to their normal work routine after the holidays. It will be interesting to see if PokerStars is able to keep steady at their average cash player numbers or if the trend will stop and the players will begin to drop back from playing on a regular basis.
Either way, the Milestone Hands options continues to be popular at PokerStars, rewarding players with cash prizes and bringing in players for an extended period of time.