Official "PLEASE KEEP DEALT RB" Thread

[Schwatt]

Originally Posted by Ditch Digger

Keep dealt but please fix the VIP point distribution.

+1

(rake*9)/# of players dealt into hand = FPP's per player

We don't want to hurt existing FR players IMO

[jasonvip1]

if i have rakeback on cake poker, am i allowed to sign up for rakeback on lock (i dont have an account yet)

[Schwatt]

No. I believe accounts have to receive 0 logins for 90 days in order to switch RB skins.

So you will have to be on Lock's VIP system until you reach that milestone (unless you are already there)

[jasonvip1]

ah screw that seems ridiculous 3 months is ages...ill attempt

[Chazley]

Originally Posted by Chazley

...

2) Poker sites have a responsibility to themselves and the community to take care of the fragile poker ecosystem

Introducing Contributed RB into the poker ecosystem has a potentially devastating effect.

Let's take Pokerstars as an example. Let's think about what made Pokerstars the industry leader for essentially nearly the past decade: For me, what stands out is their incredibly well-crafted player rewards system, that up until 2012 was Dealt RB and basically told people, make SNE and you will make 6 figures every year just in rewards. With Dealt RB, Supernova was an attainable goal for alot of people, and every year more and more people reached the coveted status. It was a goal that galvanized a ton of people in the poker community, and basically locked in people's business for an endless cycle because they don't want to lose their status, therefore creating the most dedicated player base in the business where individuals grinded out north of $100k in rake for the site each year. Think about that for a second.

Fast forward to 2012: Stars has alot going for it: Their only real rival, FTP, is gone, and they were the first major network to introduce a Fast-Fold variant of poker. New people chasing Supernova.

But, oops, they introduced Contributed RB.

Traffic Jan. 1 (estimates from PokerScout): 26k average cash games players
Last 7 days average traffic (according to PokerScout, including Zoom): 22.8k

Approximately a 12.3% decrease in traffic in only 5 months. What gives? To me it is obvious: PokerStars didn't take into account who made them a massive majority of their rake profits, which were losing/breakeven players who made money off the player rewards. There were guys losing tens of thousands in dollars every year on the tables, but were making bank off Stars (from SNE), which in turn made BANK off of them. These players are GREAT for the games AND Stars.

Switching to Contributed effectively eliminates these players. They are mostly nits who profusely bleed redline money to regs, who benefit from having them in the food chain, effectively creating an extra revenue stream through which the sites donate money back to the player pool. Bad players think these guys just nit up the games, while the sites make a ****load of money from rake and regulars get to feast on them relentlessly.

Not only does Stars lose the nits, the good regulars all of a sudden lose a huge profit stream. Stars essentially cannibalized the very players who made their site so big. These players all of a sudden can't beat the rake, and slowly but surely the site will lose significant amounts of cash game players.

Would just like to point out, the massive drop in player traffic is continuing at Stars: Their 7-day running average is now 19.6k players.

Don't make the same mistake as Stars - Keep Dealt and stay away from BBJ.

[litlebullet]

who is taking their traffic?

[Chazley]

Originally Posted by litlebullet

who is taking their traffic?

Nobody.

Every major site has seen a significant decrease in traffic since they went from dealt to contributed. It is not a coincidence.

[Ditch Digger]

Originally Posted by Chazley

Nobody.

Every major site has seen a significant decrease in traffic since they went from dealt to contributed. It is not a coincidence.

Maybe just maybe there are other factors than just dealt vs contributed.

[vanity02]

Originally Posted by litlebullet

who is taking their traffic?

People lose their roll and either stop playing, go live, etccc use your imagination lol

[Matt Probability]

+1 to dealt. im an affiliate for lock and dealt rb has been the main reason a couple players have made the move from merge. nobody has decided not to play on lock because contributed or weighted contributed is not used.

[glockdiesel]

Agreed I know quite a few people who have heard lock has dealt rakeback and are making the move as soon as the bugs are all fixed. I've been telling them to just come over now, but it's up to them.

[Chazley]

Originally Posted by Ditch Digger

Maybe just maybe there are other factors than just dealt vs contributed.

Name another factor that directly correlates with the large dropoff weve seen in cash game traffic for every major site over the past two years.

After u think about it awhile and come up with nothing, let me go ahead and tell you what it is.

Sites got greedy and switched to contributed rb, which disintigrated the profit margin of a ton of people. It also kills the motivation to grind mindlessly for hours on end.

Stars was the only site still growing at the end of 2011... The ONLY one. They switch to contributed in 2012 and lose 25% of their cash game traffic, despite adding zoom.

I can only hope that lock makes the smart decision and chooses long term viability over a short term boost in profits. The great news is, dealt is great for EVERYBODY.

[litlebullet]

Originally Posted by vanity02

People lose their roll and either stop playing, go live, etccc use your imagination lol

Haha, I'm out of the loop on how the non USA poker networks are doing- I thought if Chazley was keeping track of Star's trends he'd know which networks are gaining ground too.

[glockdiesel]

Originally Posted by Chazley

Name another factor that directly correlates with the large dropoff weve seen in cash game traffic for every major site over the past two years.

After u think about it awhile and come up with nothing, let me go ahead and tell you what it is.

Sites got greedy and switched to contributed rb, which disintigrated the profit margin of a ton of people. It also kills the motivation to grind mindlessly for hours on end.

Stars was the only site still growing at the end of 2011... The ONLY one. They switch to contributed in 2012 and lose 25% of their cash game traffic, despite adding zoom.

I can only hope that lock makes the smart decision and chooses long term viability over a short term boost in profits. The great news is, dealt is great for EVERYBODY.

THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!

[jspill]

very articulate post from a different thread, worth cross-posting

Originally Posted by Do it Right

Let's imagine for a moment that you were paying 25% tax and your neighbor was only paying 15%. That's pretty unfair. So the government acknowledges your complaint and decides to change your tax rate to 65% and your neighbor's to 62%. Hey, that's a huge improvement because it's more fair - right?

Yeah the nits, especially the insanely tight ones, were getting way more than they contributed under dealt. But chances are so were you, and though you may not realize it - those insanely tight nits are good for you. They're not good at poker. They were just bleeding away money. Now many of them are gone. Did they get replaced by fish? No of course not. The vast majority of seats are taken up by regulars of various sorts in today's games. You got rid of the super night nits and replaced them with vastly more competent regulars. That's done just great things for the game quality.

The reality is the sites are killing off online poker with excessive raking. Weighted contributed ultimately just means the sites take even more out of the games while giving less back. The crazy thing is is that it doesn't even look like the sites are really earning that much more because of how rapidly weighted contributed inevitably ends up killing off the games.

There's no way this is good for Stars:



And there were countless voices telling them this would happen beforehand. I just hope they realize the cause of this really is their pricing, but more likely they'll just look for other excuses. The sites do such a great job of hiding how much rake their customers actually pay - there's no way people could ever respond to it, surely.

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