Blog bost by Dominik 'Korn' Kofert, founder & CEO of PokerStrategy.com:
http://www.pokerstrategy.com/news/wo...rt-Blog_54577/


Don't Discriminate Against Winning Players

PokerStrategy.com CEO Dominik Kofert shares his views on more and more poker rooms seeing winning players as the enemy.

"In recent months we have seen many online poker rooms changing their software and services in a way that benefits the losing ''recreational'' players.

Every dollar raked by a poker room, or won by a winning player, has been deposited and lost by a recreational player first. Without recreational players, nobody wins.

Thus, attracting and servicing players who play poker solely for fun is of key importance for the poker rooms, but also for the professional players.


"Poker is much less appealing to everyone if players get the impression that winners are not welcome"

However, many poker rooms turn this principle upside down.

A recent example of this is the Everleaf network, which has started banning players who win more than €750 in a week from playing against losing players.

Some poker rooms seem to think: “if losing players are good, winning players must be bad.”

This conclusion could not be more wrong, for the following reasons:


1. Deposits

Discriminating against winning players does not cause losing players to deposit more. There is no evidence to support this. In fact, the opposite might be true due to reduced action and liquidity.


2. 'Deposit to Rake'

Apart from the total amount of deposits that are generated at a poker room, from the poker rooms’ point of view, there is another factor of key importance: the deposit-to-rake conversion.

A poker room that generates daily deposits of $1m but only coverts 20% of that into rake earns less money than a poker room that generates just $800k in deposits but converts 30% of that into rake.

Now, almost nobody in the poker industry knows that winning players play a hugely important role in increasing the deposit-to-rake conversion ratio. The reason for this is that the relative skill gap between two winning players is far smaller than the relative skill gap between two recreational players.

Having a healthy share of winning players “flattens” the average skill distribution of a poker room, thus increasing the deposit-to-rake conversion.

Consequently, by banning winning players you probably increase the total amount of cash-outs that happen in the poker ecosystem.


3. Winning Is Integral To Poker

Poker is much less appealing to everyone – recreational players and professionals alike – if players get the impression that winners are not welcome.

In fact, before I first played poker in 2004, I was extremely skeptical due to the saying that in gambling, the operator will never want you to win. This of course holds true for games such as Roulette or Slots.

However, one of the key reasons for the success of poker in the past is that the operator does not care if you win or lose – or at least, they won’t discriminate against you if you do win.

If poker rooms move away from this principle, if they start discriminating against winners, the image of poker as a whole will suffer tremendously - to the detriment of players and operators alike.

In particular, it is often the recreational players who think that poker rooms are rigged or won’t allow you to win. Do not scare them away by discriminating against winners.


"There is a line that should never be crossed, and this is when poker rooms treat players worse because they are winning too much."

I fully support and encourage supporting recreational players more. This also means that I don’t mind if a poker room changes from dealt to weighted contributed rake, for example. This makes logical sense and is still fair and balanced to everybody.

However, there is a line that should never be crossed, and this is when poker rooms treat players worse because they are winning or winning too much.

I am very concerned with the latest trends in the poker industry when it comes to treating winning players well. I think that, especially after tough events post-Black Friday, people need a break.

The vast majority of PokerStrategy.com members play poker just for fun – while learning a few tricks here and there, they still lose money in return for entertainment.

However, here at PokerStrategy.com, it’s our goal to help people become better poker players. We are happy for everybody that makes it and becomes successful. As a poker school, we will certainly never teach people how to lose money.

For the benefit of all, it’s very important that this disturbing trend of discriminating against winning players is stopped before it gains ground.

We are making our opinion known to the poker rooms about this already and encourage each of you to do the same."

By Dominik 'Korn' Kofert

Another issue is that some sportsbooks like to pretend they are poker rooms and pretend that they are just trying to keep the fish playing poker longer, without losing as much money to sharks, implying they are here to help the fish lose less.

But in reality, they are more than happy to see the fish lose the money in the sportsbook or casino at a much faster rate.

Bodog is a name that comes to mind, though you even see it in places like PlayersOnly (eliminating some higher level options available to other skins on that network), Lock (forcing casino bonuses with 40x clearing rates as rewards for poker players) and several non US facing sites.

Excellent points about how important winners are to a poker room, especially given how many people look up to those winners and aspire to profit just like them.