Hi Pokerstrategy,

I work for a poker site and have followed a lot of your articles concerning the future of the industry. Its nice that you guys seem to care but, there are a few things that don't seem to be right. I guess the biggest one is that you all seem to be under the impression that because you care nobody in the industry does... As a company you have a huge influence and are fortunate enough to be in advisory positions but, it appears you use these positions to reach your own ends (which aren't necessarilly aligned with the industry's needs).

Anyway, I've got a few questions:

1. When did the PokerStrategy's ecology crusade begin? Its obviously not a thought that's come over night. You either grossly misunderstood the industry or just cared for profit more than online poker's longevity when you were single handidly killing games with SSS. I hope you can understand it doesn't come from too strong a place considering the growth of your business came from short stacking.

2. Why is mid-stack strategy (basically a poor man's SSS) now being advocated? Your attempting to turn NLHE into a solved game. I've heard your founders preach that coaching sites are killing the industry - Surely full stack strategy is better for the game than what you're coaching?

3. Taking the previous 2 points into account do you think it might be fair to assume your ideology is built around your business and not the other way around? You've moulded this specific theory because of your business model not because of belief.

4. Cannibalisation - RakeTheRake and other high end affs maybe reward winning players too much. Its a consequence of the skins and the fact they're offering these deals are a consequence of the networks you advise!

I was recently looking around for the best affiliate to signup to PokerStars with. Keep in mind that with this mindset I'm PokerStars worst nightmare - they're going to lose money to someone who is set on becoming a PokerStars customer. Obviously its impossible to change players habits and they will always be looking for something a little better.

Stars seem to have done a great job. They don't allow affiliates access to stats and don't allow races. In fact there are very little incentives to sign up with an affiliate as opposed to Stars directly.

Based on what I've read here and on my research of offers at Stars you guys undoubtedly have the best. You've negotiated access to stats and are permitted to run a points race.

The running of this race is straight up cannibalisation. Players do and will continue to sign up with PS to take part in this race on Stars and people are using different details to do so.

This is worse than the cannibalisation you accuse other affiliates of. Players will visit RakeTheRake looking for a deal at iPoker but, not with a site in mind. The affiliate will then drive them towards a specific site on the network. Of course this isn't great news for the network but, that cannot be a change you expect affiliates to undertake because it requires unity and frankly it isn't their primary concern. Their job is to work within the parameters the skin sets for them and that the network passes down to the skin - If affiliates (especially the smaller ones) start to worry about the bigger picture they will certainly lose business in the short term and will unlikely be thanked in the future. Why do affiliates have to do the networks job?

Looking forward to your answers. I don't mean to be rude but, I'd appreciate if you could answer the actual questions - you guys are really good about ignoring certain points brought up in people's posts.

Hey GeeseHoward,

thanks for your feedback - and I'll try to answer all of your questions. If I miss any, don't hesitate to put it up!


We were not born with wisdom. Our position of working closely with operators and players and trying to align their interests (as it is in our business interest, as well) brought us knowledge, perspectives and insight.

We are on this "crusade" as we think that...
(a) what's good for the poker market is good for us
(b) what's good for the poker market is good for our players & operator partners

The SSS is not negatively affecting the poker ecology.
Poker ecology is not defined as supporting or not supporting certain strategies - we'd rather define it as making sure that businesses (especially skins and affiliates) are incentivised to do contribute to the long-term growth/prosperity of online poker.

Our view on the SSS can be found here:
http://confidential.pokerstrategy.co...Stacking_quot;

In a nutshell: we think that especially recreational players should have the choice - as they bring the money. If they have more fun putting their money on the table with or without short stackers is deciding on the fate of SSS - nothing else. That's why we support operators that offer a choice.

(a) we don't think MSS destroys NL / poker (see above).
(b) also here, it is perfectly fine if there is a choice for players to play at tables where midstacking is allowed or is not allowed.

Our "ideology" aka our company mission is as follows:

1. Be the largest (best) poker community in all our languages.
2. Offer the best possible poker education for beginners and advanced players alike.
3. Popularise poker so that our most ambitious players can enjoy long-term (financial) success.

I agree that the Top250 can be interpreted that way - and if we were to start anew, we would not introduce it.

