Basically I have been trying to be a poker affilite, with costly trial and error in advertising and offering bonuses, I'm trying to find a way to get daily winnings regs to sign up via my links, 50nl and up. I feel like its kind of a waste of time and money to offer bonuses and advertising and spend $50 plus per depositing player and earn a whopping $1 from the player for three days then that's it for a month. Staking affiliate may work if you do good research and find a winning player but still very risky, as if the player looses a $1000 stake and you only earn $20 revenue. So my question is. What's the best way to get daily mid stake cash game players? As some good earning can be made from only a few of these players. I believe 100 daily regs could earn any affiliate a decent living, how to find those? What to offer them? How to treat them like VIP?!

It damn sure isn't easy... find a niche.

--
Kahn

It is also worth noting that the specific type of high-end rev share affiliation that OP is attempting to emulate, is dying and doesn't have much of a future.

Most rooms / networks do not like winning players. Rake isn't a fair method to determine player value and the rooms started to realize this a while ago. With this, affiliates are now being judged differently and you would do well to get a good room to get behind the 'VIP Service' model.

Jamie

That's odd, I would assume they like winning players in poker since they would make more money in rake? As low as 20% share is profitable too. But with the right players, daily mid stakes winners/grinders.

There are a ton of other threads on this, but in short, winning players aren't too good for poker.

Deposit - Withdrawals = Rake

A poker room full of grinders is no good. It takes the fun out of poker and the grinders will not be able to profit.

Whereas a well mixed room is good. The general feeling in the industry is that the winning players shouldn't be rewarded as well as they are being as they are taking money out of the poker economy and typically paying the least rake to do so.

Networks like Cassava and Ongame are taking active steps to protect their recreational player base.

The recreational players are what keeps poker going, and keeps it attractive. The grinders are contingent on these players.

Jamie

I disagree Jamie.

PokerStars is larger than the next ten largest poker rooms, and they celebrate winning players with visible supernova and supernova elite rewards, very high rewards that even encourage more grinding from winning players.

The rooms you speak of are primarily casinos and sportsbooks that simply want to protect their margins from their sportsbook and casino minded business.

While some smaller sites have shown some growth with these grinder restriction policies in place, nothing on a large scale has shown that this method is superior for a poker room than the PokerStars approach of lower rake and less restriction.

In theory it sounds great, big players take money from fish quickly and cashout a lot. In reality, if you don't have big winning players, a lot of interest in the game dies. The big missing part of these arguments is the interest from losing depositors in big winning players, even less visible pros. You see it on 2p2 a lot. The short sighted observation is "2p2 is just a bunch of winners." That can't be further from the truth. 2p2 is filled with many net losing depositors that idolize the minority (winning pros) on the site. And that effect is a big part of PokerStars success. That interest in trying to become the profitable winning player, a profitable 20 tabler, or a heads up shark, that drives so many bad players to play this game. So when you remove the ability to profit as a professional, you turn the game into just another casino game. And poker does not grow nearly as well when it's simply another casino game. It thrives on competition, on the ability to truly profit to a large extent based on skill, unrestricted by obscene rake or short sighted margin pushing punishments.

In the long term, as long as you keep a high interest in poker (by celebrating, featuring and allowing players to profit) and adjust game types and structures when necessary, I think you have a recipe for long term growth in your poker room. PokerStars is basically the only one doing that, and I think they are right to do so, I think it taps into a wider range of "fish."

Of course, there are always concerns with allowing too easy a profit on a poker room. I like to think heads up cash is an example of a failure of poker rooms (including PokerStars) to reign in "easy money." Allowing the 2nd worst player to wait for the very worst player is a terrible game selection flaw. Whereas, a more competitive system (heads up sit and go for example) has thrived for years, even grown as "the games are dying" chants get louder in poker (until last year, heads up sit and go actually grew year by year).

But I don't believe the poker rooms that restrict winning players are doing so to reign in heads up cash like situations. It's my position that they do so more with an eye on their player margins, driven by the sportsbook and casino side of their game. And I think it chokes the growth and potential of the poker world, much like stand alone casinos that charge a higher rake and stick poker rooms in the back corner of their properties (not all do that, but those that do, do so to make more money from their more profitable non poker side of their business, at the expensive of the poker side).

