Before we get into the current hot topic, let's go back to 2023 for a moment, when the world's biggest online poker room GGPoker announced that it was raising the rake.

Even before the rake increase, they already had the highest rake of the competing poker rooms, as high as 4bb on high stakes games. Last year, this rake was raised to a ridiculous 7.08bb, making the games unprofitable. At the time, the casino argued that it offered rakeback of up to 60 percent, but a number of players denied this and said that they did not have rakeback of more than 20 percent. One of the regular high stakes cash game participants on this platform expressed that he had paid $600,000 in rake to the casino in 2022 alone, and that was before the new rake increase.

Again the target of criticism

Currently, the largest online poker room GGPoker and the new owner of the WSOP brand has once again been in the spotlight. Unfortunately again in a negative light. Two weeks ago, several players received an email saying that from November 8, all high stakes cash games with a limit of $25/$50 and above will be by invitation only and closed to the public.

To make matters worse, the poker room decided to ban professional players from entering. Why? The poker room wants a lot more recreational players to play in the high stakes waters and not get eaten up by the professional sharks. A representative of the poker room said that they took this step at the request of the high stakes players. The new VPIP tables would also be a new feature, where the player will have to play at least 30 percent of the hands. If the player fails to fulfill this obligation, he will be suspended for one hour in order to achieve a smooth flow of play.

In practice, this should work by having the high stakes rooms run by private hosts, who must send you an invitation to play. Players have commented on the forums that this move will encourage various forms of corruption and will allow seats at the table to be sold. In addition, they also pointed to the fact that weak players will never have to face good players this way. It is quite possible that with this move, high stakes professional players will move to other online poker rooms or will have to play lower limits.

What do you think about this move? Do you support banning professional players from high stakes cash games or do you have a different opinion on this? Let us know in the comments on our social media.

Source - vegasslotsonline.com, cardplayer.com, pokernews