But you will notice that we do not at all aggressively advertise with this fact. You will have a hard time finding the information on our site. So we believe that the result is no cannibalisation - as no player will track himself on PokerStars through PokerStrategy.com for that reason. Basically 99%+ of all our PokerStars players are tracked to us because they genuinely started real-money online poker on PokerStrategy.com.

And this is a huge difference to other affiliates - who use races mainly as a tool to cannibalise natural traffic streams that would otherwise join the respective poker rooms anyway.

I agree - and this is why we lobby for networks and poker rooms changing their regulation / rule sets for skins and affiliates.

We do not say: "cannibalistic / parasitic rakeback affiliates are evil" - we just say "cannibalistic / parasitic rakeback affiliates are bad for the industry and the long-term interests of winning players" (only those are evil who knowingly violate network/skin T&C ).

I find that a bit insulting/unfair, as a I believe we're pretty good at handling and reacting to feedback - including negative.

Best,
Lutz

Hi Lutz,

Thanks for your response.

The purpose of this thread is to highlight that Pokerstrategy aren't in the posistion to lecture others in the industry and are being slightly hypocritical by doing so. I’m not purposefully stirring **** but, I think its only fair that your own methods are questioned when you seem to mass brand affiliates as parasitic. At the moment I think PokerStrategy has done far more damage to the ecology (not traffic or liquidity but, standard and enjoyability of games) than any of these guys could if they tried.

The majority of affiliates and industry members take time to read your articles and understand PokerStrategy as a business before entering into a discussion with you or before making a negative argument. I wish PokerStrategy undertook the same due dilligence before making their accusations. You don't research affiliates and the other aspects of their businesses or even attempt to find out.

This isn’t personal and if you demonstrate that your way of thinking and previous decisions have been good for the industry I’ll be happy because I will have learnt something new. I can’t remember the quote but, there was a story about a highly regarded scientist who had been lecturing on a theory his whole life - he lived by it. One day a student disproved it in one sentence and he rejoiced and broke down into tears of happiness in front of a whole auditorium. Nobody could understand why he reacted this way, it didn't seem natural. When questioned the scientist explained that he was overjoyed because "This was the purpose of science". I just think that’s the most awesome story ever and something everyone in the industry could learn from.

Anyways, here we go:

1. Has the whole industry really misunderstood shortstacking?

If SSS is good for poker then why have all the sites countered it? I’d imagine if its “neutral” then it would still be going on. It doesn’t seem that a single operator agrees with you on that. In fact they were tripping over each other to remedy the situation. Have we all really got it wrong and you guys got it right? In your posistion surely you can demonstrate its value to them?

2. Shortstacking's Intrinsic Advantage

Playing SSS with full stackers gives the SS player an intrinsic edge. There have been numerous articles and threads about this and I’m not really the person to demonstrate it but, it is nonetheless a fact I hope you guys can at least admit.

3. Poker Ecology Misunderstood

Poker ecology isn’t about having winners and losers. I know you’re the godfather’s of poker ecology and don’t want some amateur rewriting it but, I’m sure you will recognise its not this straightforward. There will always be losers. If there was a site that had 1k of the world’s best players playing there would still be sharks and fish, its all relative.

The true purpose of poker ecology is to protect recreational players and ensure that online poker continues to be entertaining for them.

Short stackers turned thousands of players off online poker and single handidly ruined networks - especially iPoker. How is this ecologically neutral?

4. The Choice To Shortstack

Do children bought up in a fundamentalist area of Kabul have the choice whether to me Muslim or not? Not really - its all they know.

PokerStrategy trumpets about how many new players it brings into the industry - which is perfectly true and commendable (seriously it is and just because I’m making negative points in this thread it doesn’t mean I don’t respect yourself and Korn as entrepreneurs and ambassadors for the game - even if I believe your viewpoint isn’t subjective).

These players didn’t “choose” to play SSS. Your quiz was geared towards it and bankroll limits actively encouraged it. When these guys first started to play (even before Pokerstrategy!) they didn’t buy in for 20bbs at their casino or in a home game with their friends.

If it wasn’t for Poker Strategy a fair number would have found their way to online poker and would not have played SSS.

