* Official iPokerVIP Affiliate Support Thread *

[Xantos-]

Originally Posted by ipokervip

This sounds like something you should be asking the genuine illegal RB affiliates first and possibly ask me as an after thought.

I'm pretty sure you were an illegal rakeback affiliate. But as I stated above: I do not really care if it's illegal, illegitimate or just immoral/unfair. The only thing I am concerned is the practical effect. And the practical effect is that your income and the additional rakeback you provide to players will be heavily reducing every other winning player's (and that's probably thousands here on 2+2 alone) winnings. So at best you are abusing a market flaw on other people's cost.

+ As for Reverie's comment about Gibraltar. 99% chance this guy is involved in the industry. Probably why it hurts his feelings so much and his tax metaphor is honestly awful.

It's funny how you argue - or should I say 'not argue'

But what can you do? Your business is reduced to making a living from that market flaw. You cannot possibly argue on this as you know it's true what I write.

The same could be applied to 27% on FTP.

Indeed it can. I am convinced that:

1. A lot of players go to RB affiliates even though they would be perfectly fine with FTP itself if they would get the 27% rakeback there.

2. Thus the arbitrage of these RB affiliates is also based on a market flaw.

3. The money the RB affiliates earn is practically missing in FTP's pockets and thus in their ROI calculations on marketing campaigns.

4. Consequently, FTP will do less marketing and thus, less fish are at FTP.

It's not as bad as on iPoker, as Full Tilt has control about what affiliates do. On iPoker, the problem grew out of control - and offers such as yours are a perfect example for that.

[iPokerVIP]

Originally Posted by Xantos-

I'm pretty sure you were an illegal rakeback affiliate. But as I stated above: I do not really care if it's illegal, illegitimate or just immoral/unfair. The only thing I am concerned is the practical effect. And the practical effect is that your income and the additional rakeback you provide to players will be heavily reducing every other winning player's (and that's probably thousands here on 2+2 alone) winnings. So at best you are abusing a market flaw on other people's cost.


It's funny how you argue - or should I say 'not argue'

But what can you do? Your business is reduced to making a living from that market flaw. You cannot possibly argue on this as you know it's true what I write.


Indeed it can. I am convinced that:

1. A lot of players go to RB affiliates even though they would be perfectly fine with FTP itself if they would get the 27% rakeback there.

2. Thus the arbitrage of these RB affiliates is also based on a market flaw.

3. The money the RB affiliates earn is practically missing in FTP's pockets and thus in their ROI calculations on marketing campaigns.

4. Consequently, FTP will do less marketing and thus, less fish are at FTP.

It's not as bad as on iPoker, as Full Tilt has control about what affiliates do. On iPoker, the problem grew out of control - and offers such as yours are a perfect example for that.

Go and fix the market flaw then lol. Not me or my business.

Your giving all the posters a lecture on the downfalls of RB networks like iPoker and OnGame and what they do to win/loss or fish/shark ratios.
This is why, as you probably know, there are strict ratios set by iPoker in place.

I don't really know what you're arguing about - my offers are so good and its unfair other people can't get them ?

Which good business is not taking advantage of a market flaw ?

+ funny how you work in the industry. No vested interest whatsoever I guess ?

You're not going to achieve anything by highlighting how good my deals are. Complain to VC, Betmost, Will Hill or Playtech. They're the guys who are in charge of the bigger picture. Not me.

Jamie

[Korn]

Hi Jamie,

1) you are right when you say that your business model is based on a market flaw. You are in fact the perfect example for a so called "parasitic business model" (see link below)

2) the result of that market flaw is that operators and affilites will be driven more and more into poaching from each other (that's what your business model is based on). RTR already described this. Your deals - if allowed - would be matched by others within days.

Given the fact that you come across quite strange and given your history, I don't think that you'd win this fight against more reputable RB operators.

3) Key Point The market flaw - the dynamic explained above - is at the expense of the entire network. The result will be that nobody will care about doing proper advertising aimed at new poker players because they'll never be able to recover the investment with the low margin and amount of poaching going on. And everybody will be poaching. Sure, you'll see 70% rakeback - but that won't help you if you have to play on a grinder infested network where even with 70% rakeback money is hard to make. For the very same reason, rake-free poker has never worked.

It's ultimately the professional players who will suffer from this. A great example from the past is what happened to the Cryptologic network.

Every single dollar that is made with poker - by a professional player, by you, by a poker site - has been deposited & lost by a recreational player first. To keep the market at current level, monthly deposits of $300m are required. How on earth is this going be achieved if everybody focuses on poaching?

4) The above is true - independent from who I am, what my hair colour is, where I'm from and independent from whether there is a vested interest or not. And I know that you know this - in fact, you have no problems admitting it.
If you'd like to have a meaningful debate, you should seriously attack the arguemts, and not the person behind them.