To be clear, I don't think what these rooms are doing is wrong. I just think that they do it because it makes them more money, not because it's better for the maximal growth of poker.

In summary (TLDR)

Fish lose money to sharks. They lose a lot more to the rake and casino and sportsbook though. These businesses don't mind the latter, but pretend the former is a big problem. It's only a big problem for their business, not the sustainability of poker, in fact, it even limits the growth of poker to discourage profitable players.

I don't think regs cash out that much, they loose and break even probably most of the time, I think it's very profitable for poker rooms to have regs, fish will loose and deposit again. I think in the long term most of the cash outs come from tournamnet wins while a small percentage of cash game sharks cash out

Hey Ryan,

Nice post. My thoughts are below.

My fundamental point is that grinding and the rake system are largely irrelevant.

Rake isn't a fair way to judge player value. Lots of networks are beginning to realise this. Most notably OnGame with Essence and more recently Microgaming with their True Value rake system.

I would posit that the guy who loses around $100 a week whilst raking $25 per time, is more valuable than a winning grinder.

The recreational player stimulates action. Without players like him, there would be no incentive for the grinders. In fact the relatively little excitement any player continues to get from playing online poker is because of players like this. Would I site packed with players like this survive? Of course. How about a site with grinders? Of course not.

The grinders rake is contingent on these players existing.

Stars themselves are already making moves against this kind of mentality. Note the change of rake method at the start of this year. I suggest they aren't as far along the path as other networks and rooms because of their large player base and the relative fragility of their current business. In fact, it has been rumoured that Stars are prepared to sacrifice the quality of their games and possible longevity of their poker room because of the likely outgoings they will incur as a result of Black Friday. Legal fees, DOJ settlement and of course the possibility of a Full Tilt purchase - These are costs Stars management are aware of.

As a good standalone operator Stars are conscious that they must protect and galvanise their recreational players.

The rooms you speak of are primarily casinos and sportsbooks that simply want to protect their margins from their sportsbook and casino minded business.

Cassava and Party are two big operators who are poker-centric.

Cassava are known for low VIP rewards, yet players continue to flock there because of their soft games and the great playing experience on offer.

In fact, part of the reason they ceased offering rev share as an option to affiliates, is because rev-share affiliates (in general) bring these kinds of players.

When a player withdraws from a poker room, there is no longer an opportunity to turn that money into rake. If the money is not turned into rake the poker room cannot continue to market at the same rate and continue to offer as enjoyable a playing experience.

It's a vicious circle that every room is aware of regardless of whether they're poker-centric.

Rooms who have poker as a secondary or tertiary product also care about poker. If it was simply a case of protecting their current sportsbook and casino business and if they believed they had a lot to lose from the proposition, these rooms simply would not offer it. I find it hard to believe that any poker provider goes into the business with the hope as little of their customers as possible will play because they wish to protect their business.

See PaddyPower with the Irish Open, Betfair who have an incredible social poker following, Bet365 with their great value exclusive poker tables and Boyle with the IPO (Europe's largest poker tournament). These brands care about poker and their actions demonstrate that they are in poker for the long haul.
It's difficult to gauge growth with everything that is going on. Regulated markets, seasonal lull and black friday are just some of the reasons cited for the stagnant nature of the games today.

888 are, however a great example of growth using this philosophy.

It's beginning to become apparent that most networks are attributing part of the decline in numbers to the grinder, reward heavy mentality that cannabilizes the network model, more than it could ever a standalone room.

iPoker -- iPoker2: Splitting the network to create a recreationally minded network with net-depositing skins.
OnGame -- Essence: Their own unique rake system that judges player value differently.
Microgaming -- True Value Rake Method : See above.
888Poker -- CPA & Low Rewards: Low VIP scheme that isn't rewarding to volume and no wish to attract big winners. They do not mind them and appreciate they are a part of poker, but they're not the network's ideal customer.

PKR and SkyPoker are also worth noting as their software and relative success demonstrates that they too appreciate their recreational backbone is to thank for where they are today. Although users can now play a multiple tables on both, it is quite clear who their target market is.

This leaves the smaller networks who mainly have other issues to worry about and have an uncertain future - I'm mainly referring to the American facing ones.


The lure of grinding does not account for a significant number of recreational deposits.