Summary

Are you claiming that you guys implemented SSS with the future of the industry in mind or can you at least concede the company was short sighted and was more concerned with its own profit at this time? I hope you can understand why myself and many others don’t think PokerStrategy is the perfect candidate to preach Poker ecology.
It sounds like PokerStrategy would still be teaching SSS and happy to infest networks with these players if you could. Is this fair to say?


Pokerstars

This is my third attempt at writing this post and I've learnt my lesson and gone for writing it on word before clicking the back button or closing my browser while on another tab! I'll probably add more to it later, especially this section.

I agree that you don’t aggressively market the promotion but, for it to be cannibalistic (in the worst sense) you don’t need to. PokerStrategy obviously actively sought out access to stats that now other affiliates can get so they could reward their players more than other affiliates - marketing or not this definitely goes against your fundamental ideology.

Educated players are making new accounts to take part in this race. Anyone who wants to sign up at Stars and does research will sign up through Poker Strategy - the worst thing is that these are the players that make Supernova and SNE.

This isn't particuarly meaningful and just because you get players when they first begin to play online poker doesn't mean you're not guilty of cannibilisation. The meaningful stat, which we will never know is: How many would have signed up at Pokerstars within 12 months if they hadn't signed up to PokerStrategy.

Why did you purposefully include Stars in your points race? Would you ever consider changing this?

Hey GeeseHoward,

Even if you would think we're not the genuine good guys: does it really matter? Isn't it more important to get regulations for affiliates and skins right in general?

I think even players who are always looking for the best deal on networks like iPoker will agree to many of our positions - and this is also not hypocritical. It's more like: "As long as the tax system is flawed, I'm gonna optimise my tax heavily. But still I would prefer a more simple, more fair tax system for everyone."


Of course we do - which is why we are far from putting all affiliates into one pot.

There are many small and large affiliates who are clearly contributing. Just some examples:

- PokerNews, being a genuine multi-lingual publisher that creates a lot of infotainment for masses of poker players and thus keeps them "in the game" as much as say ESPN is contributing to major sports

- PokerListings, who are a optimising the conversion of various poker traffic from search engines to become real money players. They are experts in their fields and getting the most of traffic.

- A lot of small affiliates who are being very creative in the way they acquire, retain and convert traffic.

All we say is that there are plenty of skins and affiliates that make use of the flawed player valuation models and lack of regulation with regards to rakeback/bonus schemes. And this is just an economic fact - no personal insult.

To me, it's an urban legend that so many recreational players are turned away by shortstackers. From my experience, recreational players don't care - and even if they care, there can be choice between normal and deep tables.

Deep tables were around since a long time - and they were underused. This rather shows me that recreational players did not really care.

I think this argument is just made up by big stack players who rally up arguments against players who compete with them for the possible winnings.

Which brings us to your 2nd point:

This mathematical edge cannot really be removed from Hold'em. Do you consider yourself abusing the same if you play 100 BB deep against a table full of 200-300 BB deep players?

And regarding: "intrinsic edge" - there always will be edges that derive from various aspects outside of a players "true skill". Just take research at PTR or datamining, huds etc.pp.

To pick up your example: if you take the 1k most successful online poker players and put them all in one new poker room, 90% of them will leave super-quickly.

True: there are players on the highest levels who care more about the challenge than the money. So Phil Ivey and others would stay. But the backbone of winning players would surely leave as they would lose all their edge.

Every dollar of rake and winnings combined must be deposited by someone who is willing/able to lose it and still come back. That's recreational players - and they are the backbone of poker as much as basketball fans are the backbone of the NBA (and not, say, Shaq or some college pro).

Here, I absolutely agree. And a lot of this nurturing recreational players derives from the marketing machines of poker rooms and the content / service production machines of contributing affiliates.

What do you think does a rakeback-only affiliate contriute to "protecting the fun of recreational players"?

I think both you and I know very good that iPoker was suffering from heavy infighting between affiliates and skins and, resulting from it, the lack of new players driven by marketing budgets.

It's just not true at all that shortstacking had anything to do with it.

Back when we started, we even offered only Fixed Limit - no No Limit at all.

Later on, we had a choice for beginners that included Fixed Limit, SNGs, No-Limit Big Stack and No-Limit Short Stack.

