Agreed. In addition, they will piss off a lot of affiliates if they just arbitrarily move to a Stars-style VIP program without rakeback. Smells fishy, but their reasoning will most likely be pretty obvious in the next couple months.

It's all speculation, but it doesn't make sense that their new, comprehensive VIP program overhaul that has been put in place the last couple months is now being urgently discarded for a program that is just as good, if not better. Some speculative conclusions might be more likely than others.

Make people who have been on the fence open an account. Seems pretty smart to me.

I'm going to assume they are going to make something good. It's only been 2 weeks and there is still the Cake network, so they haven't locked up any monopoly yet for certain. From a business standpoint, they probably see an opportunity to build something big and want to take advantage of it. It's easier to restructure the rewards system now, then to wait until they are too big to make quick changes. I wish everyone would stop being so darn negative.

If they wanna make things better they can just increase the Rakeback %. I have a feeling this may be better for some but may also screw many others. Only time will tell we'll see.

same reason i'm sure that i wont be ****ing Beyonce tonight

imo he was implying that their vip program could be as good as stars.

Merge has not announced anything. This info has been leaked and very few other details are known. It seems possible (likely?) that Merge isn't at all happy with the timing of this info leak.

I stopped reading at the word giant.

I hope you are right, but I'll go out on a limb and guess that the VIP program won't increase the net return. The existing return rates with rakeback, bonuses and promotions is already very good. We'll see.

Also, it's not "negative" to anticipate that discontinuing 35% rakeback will be bad for the players without any other information. That should be the normal assumption. When Bodog discontinued rakeback for new players, they didn't come up with some great new VIP program that was player-friendly.

If anything, concluding that it is a good thing is perhaps overly-optimistic. There's an Occam's Razor component to this news.

people rlly need to stop spreading false rumors and confirm them b4 they start spreading this crap and get all the details....

Bodog's primary business is sports betting. They don't care about the poker room, obviously. I'm not saying it's going to be better than what we have now, but I would bet it will be as good as the PS model. I don't believe they are going to screw up the opportunity to seize the US market, which they have been handed on a silver platter.

well said

I was not implying anything of the sort. Stars' VIP program was very good and will be hard to replicate. I merely stated the fact that the largest poker site on the planet didn't have to rely on rakeback to make their players happy and I'm sure Merge is more than aware of this when making this kind of decision

Maybe this "leak" in information is really marketing genius in disguise. Glancing at some Merge Skin threads some US players are thinking along the lines. "OMG I better make an rakeback account before June 1st if I have any thoughts of possibly playing online poker in the near future"

It might just be, as one poster seemed to think possible, that Merge is losing affiliates who are afraid of a DOJ bust and so the best way to get RB to the players is a comprehensive VIP program (?). I'm sure whatever they're cooking will include a comparable cash payout to the previous FTP/Stars programs.

You are aware of the fact that a change of this sort completely 86's affiliates, correct? Do you think a traditional rakeback site can just click its heels together three times, turn itself into Stars, and everyone lives happily ever after? Damn, look behind the curtain.

**********CarbonPoker Rakeback Update**********

Hi Guys,

This was released today by Merge Gaming stating that there will be no new rakeback sign ups after June 1, 2011. Players that signed up prior to this cut off will continue to receive their rakeback payment.

Make sure you tell your poker friends to sign up for CarbonPoker rakeback at any rakeback provider to secure their spot.

Moving forward, the best course of action will be to promote our VIP Program which offers up to 35% rakeback daily. Full details can be found at our CarbonPoker VIP Rewards pages.

Thanks.