I don't know about you, but if you faced me with the reality of grinding when I got into poker, I probably wouldn't be here today. I got into poker because of the possibility of a big score, the lights and the action. I got in because I wanted to take shots and I needed instant gratification.

Can any of Stars success be attributed to their Team Online? Of course these pros help retain current online players, but I think the majority of NanoNoko's value is in, encouraging those who are already at least partially immersed in the online scene.

It is the hero stories, like those of Chris Moneymaker of even Phil Hellmuth that attract fresh users.

The poker dream is what keeps things alive, I totally agree, but the kind of affiliate that OP is considering becoming is not going to help add to the dream. Poker went wrong when players began playing to rake and not playing to win.

I totally agree that 2+2 is misunderstood, but again the majority of the users in the regs threads are not always those who are the true backbone of the site.

Poker is actually becoming like a casino game, but not on a super juicy table with high rake. It becomes a casino game when it's full of grinders. As a HUSNG professional, I'd ask you what you would prefer your regular HUSNG's to look like:

A 2% rake with a player pool full of highly educated users striving to play a perfect game?

Or

A 5% rake with taxes on winnings and a high number of players who are playing for pure entertainment?

That is what it is all about and that's what the rooms I have mentioned are fighting for. It is for this reason that affiliating in the style that OP is proposing is not a long term business decision. Poker rooms do not want option A.

Take a look at Italy and France? Poker is more popular than it was before in these markets. In fact PokerStars.it is the fifth largest room in the world. It's not as easy to win, the rake is actually close to unbeatable, but people have a great time playing there. French rooms are beginning to attract a lot of users from non-French countries within the Eu, in fact and it's not for the high rewards or low rake. It is for the great games.


I would never suggest not celebrating poker. It should and must be celebrated all the time and sites like PokerTube.Com are perfect for this.

The days of winning players being compensated to a far greater extent than losing players likely do not have long left and this will reflect in the affiliate world too.

We can't complain at the standard of games, when the rooms have no money left to operate on. In real terms, rooms actually make a loss from compensating players like this. See the example below:

Player Bonuses, Rakeback & Promotions: 60%
Affiliate Share: 5%
Payment Processing: 5%
Licence Fees & Support: 5%
Business Costs; Website, Office, Equipment: 7.5%
Network Fees: 10 - 15%

Money Left: Not Much

Whatever way you play it, by the end of it the room doesn't have much left to put into marketing at all and how can they be expected to, when (under the current system) their new recreational players will generate very little rake and the money they deposit will find it's way out of the poker economy fairly quickly.
KOTH Poker (as we discussed) is a great example of how things should be done by the rooms and it doesn't detract from winning players at all, it simply creates a more fun game environment and protects recreational players.

But I don't believe the poker rooms that restrict winning players are doing so to reign in heads up cash like situations. It's my position that they do so more with an eye on their player margins, driven by the sportsbook and casino side of their game. And I think it chokes the growth and potential of the poker world, much like stand alone casinos that charge a higher rake and stick poker rooms in the back corner of their properties (not all do that, but those that do, do so to make more money from their more profitable non poker side of their business, at the expensive of the poker side).

As stated above, I don't really think sports book and casino have too much to do with what we're discussing. There is a wider 'gaming ecology', but most of these companies have dedicated poker teams and regardless these big poker decisions are typically made by the networks, who may have some interest in side game revenue, but almost never in sports book revenue.

Finally, there is of course Party & 888, who are poker companies.

To be clear, I don't think what these rooms are doing is wrong. I just think that they do it because it makes them more money, not because it's better for the maximal growth of poker.

I would never deny that the end game is to maximise profit, but profit and running a good poker room are synonymous.

Look at the state of the games on iPoker right now or how they used to be on Entraction. It's not because of lack of reward and it's not because of lack of natural fish - look at all the sportsbooks on iPoker for example.

When players begin to grind with rake back and rewards in mind, as opposed to playing the game, it takes away the very essence of what makes poker great and this is why an affiliate who invests time and money into driving these kinds of players to poker rooms will not be a business decision that your bank account thanks you for.


Let me know what you think.

Jamie

Damn, lost a big post I wrote up. I'll just throw out some bullet points, and if you disagree/agree/want to add, please do.

You do make some good points and I can agree on a lot of what you say, I think I'm mostly disagreeing about some of the methods and labels and the way the rooms are presenting the changes to players.