That's a point where we probably won't agree. I know our players and traffic sources and I'm genuinely convinced that only a tiny share of the >1,000,000 guys who received our free $50 bankroll would have started to play online poker otherwise.

The point is:
Our "preaching" of re-thinking poker ecology, affilates and skins, player valuation models etc. is threatening the business models of a lot of "rakeback affiliates" and "rakeback skins" (to put simple badges on them, I know that there are shades of grey).

This massive group has strong vested interests - which results e.g. trying to make it look as if short stakers were a menace to the poker industry. Because then, it's rather us than them who are bad for online poker. And those "rakeback affiliates" always love to describe themselves as "player advocates"

To a point, you are right. We would prefer poker rooms to decisively forbid affiliate based races and centralise monetary incentives (and yes, affiliates still should pay their share for it).

We didn't do this "purposefully" - we introduced it in a time when we ourselves also didn't think so much about ecology etc. - as I said, we were not born wise.

And yes, we are considering this and will ...
(a) always comply with poker room regulations
(b) find a solution for this

Best,
Lutz

Hi Xantos
I just want to make some points from "inside" perspective cause I have been poker strategy member for 2 years.
From what I remember as a begginer if you wanted to start playing nl cash games (insted of fl/SnG) you could choose only sss strategy so pokerstrategy encourage people to play with that strategy (acctually you didn't have a choice cause BSS was only availiable for Bronze+ members).
Moreover you encourage people to play on nl10fr with only 25 BI. SSS is extremly swingy + the potential winrate (without rakeback) is small around 2-3bb/100. People went busto really quickly + there were no fun in playing that strategy (I know cause I played with VPIP 6-7% cause this is how it works).
In my opinion that way you discourage many many people from playing online but they created a bunch of rake before they went busto so you get your fair share. These people would probably still play poker (as recreational player) now they won't they just became disheartened to poker.
You admit it by yourself that you resigned to offer beginner players SSS cause most of them became busto really quickly. They might still be playing if they didn't start with this Robo,boring strategy.

Instead of trying to defend it it would be easier if you just admit that it was wrong from the hole poker community.

Regards,
Frank

@Frank:

Yes, for a time we had Fixed Limit, SNGs and No-Limit SSS as options - without a BSS strategy. During that time, we developed a Big Stack Strategy that works for beginners - the one we trust (with slight adjustments) until today.

But it's not true that SSS with 25 Buy-ins is much worse from a "risk to go broke" point of view compared to big stacking with $50 bucks. Especially as you could move down in the limits if you started on NL10.

And no, we did not remove the SSS from our choice because the players went busto too quickly. We removed it for three reasons:

(a) on some poker rooms where you could get the $50, short stacking became difficult
(b) we learned and tweaked our big stack strategy for beginners and could trust it after some testing time
(c) indeed playing big stack is a little more motivating for most players

But this still does not at all mean that SSS "kills the market" or "drives off other recreational players".

Lutz

Yo Lutz,

Sorry for the long time its taken for me to respond. Some real life stuff has taken me away. Anyways, I hope you’re doing good. Looks like your Pokerstars players are raking hard and enjoying the Top250 this month

I agree that its certainly more important to get the regulations right and to get the networks and sites fully on side. I’ve always said that these changes need to come from the top. Its unrealistic to expect affiliates, especially the smaller ones to be longsighted and even have a good grasp on the implications of what they’re doing. Its for this reason that I can’t understand why PokerStrategy spends so much time lobbying for the affiliates to change themselves? You are the ones with the power. Why are you spending your days wiping **** on other affiliates when you’ve got the connections with the right people yourself?

To be honest I feel you’ve dodged a few questions and that’s okay but, at least admit you’re avoiding them for whatever reason. I’ve put questions I would like an answer to in red.


Attacking Others Models as Opposed To Justifying Your Own

I’m not an affiliate. Rakeback affiliates, their merits and drawbacks can be saved for another discussion. I will say that under the table affiliates do cannibalise poker networks but, this is nothing but, an incontinent truth. Educated players will always look for the best value deal on a network, its unavoidable. This is why the networks need to publish a coherent policy but, until they do that this will unfortunately continue.

