Exclusive: PokerStars Readies a New Spin & Go Variant – Spin & Go Flash

PokerStars may be getting a new owner, but its trend of developing new game variants and bringing innovative products to its game offerings hasn’t stopped as the operator is now set to expand its immensely popular lottery-style Spin & Go offerings.

Spin & Go Flash is the latest product that is being tested internally by the online poker giant, pokerfuse can exclusively reveal.

The game is likely to be offered alongside the regular Hold’em version and the newer Max Hold’em, and Omaha versions.

While it is hard to guess how the game will work exactly, based on the available graphics and the product name, our best guess is that it could be even a faster version of the already existing Spin & Go.

The regular Spin & Go (launched on PokerStars five years ago) is played with a three-handed, winner-take-all format—the prize pool of which is determined randomly at the start of the tournament and ranges anywhere from 2x the buy-in to as high as 12,000 times the buy-in. The format is quite fast already with most of the games averaging 7 to 12 minutes.

The “Flash” version could be even quicker with games finishing in less than five minutes.

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Borrowing Winamax’s Expresso Nitro Idea?

Not too long ago, Winamax, the original inventor of the lottery-style sit and go format under the brand Expresso, introduced Nitro, a new Expresso variant where the game lasts just a few minutes.

The format is almost the same as the classic Expresso format except that players receive 300-chip starting stacks instead of 500, but more importantly, the blind levels are just one minute long instead of the usual three.

Nitro has proved to be very popular, and in fact, it has already hit the top $1 million prize pool multiplier. Because the game ends much quicker, more games are played every day—the frequency of the top multiplier getting triggered is higher than the classic variant.

There is a possibility that PokerStars’ Spin & Go Flash could well be inspired by Winamax’s version, possibly with a twist. Whether that twist involves increasing the number of seats, tweaks to the payouts or something else, it remains to be seen.

It could also be something much different than what we have speculated. But based on the product name and the fact that Nitro proved very popular among the players, Spin & Go Flash could very well be a similar variant.

Swap Hold’em Still in the Works

Another novelty variant that is in the company’s pipeline is Swap Hold’em. The game was spotted two months ago under the room’s tournaments filter suggesting that the game could be exclusively for MTTs. However, a recent update to PokerStars software indicates that the game could also become a cash game variant.

While there is no additional info, speculating based on the name alone, Swap Hold’em could allow players to swap a hole card from a new one from the deck. Alternatively, the game could also allow players to swap a hole card and replace it with one of the community cards.

Pokerfuse reached out to PokerStars for additional information on the game but the company chose not to comment.

“We regularly develop potential new games and features, however, we prefer not to comment on Swap Hold’em at present,” said a spokesperson for The Stars Group.

Other games that were exclusively revealed by pokerfuse but have not come to market thus far include Deepwater Hold’em and Omaha versions of last year’s novelty variants—Split and Showtime.

And another has come and gone. At the end of July, PokerStars rolled out Spin & Go 6+ Hold’em, the short deck version of Spin & Go to become the first operator to do so.

However, the format did not prove to be a success as it was withdrawn from the lobby after just eight weeks.