- I think you are undervaluing guys like Nanoko or Elky or WizardofAA or Bjoerni and many more of the online pros. These guys individually may not be Moneymaker types, but collectively I think they really draw a ton of players to PokerStars, players that are great for the games (lifetime losers or small profit players). It's not that they inspire players by telling them they need to grind a ton, their profit, their lifestyle, their success, it drives people into playing this game. Similar to the Moneymaker stuff, except it's 2012, more people are playing "to deposit $200 and make a bunch of money and retire early" rather than people just saying "what's this no limit texas hold em poker game? It's kind of fun, I want to learn the rules, I'll deposit $200 and play." 2009-2012 fish versus 2003-2005 fish (and both have always existed and still do, I just think there is a momentum shift on the side of the aspiring pros, a majority of which end up losing or profiting to such a small extent that even Bodog would want their business).

- Another point about the PokerStars structure, they give tons of reward for supernova elites, but how many players aspire to be a SNE and don't make it? How many players play extra at the expense of profit to try to hit milestones? It's the same way with visible online pros and the natural appeal that playing the game for a living has to newer players. For every new Serkules or Adonis112 top level player, there will be dozens of players that are great for the poker room. PokerStars seems to have found a way to reward high raking players while still profiting from the overall chase that results in having a competitive rewards structure (rather than the flat structures that other places offer).

- HUSNGs keep growing. 5-7 years ago they were filled with the clueless players you allude to preferring @ 5% rake. But the games are more profitable today, even though the playerbase is smarter and much more aware. The missing key variable here is that the game has grown, large in part due to players like Olivier Busquet making millions at the game and inspiring legions of new players to take their shot at becoming a professional. Most don't make it, but the few that put in the real hard work and focus do make it. But if you remove that profit potential, if you start targeting winning players and publicly talking about them being bad for a poker room, that's goes against what inspires so many to play the game.

- New structures also add new players and can grow interest from older players. Turbos 5-7 years ago did this in heads up sngs, and more recently super (hyper) turbos. In the general poker arena, you have Rush Poker. But why did it take years for rooms to come up with Rush-type poker structures? Are new structures that take into account the ecology of the game not vastly important to poker rooms? Why is it that about 50% of poker rooms that have rolled out super turbo husngs actually created an unbeatable structure with too high of rake that a very low % of players want to play (and then they change it to a lower raked, sustainable format with a few extra blind levels that both casual and professional players really love)? To me, that is an indication that some rooms could stand to take some of the game structure designs a bit more seriously from the planning to execution stage.

- Back to the recreational/fish marketing stuff. Take ginette22. Huge high stakes fish. He lost 1 million, maybe more in the games (there's an NVG thread about him, he's reportedly a former processor and the government is going after him for alleged fraud unrelated too I think). The guy talks about trying to win so bad he had others play on his account. He talks about playing the best players in the highest stakes games. Do you think if top players weren't making such big money that he would've bothered playing poker for so long? I would imagine it would've been more likely that he would chase profits in games like sports betting, maybe even at the casino, or perhaps even in emerging legal wagering options such as fantasy sports or video games. Some of the biggest losing players are not even bad players anymore, they just play in the wrong games, too high and have no discipline to go with their competitive nature.

- I may have bias, I'm not as familiar with cash game rake systems, but when I hear about them it is always presented in "targeting winning players" and "protecting the fish" and "winners are so bad." I don't think that is productive nor the correct approach as I believe it has too many negatives (mainly what I list above). It might not kill the games, and obviously it's better than losing money on your winning players but I think it limits the growth and prosperity of the games in the long run.

- Things like 10% rake up to the $200s on Party Poker husngs are very bad for both recreational and pros (it's 4.5-5% on many rooms including Stars). Ongame has "coinflip husngs" where you play one hand all in preflop and pay them rake, winner take all. How can that be good for recreational players? The traffic of the heads up sit and gos in these places is much smaller. Rooms like PlayersOnly and Sportsbook limit how high their players can play in husngs. Stars has shown that having high stakes husngs hasn't killed games, profit, rake, the game has actually expanded over the years, so why do you think Sportsbook and PO does that? My guess is they've had too many sports or casino fish dropping money in HUSNGs and while the rake they pay makes the room a profit, that profit isn't nearly as large as the room would make if the fish were gambling in sports or the casino.