What these affiliates are doing is probably better than cannibalising based on SEO or cannibalising and individual sites traffic - like Pokerstrategy are doing with Pokerstars. The focus on an extremely small group of players who are genuinely looking for a site to go to.

Anyway, I guess I’ve opened a can of worms here but, this isn’t really the point of this thread. Of course you should respond because this is an important topic too but, other affiliates actions are nothing to do with Pokerstrategy’s.


Acquisition vs. Retention

There is no denying short stackers were disliked by regs across every site. The way PokerStrategy speak about Poker Ecology its like it just revolves around the acquisition of fish. Poker Ecology should be far more heavily geared towards player retention and SSS upset every type of player.

I’m not a winning pro and I know myself that sitting at a table of 3 20bb stacks completely took the fun out of the game.

Its not a witch hunt against Poker Strategy at all. If you’re a decent sized stack reg or fish you don’t want to play against a short stacker. The recreational guys had never seen short stackers like this until they came online, what about short stacker’s is enjoyable?

Poker ecology means retaining players as well as acquiring new ones. Do you believe SSS was not damaging to player retention?



Choice to ShortStack

You heavily endorsed SSS. You encouraged players to play SSS. It wasn’t endorsed to the same degree anywhere else.

Gargamel_fk (Frank) has come to this thread as a PokerStrategy member and has highlighted the fact you actively pushed players towards SSS - The only option for NLHE players in fact.

SSS doesn’t teach players to win, it teaches players how to maximise rake and minimise losses. Any player that had seen Poker on TV and fancied giving it a go had no option apart from SSS if they came to PokerStrategy. Do you maintain that you pushed players towards this strategy because its what was better for them or because it maximised your profit?

Is it fair to say that SSS would be far less common if it wasn’t for Pokerstrategy?


ShortStacking Misunderstood

Why do you believe every operator took action to effectivley outlaw SSS if its ecologically neutral?


PokerStars Top250

You mention that you didn’t purposefully add Stars to the Pokerstrategy Top250. Stars definitely didn’t randomly offer you player rake stats, PokerStrategy asked for them. The most obvious reason an affiliate would ask for these stats is to allow them to reward players. Whether that be via Black Member Parties The Top250 or Coaching this is something no other affiliate can offer on PokerStars.

If I bring to your attention instances of players either researching Pokerstars offers and consequently signing up via Pokerstrategy or making a second account to do so will you admit that this offer is parasitic?

Why is the Top250 any different to RakeTheRake’s OnGame points race?

Hey GeeseHoward,

Hope your real-life stuff went all good.

We're not really targeting mainly affiliates with our discussion/consulting/opinion shaping efforts.

We're targeting mainly...
(a) operators, as only they can and must gouvern affiliate and skin policies.
(b) players, as in the end of the day, the customers have a lot of power.

Of course, we automatically also target affiliates, as they are then often discussed as examples. More often, they actively involve themselves into the disucssion, as they feel threatened. Which is perfectly fine - but often gives the impression we would mainly want to talk to affiliates which is not the case.

I think players should go for the best legal price (illegal is risky & can lead to account closure), even if the best legal price is a "parasitic" or "cannibalistic" model.

But this does not contradict with that the same players who do this should know that overall, the situation would be better if there would be better regulation.

Comparison:
Someone can at the same time use every tax loophole and vote for simpler tax regulation without loopholes.

A lot of SEO affiliates - like PokerListings - ADD value by focussing on conversion optimisation for generic terms like "poker" or "poker bonus" and they garner more value out of the same traffic/interest than individual operators could.

Sorry, but now it's getting ridiculous.

First you agree that we do not market our PokerStars offer to anyone but our own, genuinely created community - then you say we are worse than cannibalistic under-the-table affiliates?!

I get the feeling that you must be one - because I guess no one else would ever state such a thing

To me, that's a myth. Regular (non-SSS) players like others to believe that SSS is disliked by recreational players - but there is not a single good argument or numeric proof for that.

So maybe go to a personal experience level:
If I go to a live casino to play poker, the only short stackers are low-skill recreational players. PLUS a lot of the whales even prefer to play against short stacks as they cannot bust in one hand and can go "more risks".

The difference is the reason.

Example: We introduced our Full Tilt Rake Race because we do not want our players to be disadvantaged by going with us.

