News: Over 300,000 news PokerStars Home Games registered since March

We chat to Rebecca McAdam Willetts, an Associate Director at PokerStars, about the meteoric rise of Home Games since the global lockdown.

Can you share how popular Home Games were prior to the lockdown?

Rebecca McAdam Willetts: There has been a significant rise in Home Games worldwide at PokerStars recently. Players are turning to them to engage with friends and family, and for a stimulating, challenging and socially engaging source of entertainment.

Players can take part in Home Games for free or for very small real money stakes depending on the country or state they’re playing from, and we have a wide and varied offering of game types and structures to suit all preferences.

They have proven to be very popular, more so than in the past, but they actually don’t surpass other products in popularity. It’s very widespread across our offering.

How big an increase they have had since the lockdown?

Rebecca McAdam Willetts: If we look at Home Games solely, we can see that there were more than 310,000 clubs set up since March 1 (a significant uptake), and more than half of the active clubs currently are Play Money.

Our comprehensive Play Money offering allows players to play against strangers or create private home game clubs so they can play with friends. Players can collect free Play Money chips every four hours, so they never have to be out of the action for long.

Although a chunk of these numbers can be attributed to poker fans in the U.S. turning to the online felt for social fun and competition, this pattern also occurs in many other places, showing us it’s definitely not the buy-in that makes poker fun and competitive!

MTTs are most popular

home game calls — The average stakes are $5.50 MTTs

Do you have any interesting data on how many PokerStars customers play their first game on Home Games, rather than the regular scheduled games/cash games? Is it a big acquisition tool?

Rebecca McAdam Willetts: We are seeing a wave of players taking to the online felt in a variety of ways, and actually home games don’t stand out as the most popular product when you look across the board.

We are seeing a mix of our current players, brand new players and returning players, who have perhaps been less engaged in poker over the past few years, coming to us to engage in a wide variety of our products. Different players have different tastes and wants, and that shines through across all those groups of customers.

There is however one common denominator across the board – multi table tournaments. The general popularity of MTTs and preference for them above other types of poker shows us that players are looking for a challenge, for competition, and for a prolonged battle.

And players are in luck. We have plenty already scheduled for this month that should keep MTT lovers very happy. There’s our Micro Millions and our Spring Championship of Online Poker, among others.

Any data you can share on the average stakes and size of a typical home game?

Rebecca McAdam Willetts: For those able to take part in real money Home Games, 10c is the most common big blind for cash games. For both Play Money and Real Money Home Games, MTTs are more popular than cash games, and we are finding that $5.50 is the most popular MTT buy-in.

It's business as usual at PokerStars

As a product Home Games have been around a long time but haven’t changed much since their original launch, are many changes coming? Could we see webcam games soon, for example?

Rebecca McAdam Willetts: We are looking at Home Games and ways in which the product can be improved for players in future. We’re getting such incredible feedback about Home Games and understand that when players do get set up, they truly love them. We’ve created a banner inside our client to help people navigate to Home Games more easily and we are working on some content to outline some useful tips in how to set up and use them. We know there are games going on across the world featuring webcams and all sorts of socializing, and it’s uplifting to know we are part of the way people are connecting and having fun during this time.

Could we see exclusive promotions for Home Games?

Rebecca McAdam Willetts: We’re looking at everything to ensure we keep players satisfied and engaged across all our products, and are responding to their interests.

As an aside, how has the day to day running of things at PokerStars been with presumably most staff remote working? Has there been any disruptions to service or have you been well prepared?

Rebecca McAdam Willetts: Our employees are working remotely to ensure that our customers can continue to enjoy our products. Business otherwise continues as normal.

Play free online poker with your friends

Want to set up a Home Game at PokerStars PokerStars.uk PokerStars PokerStars.dk PokerStars.be PokerStars.ee PokerStars.pt? As the name suggests it is a way to create a private members only game with your buddies. You can play cash games or tournaments, for real money or play money. They also offer every format including No Limit Hold'em, PLO, Seven Card Stud and 5-Card Draw.

You and your friends need to create a PokerStars PokerStars.uk PokerStars PokerStars.dk PokerStars.be PokerStars.ee PokerStars.pt account and then find the 'Home Games' tab in the PokerStars lobby. Here you have the option to create a Poker Club or join an existing one.

When you create a club you will be able to invite up to 100 friends using a unique invitation password, so only they can join it. From there you can set up games in any format and stakes that take your fancy. You can even set-up fun things like tournament leaderboards and look at statistics for the best performing club members.

home game poker — A Home Game leaderboard

And of course, don't forget the banter in the PokerStars chat facility and PokerStars have confirmed it's OK to use webcams in these poker games.

Play free online poker with your friends

There are currently three real money poker rooms which offer private online poker games with friends and all of them are included in our free poker money offers and Tell-a-Friend scheme. That means you can play virtual online poker with friends, without any of you having to deposit, and you can get cash for referring your buddies to play poker too.