- In the 60% Ipoker player reward example, why doesn't Ipoker simply lower that to 50% instead of excluding some rooms and skins and players from games or splitting off into a new network? That's more of a question than any sort of argument or statement, I'm truly curious as to why they don't just lower their top reward for players if giving high rakers too much of their rake back is the major problem.

- PokerStars offers SNE a lot of value, and they don't have the extra fees that a network charges skins to have. Isn't that better for the players versus a poker room skin essentially acting as an affiliate for the network, since the skin then still has to bring in their own affiliates?


It looks like Cassava/888 also makes more from the casino than from poker (source is meh, but it's not an opinion piece so it's likely an accurate report)

I don't mean that these two places aren't focused on poker at all, or don't take poker seriously. But wouldn't you cede that if there was a conflict between the sportsbook or casino and the poker side, the sportsbook or casino plan might prevail? Even if the sportsbook or casino side were taken 25% of the time each year, that doesn't happen in places that don't have casinos or sportsbooks, right?

*Not trying to paint Party or 888 in a negative light either (minus Party's rake on HUSNGs), I just know if I owned a sportsbook and a poker room, versus just a poker room, that when conflicts came up, I would have to make a decision, and it seems likely that the sportsbook might at least prevail in some cases, if not a majority.

**Think about it as if you were the representative for the Online Poker Players Association (a fictitious association representing the needs, sustainability and growth of all online poker players, from recreational to pro). Where would you recommend players play and what sorts of structures, policies and actions would you support or oppose?

My new TLDR:

I understand that poker rooms need to make a profit, I just think there are better ways to do than targeting winning players with restrictions. I think the better solution is to encourage players to play as much as they are willing to play and to build structures that all players enjoy and that skilled players can profit in through hard work and focus. I think we want more of a 40 hour a week HUSNG grinder than a good game selecting heads up cash player. The former I truly believe is a sustainable and maximum growth strategy, the latter is a detriment to the poker playerbase, second only to high rake and unbeatable games.

That's not all "pro Stars" either, like I said before, I don't get why they let the hu cash games get the way they did without taking action much sooner and more decisively.

---

And I don't want this entire post to be critical, as mentioned in the opening, I agree with some of the things you say. I agree with you that straight rewards based on rake paid may not be best for affiliates and that seems to be your main point, so I'm not really disputing as much about what you say as my post length might indicate on first glance, this stuff just interests me and I rarely see it discussed on the forums (meanwhile we have 8,000 posts about a pro owing another 20 grand).

Hey Ryan,

Great post. It's always good to talk about these things.

My original point was to the OP who seemed to wish to forge a business based on attracting winning grinders. Now is not the time to do this, the business will not be particularly robust and definitely will not be in as much demand as it once was.

It isn't about restricting winners, but it's about getting the level of reward right.

My point is that it's not sustainable to reward winners so highly and Stars are definitely conscious of it, but have other balls in play right now. In fact, the issue may partially fix itself with regulation - maybe they've noticed that.

A longer, more detailed reply coming in the next 24 hours.

Jamie

All very interesting, I think about this a lot too, mainly because I find it depressing how badly online poker has been run

If you have some friends or friends of friends who play online poker regularly, definitely speak to them and see what sites they play and try to persuade them to sign up to one of your revenue sharing deals.

However, I'd recommend against spending a great deal of time and/or money trying to sign up winning players. The trend is, at long last, moving away from valuing high raking players to valuing net depositing players.

If this had been done 6 years ago when these problems first started hatching (first time I noticed it was NoIQ joining the iPoker network back in 2006!) then online poker wouldn't be in the pretty terrible situation we are in at the moment. Ask almost any rakeback affiliate with a significant player base and they'll either tell you they are experiencing the hardest period to increase profits (not just rake), or if they don't say this then they're probably lying

There are some threads on 2p2 that go into detail about the problem over the past 5-6 years, specifically valuing players based on rake (revenue) rather than net depositing (asset). Without any asset, you don't create the revenue. Rake is just a function of net depositors spread over time.

Every skin and affiliate on a network up till recently has been rewarded based on rake, and every poker manager's bonus on any site (network or standalone) has likely been heavily based on rake too. For small skins on networks targeting winning players, and similarly for affiliates, it’s been a lucrative loophole that is gradually getting shut.