Other affiliates - in contrast - created rake races JUST BECAUSE they wanted players who want to sign up at Full Tilt Poker to do it through them. Mostly, you can see this as those "race" affiliates do not offer any other reason (such as customer service, content, consulting, marketing, branding, ...) whatsoever.

If I were in the position to turn all Full Tilt rake races into one huge central one for ALL Full Tilt Players, I would instantly do it and put $10k/month on top from our company pockets. Including removing FTP from our Top250.

Why?
Because it would be better for the poker ecology (and a little fairer for all the FTP players who signed up through the "wrong" affiliates - which should NOT put them at a monetary disadvantage).

In my oppinion you are both missing the most important point:

Online poker is the best prove of "sick economy" and (as you work in this sick business) you are both trying to defend/profit from this situation.

Online poker should follow the same economy rules as any other industry and should have similar competition among companies participating. Yet for some really strange reasons it is not !!!

It is all caused by a mixture of the following facts:
1. Unclear Law regarding online poker plus fact that those companies are usually registered in some tax paradises like Gibraltar, Aruba, Isle of Man, Indian Teritory etc.
2. Very strong marketing activities to keep it that way including massive recruitment among top live players to keep them as advocates of this sick situation.

Why do I think that this situation is sick?
Try to compare online poker company to any other business:
Any business have costs and revenues, the difference makes profit.
Size of this profit is a key factor for other competitors.
What is the source of profit in online poker?
RAKE !!!

Now look at live casino with poker tables. They have a lot of costs:
Space (usually in best hotels which is very expensive)
Employes, electricity, heating, taxes, marketing etc.
This is a reason why there MUST be a rake at all live poker tables.

Now compare it to online poker company.
All of the above costs are smaller, but surprisingly rake is on the similar level !!!

To make things more ridicoulous in online poker 1 dealer/1 table makes on the average about 30 - max 45 hands per hour and there is no way to multitable.

In online poker dealing is done by software, number of hands is at least double/tripled compared to live games and the most important point: every player can play on more than 1 table at the same time.

In a perfect economy rake in online poker would bo no higher than 0.5%-1% and companies would still be making profit. Another alternative would be no rake at all and a fixed monthly rate for using online poker room.

Look at other online games (no gambling) like World of Warcraft, Warhamer online, etc. and companies like Blizzard runing them.

Their software is way more complicated and took more time and resources to develop tham any poker software. The number of employes and support they provide is also bigger and they can make profit charging every player 10$-20$ per month.

Compare it with rake paid by average low/mid stakes poker player !!!

The amount of rake paid (for close to nothing) is like robbery.

As every online poker company is charging more or less the same SICK amount of rake, there is no real economical competition.

However there is this sick competition with affiliates, rake back, rake races etc....

The most frustrating point is that players (in their stupidity) follow those marketing wars.

Black Members and high/stakes - high volume players are paying tens of thousand (sometimes even hundreds of thousands$) rake per year, and what they get is a "free" invitation to a party in a luxurious hotel

Top rewards in rake races for them are usually just a few BI at stakes that they are playing. But those rewards look very big for low/micro stakes players and act like a lure for them. The only problem is that there is no way that any micro/low stake player can even hit 250th place in such any rake race.

In normal economy affiliates would only get 1 time fee for recruiting new player. and there would be no companies like PS.

The only problem is that there is no signs of any change in this sick industry where greed and hypocrisy rules .

Of course there is also a lot of competition between poker rooms. If it would be advantageous in terms of growth / market position, a lot of the smaller operators should/would reduce their rake.

And I even really think that they should - although I'm pretty sure an optimal level (also for the average winning player!) is rather on the current levels of PokerStars.com/FullTiltPoker.com than .5/1%.

The reason why rake needs to be there and not too low: to keep poker popular on that level, you need big marketing spend for TV ads, stars/celebrities etc.

The problem with price compeititon on skin/affiliate level is that exactly those skins/affiliates will win it that do not invest a single cent into marketing or anything else that helps poker in general.


Btw. revenue share is quite normal also in other industries - random example Amazon or insurances.

You've missed the point. Its obvious you've not read this thread at all.


No. Do you know who I am?

