Unibet has announced that they will beta launch their new standalone poker platform on February 19th, which is slightly faster than most others had expected. Unibet will be having their standalone platform along with Microgaming for a while, to make adjustments to their own platform and slowly phase out Microgaming for the players.
The software is a more “fun” poker software, than it is grinder friendly. You’ll have 3D background, caricature avatars and will be able to change name in the software. Unibet will also offer a wide range of different missions and achievements that players can get rewards from, making it very friendly for the recreational players.
“It will allow a much better customer experience and enable us to focus more on the recreational poker players,” CEO of Unibet, Henrik Tjärnström said at the presentation of the software.
Hold’em Manager, Pokertracker and other similar tracking tools that provides players with a HUD will not be supported and it will not be allowed to data mine as well. Bumhunting is not possible either as players are not able to rail tables and find recreational players and then sit and exploit them, instead all players will be seated randomly and play poker as it is meant to be – Without a HUD or any other knowledge of the other players.
Unibet also announced that the rake will be adjusted accordingly with the stakes, ensuring that micro and small stakes players will pay much less rake than on other poker sites and networks.
“This is based on the idea that if we remove less money from the bottom of the ecology, more players will move up.” Unibet Representative Sciolist explained on Two plus Two Forums.
Unibet will start with the highest stakes being €2/€4, but with the option to change this later on in the process. Unibet has no interest in their standalone room will become a reg infested room and want to make it possible for some of the recreational players to move up in stakes, as they wouldn’t be able to do on other sites. It will be interesting to see how successful this will become for Unibet and if so, how it will change the industry as a whole.