GGPOKER

Introducing Ocean Rewards: What You Need to Know

More cashback, longer status protection, and rewards you actually control

Change can be scary. When you hear that a rewards program you’ve been grinding is getting replaced, your first thought is probably: “They’re about to make things worse.” It’s a fair concern. Poker players have seen enough “improvements” that turned out to be anything but.

Here’s the good news: GGPoker’s upcoming switch from Fish Buffet to Ocean Rewards on January 30th, 2026, is genuinely better for players. Not marketing-speak, better, actually better. 

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The Big Picture: What’s Changing?

Fish Buffet has been GGPoker’s loyalty program for years. You play, you earn points, you spin a wheel, you get rewards. Or, you make the jump to a Platinum level and earn a weekly flat cashback payout. Simple enough. Ocean Rewards streamlines the entire system into a simple process, keeping the core idea intact while upgrading nearly everything around it. 

More Cashback in Your Pocket

Let’s start with the number everyone cares about: cashback percentage.

Under Fish Buffet, the maximum cashback tops out at 60% for GGPlatinum members. That’s solid, but Ocean Rewards pushes that ceiling to 80%. For regular grinders, that difference adds up fast.

Even if you put in a couple of hours a week at the tables over a year, the extra percentage points of cashback would mean hundreds, or possibly thousands, of dollars back in your pocket, depending on the stakes.

Year-Long Tier Protection (Finally)

You grind hard, reach a solid tier, and then life happens. Work may get busy. Maybe you take a vacation. Or perhaps you just want a break from the tables.

Under Fish Buffet’s time cycles, stepping away meant watching your tier status slip. Miss your point targets, and you’d get demoted. All that progress, gone. 

Ocean Rewards fixes this with year-long tier protection. Once you reach a tier, you keep it through the end of the year. That means:

• No more monthly pressure – Take a week off without stressing about a demotion
• Plan around your life – Holidays, vacations, and busy seasons won’t tank your status
• Grind when it makes sense – Focus your play when the games are good, not when the calendar demands it

For recreational players who can’t commit to daily sessions, this change alone makes Ocean Rewards significantly more player-friendly.

What Are Tide Points and GEMs? 

Ocean Rewards replaces Fish Buffet Points with two new currencies: Tide Points and GEMs. These points are both gained at a rate of approximately 100 for every dollar in rake you generate.

Tide Points determine your tier. Accumulate enough, and you’ll rank up. Your rank–up applies immediately and sets your tier for next year. In addition, increasing your rank gives you a GEM multiplier, allowing you to accumulate GEMs faster.

GEMs are exchanged for cashback through the rewards shop, and the exchange rate improves as you cash in larger amounts. For example, trading 5,000 GEMs will get you $5 (valued at 1,000 GEMs per $1), while trading 45,000 GEMs will get you $50 (valued at 950 GEMs per $1), and trading 90,000 GEMs will get you $500 (valued at 900 GEMs per $1). 

The more GEMs you trade at once, the better the value.

Your tier determines your GEM multiplier, which directly affects how quickly you accumulate cashback. Higher tiers mean more GEMs earned per dollar raked. The eight tiers, ranked lowest Tide Points to highest Tide Points, are:

Fish
Shrimp
Crab
Turtle
Octopus
Dolphin
Whale
Shark

Cashback rewards are not the only thing you will be able to trade your GEMs for, but you will have to wait to see what surprises we have in store.

Seamless Transition for Current Players

If you’re worried about losing your current progress, don’t be. GGPoker has built in protections to make the switch painless:

• Platinum Octopus members get automatic promotion to the Octopus tier in Ocean Rewards
• Unclaimed Fish Buffet rewards convert automatically to your account balance
• Tier placement is based on either your current Fish Buffet rank or your accumulated points from January 1-30, 2026, whichever is higher. 

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GGPoker is looking at your recent play and making sure you don’t start over from scratch. That’s how a transition should work. In addition, any Fish Points collected between December 1st, 2025, and January 30th, 2026, will be automatically transferred to Tide Points, ensuring you are in the best situation to continue boosting your rank.

Your Next Move

Ocean Rewards launches January 30th, 2026, and most GGPoker players will be automatically enrolled; however, in certain regulated regions, you will need to opt in through the game client, but for most players, there’s nothing you need to do except keep playing.

The bottom line? This isn’t a sideways move disguised as an upgrade. Ocean Rewards delivers more cashback, longer protection, and genuine flexibility. For once, “new and improved” actually means what it says.

Time to dive in.