That's political. Many sportsbooks have their poker operations onshore; Unibet, Celeb Poker & Purple Lounge for example.

I don't think its as simple as just saying "abolish tax havens" and its not something you can just generalise as "right or wrong". Over 50% of these tax havens used to be British territories - read into that what you want.

That aside: On the subject of tax havens and their legal / ethical position I don't think you or I are really knowledgeable enough to comment - its a thread of its own.



You haven't done enough research.

Firstly, what qualifies you to determine how complex certain software is? Security isn't as major an issue for WoW as it is for Stars and this obviously has a cost attached.

Secondly, FTP & Pokerstars are exclusively poker facing. Walk into any live casino and they'll probably explain to you that the poker room makes a loss and is viewed by management as an acquisition tool for the floor games.


Here is a rough rake breakdown

1. At iPoker a player paying $10k a month in rake can expect ~60% back.

2. Of the 40% being kept ~15% goes to Playtech who provide the software, host the games and liaise / offer support to the licences.

3. ~5% goes to an affiliate who has (hopefully) driven the player to this specific room. The affiliate has; marketing (to advertise on a forum like this costs thousands a month), support and promotional expenses of their own.

4. ~5% goes towards payment processing.

5. Some of the remaining ~15% will be profit but, the site has most likely had to pay hundreds of thousands to be granted a gaming licence and to fulfil the expected criteria. On top of this there are staff, marketing and support costs.

I don't see the scam?


Do some research. Not for me to say but, players at PS are obviously also eligible for VIP rewards etc at the poker room they play - its not like you play at PS and forgo all other kickbacks.

Top rewards in rake races are usually just a few BI? That's just complete rubbish again.

No...

Rev share is actually the fairest and least exploitable payment method for both parties.

Almost every single global brand has an affiliate program based on rev-share.



I actually just give up. Nobody is going to sit here and spoon feed you the answer to a question that has essentially been asked a million times before. I'm not a dick but, the way you've just come on here is really ****ing tilting and the fact just about everything you've said is wrong just adds to it.

Congratulations! You've just come on here and spoken absolute, unsubstantiated **** and actually derailed a thread that had some semi-decent substance.

I wrote this thread very carefully and saw that you are arguing over present (sick) situation in online poker, but none of you saw the real reasons behind it.

In your first sentence you wrote: "I work for a poker site ..."

You just admited that many (all) poker and sportbooks operates offshore !!! but you did not answer why ???

In most countries it would be either illegal or not profitable because of taxes. Show me one reputable worldwide known company (not from gambing industry, because gambling can not be reputable by definition) that operates from offshore headquarters.

You would be surprised how much security is needed in MMORPGs and that there is a lot people involved to track/fight scam/exploits in those games. Then look at complexity of software (especially graphics) or take the easiest method : compare size of p*/FT client and MMORPG client.

You say that live poker is a loosing business - that may be true but online poker is a goldmine for all the reasons I stated.

Maybe it is not a scam but sick economy?
I ll comment on every point.

1. This is sick to charge high rake then give 50-60% of it back !!! Just reduce rake or even better make different (more honest) kind of charge for players.

2. Another sick fee. Negotiate I time purchase, or fee based on a number of users, anything that is not "rake based"

3. Affiliates are worthless/not needed at best they should/could be payed 1 time fee.

4. Another bs.. fees for credit cards (which are usually highest) varies between 1.5% - 2% but you forget about very important factor - every pokerroom have millions$ deposited by all their players !!! This huge amount of money is not kept in a "wardrobe" but in banks. Banks pay interest which goes directly into poker room pockets and covers most (if not all) of processing charges.

5. Profit for the site is needed but it does not have to be rake based. It would be better it there would be either monthly fee or fee per every 10k hands dealt etc. or in a worst situation let it be rake but from the above 5 points it is clear that this rake should be below 1%.

All those kickbacks and rewards are destroying online poker. More and more people are grinding/multitabling and loosing only to get some profit from those rewards. As for your another worthless statement about rake races here is an example:
I copy/paste random rake race from PS (happened to be Full Tilt)
1: 2400 $
2: 2000 $
3: 1700 $
4: 1400 $
5-6: 1000 $
7-8: 900 $
9-10: 750 $
11-12: 600 $
13-20: 500 $
21-40: 400 $
41-60: 300 $
61-100: 200 $
101-200: 100 $

Now I checked results for last month and numer of SP (rake) to try to guess limits that those people play.
For winners this may be NL600 => this means 4-6 BI
For lowest places NL 25-NL50 => 2-4 BI
SO who is talking rubish ???