5) I think what's necessary is that poker players themselves, especially the professional ones, acquire some insight about the ecology of poker sites and poker networks. Everybody knows that poker was much much softer 4 years ago than it is now. Everybody knows that some networks / sites are much tougher than others.

Not enough people understand why this is. For everybody interested, I can recommend this discussion on PAL.

[snipsanator]

Originally Posted by snipsanator

Just to clarify my posts in this thread.

If so, I go back to my first post in this thread: perhaps I am a little slow on the uptake, but it seems to me that if iPoker has allowed you to offer 25% "cashback", there would, again hypothetically, be nothing to stop me offering 50% "cashback" or whatever percentage "cashback" I chose. Therefore by paying 2+2 $7,500 I could set up my own thread and offer 50% cashback on iPoker.

I just want to be clear on this because it's quite an important point.

Many thanks,

Snips

Originally Posted by ipokervip

You really couldn't because 30% is the limit. You would need to find a room who would give you an offer, followed by a system that ws based on point aquistion and didn't relate to rake whatsoever.

People were saying the offer would be gone by now. Its not.

Just live with it and compete with it.

If you are still convinced you could setup a thread with 50% cashback by all means be my guest. I'm telling you, you could not setup a thread that said 10% cashback which is falling on deaf ears apparentley.

Jamie

First, ref "Just live with it. etc", unlike others, I haven't criticised you in this topic at all; I have merely asked questions. So please don't take a hostile tone towards me. Many thanks.

Ok so, again just for clarity, what you are therefore saying in this thread is that:
a) Affiliates are allowed to tell players what percentage cashback they will get on the iPoker network
b) This cashback percentage relates to their rake (otherwise, what is it a percentage of?)
c) Affiliates cannot however say that cashback relates to rake in how it is derived; it has to relate to points or some other system
d) Nonetheless, because you are giving a percentage in comparison to rake, it doesn't matter how the cashback is derived, because you are explicitly telling players what percentage of their rake (approximately of course) they will receive back, regardless of the method in which this is calculated
e) Affiliates can only give players an (approximate) cashback percentage (which equates to their rake) if this cashback is less than 30% (of their rake, naturally)
f) Any affiliate offering 'cashback' of over 31% is breaking the iPoker network rules

In addition, based on your site:
f) Affiliates are able to explicitly list out the value of their deals versus the rake that a player pays - e.g. http://ipokervip.net/offers.php

Is that factually correct? Again, apologies if I am a bit slow and missing something; I have tried to pull together your statements into a coherant list.

One other quick question: why could I not set up a thread offering 10% cashback, when you have one offering 25% cashback?

Tyvm,

Snips

[iPokerVIP]

Originally Posted by Korn

Hi Jamie,

3) Key Point The market flaw - the dynamic explained above - is at the expense of the entire network. The result will be that nobody will care about doing proper advertising aimed at new poker players because they'll never be able to recover the investment with the low margin and amount of poaching going on. And everybody will be poaching. Sure, you'll see 70% rakeback - but that won't help you if you have to play on a grinder infested network where even with 70% rakeback money is hard to make.

It's ultimately the professional players who will suffer from this. A great example from the past is what happened to the Cryptologic network.

This must be why for over a year you turned the iPoker network into a shortstacker infested nitfest ?

[Korn]

Originally Posted by ipokervip

This must be why for over a year you turned the iPoker network into a shortstacker infested nitfest ?

As I knew this was coming, let me answer with a quote from my post above. You may call me Nostradamus from now on.

If you'd like to have a meaningful debate, you should seriously attack the arguments, and not the person behind them.

[iPokerVIP]

Locking Thread

I've decided now is the time to get this thread locked and start a new one in the next few days.

Both sides have spoken and it is ultimately a decision for the 2+2 management to take. I only want to advertise somewhere where the company who I've entrusted with my campaign supports me and the legitimacy of what I offer.

If its decided iPokerVIP is a bit too risky or 'pushing the limits' and they would prefer for me not to advertise here there will be no hard feelings and I will move on.

Hopefully, they see the proof that my business is legitimate and decide to support iPokerVIP and then and only then will I have a support thread that is actually answering players queries about my business instead of justifying myself to the industry.

If 2+2 don't get behind it, the next few weeks are going to be very slow and tiring for me and that's not why I came to 2+2 to advertise.

In the meantime I hope any prospective players see the support on this thread and understand the backgrounds of almost every poster casting judgement on iPokerVIP. There is no debating many want to see iPokerVIP fail for their own personal gain. Instead, I urge posters to view all the support and positive comments about me and my company that have been made by actual players who have experience of my service.

Thank you for absolutely everyone who posted in this thread. Although I didn't like the negative nature of some of the posts I'm glad it was done because it has outlined just how competitive iPokerVIP's offers are. I'm really looking forward to the future.

Thanks for all the support

Jamie