So this has led to this crazy situation where nobody tries to convert new players to online poker, as they are not rewarded for doing so. Everyone has been trying to sign up high volume, typically winning players, rather than recreational players.

This is also reflected in the software being so geared towards higher volume players (with exceptions like PKR) and also just take a look at the poor attempts on the 'how to play poker' on most poker sites, either they are some weak text version or pretty dull videos.

This in turn makes it very hard for affiliates to attract new players to online poker, both because the sites do such at a bad attempt at converting, and also if they do convert the rake valuation method values them too low.

So whilst I completely agree with ChicagoRy that big winning players are essential for the game, the industry is realising to grow it needs focus more on net depositor players than rake, and part of this involves offering the right incentives to affiliates, such as CPA rather than revenue share going forward.

So going back to my initial suggestion, whilst for now there still is money to be made in signing up high raking players, if someone gave me a cheque and said what to invest it in, setting up a new site for winning players wouldn't be at the top Simply because the trend will always be against me and it's a mature/competitive market.

However, if you are keen to be a poker affiliate, I'd definitely recommend trying to set up a site targeting recreational players. Make sure you get a good revenue share deal across all products, such as Casino, Side Games (side games is very important) and Sports. Although a fish may sign up rake only a couple $ a day, one day he may blow his bankroll on roulette. It's not a nice way to make money, but it's how a lot of the sites (outside of stars) make their a big chunk profit.

Just my 2 cents

Deposit might be better than total rake, but it's still far from perfect.

This is poker for goodness sakes, people are doing very complex equations to solve very complex situations every day, is there no brilliant person out there in the industry getting paid a lot to come up with a (gasp) formula for this stuff?

What if you give a % of a player's rake to affiliates, but decrease that % as a player rakes more, even cap them at a certain point, and give bonuses for depositors. Is that difficult? Does that address the core problems? Does anybody do this already?

I don't see why it has to be "same % reward for each player" or "strictly CPA."

I know some rooms give you less for higher raking players, usually based on VIP level (higher deductions for higher level VIPs, or a revenue share which makes an affiliate cut smaller as the player makes higher VIP), but even that is a little simplistic and not addressing the problems you guys speak of.

I am just a poker player not an affiliate however I think that you miss one key point.
At this point the only way for the sites to increase their profits is by increasing the amount of fish.
Regs aren't stupid (look at the sit out problem for example: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...-here-1218813/)
Basically even at low stakes at this point games won't run without mark at the table. There is literally no way for that to happen.

Couple of years ago it was different so it was clever to atract regs cause there were tousands of fish everywhere so the more regs=the more rake=the bigger conversion from fish deposits)
However at this stage there is just too many regs and not enough fish. Now we how completely different situation more fish=more tables=more rake, less fish=less tables=less rake. So amount of tables and rake is limited by amount of fish.
It is that simple.

We need to find better ways to make it enjoyable again for the recreational players. We were focused so much on the skill element that we forgot about the fun factor. We need to bring more fun into poker. the problem is that recreational players feel hunted down by regs like it was hostile enviroment for them. It just isn't fun for them anymore. I remember that I read an article somehwere( I guess it was from Calvin Ayre) that only like 50% of the recreational players ever redeposit again and there is fewer and fewer frequent depositors.
People don't really care all that much about losing like 50 or 100$ a week but they do want to have fun with their money and there is no fun for them at this point.

Seriously at this point there will be always regs to play the fish, there is no risk. So increasing amount of regs/serious players won't do any good cause the amount of tables is limited by amount of fish anyway.

I'm writing based on my numbers I see in my affiliate account, I have a few regular grinders who can earn me $50 plus a day, then I have 12 recreational players who earn me $0.50 a day. That's based on 20% share. So that's what I asked, how to get more of those daily grinders, that can earn me $50 plus a day, they are hard to find. I am aware it will take years and years.

Congratulations on your growing business.

My point was that within the next 12 months far fewer affiliate programs will be paying you $50 a day for your grinder guys. Rooms are moving away from valuing players based on a traditional rake methods.

What room are you promoting out of interest?

I keep meaning to come back with a more detailed explanation, but things are busy.

Jamie