Maybe in poker/gambling industry that is standard but that does not mean it is not sick. For 95% of other industries it does not work that way.

That is your point of view. You work for poker site/gambling industry which is on the border line of legitimate business. Every sick practice that is "normal" and common in this industry does not have to be normal and accepted in other industries. There is a wide spectrum of industies: on one end you have reputable end well known companies (few random examles: IBM, GM, 3M, Lloyds etc) on the other end you have illegal/criminal drug cartels (for example from Colombia dealing with cocaine) . Where do you place gambling industry ???
I am not sure about your answer but I put it way closer to drug dealers than to reputable companies.

I'm not coming in here again. Thanks for ruining it.

Not that it's any of your business but, I work for Ladbrokes. Want to see how much of a goldmine gambling is for them? Click here

Does it not strike you as odd that you do not work in the industry and seem quite new to it but, are coming onto 2+2 and lecturing people who are actually involved in it at a fairly deep level on how it really works?

For tax purposes and the fact that these territories are a better base for these kinds of businesses. This happens in every other industry.

Here is an article on the owners of TopShop (Worth £bn's). A lot of the company's profits have been circumvented into offshore accounts. There are countless examples of this kind of stuff happening in every industry.


As for your list of companies that are global leaders and solid.

1. IBM developed the technology behind Nazi missililes that were responsible for the deaths of millions. See here

2. Lloyds - Are you kidding me about offshore? The vast majority of their call centres are located in India?

3. GM - Due to corporate greed and mismanagement GM certainly had a part to play in the city of Detroit's collapse.

4. 3m - Don't know much about these guys but, I'd assume the products they sell in the UK are being manufactured elsewhere at a cheaper cost and lower taxation.

You're still talking rubbish.

The winners of the race are not NL600 players and your stance makes no sense.

"Kickbacks and races are killing the industry! BTW we need to lower rake guys". It makes no sense.

PokerStrategy is not a high-end aggressive Poker affiliate and this is what this thread was about. If you want to get serious value back its possible but, PokerStrategy offers value to players in other ways - its players choice what they want.

Just because PokerStrategy don't run aggressive races doesn't mean other affiliates do not.

Every other industry (that I know of) has rev share based affiliation program;

John Lewis, Dixons, Boots, Debenhams, LoveFilm, GoDaddy, M&S, PCWorld, Play.Com, Virgin Media, O2, Tiscali, Orange, N-Power, Carphone Warehouse, Sky, Pizza Hut, Dominos Pizza...


I actually can't be bothered.


Maybe you can setup a low rake poker site or something. It was demonstrated in a thread about Pokerstars $1.4bn rake collection that if the rake was cut in half the company would lose hundreds of millions - I can't find the thread at the moment but, its about here somewhere.

Geese Howard

I give up arguing with you as we are going nowhere.

1. I question rules how online poker business is run. Your only answer is:" It runs like this because this is how this business work and you are outsider so you (me) do not know those rules.

2. There is a huge difference between running some operations abroad (because of cheap labour / cost advantage) which is what most (even reputable) big companies are doing, and running all poker online companies offshore because of Law/tax issues.

3. Tell me (with your expert knowledge) what stakes allow to pay several thousands of rake per month ??? because that is what is needed to win those rake races.

4. I do not know some of companies that you listed as working with revenue based affiliate programs, but some of them are retail chain stores, or restaurants. I can not imagine any affiliate working for a restaurant or a retail store for a simple reason : customers send to restaurant or store can be "linked" to this affiliate for a life time !!! Of course I can imagine I time fee given to "affiliate" if a customer brings a certain coupon/voucher/card but thats it. There is no way to make a liftime link related to revenue gained from this customer.

I wanted to put some new light (as an outsider) to this business, but you are not interested. That is fine with me and I am really happy that in my professional life I have nothing in common with online gambling industry and I can only feel sorry for you ...