Quote:
Originally Posted by AngerPush
Grunching here but the issue is: Are sites setting rake at an optimal level? All of this is a supply and demand business decision. There is no use in arguing whether rake is too high to prevent players from moving up, or whether it is immoral or greedy to charge the rates the sites do. The only issue the sites care about (rightfully so) is maximizing profits. If there is ever any hope to get sites to lower rake, we need to put forth a clear and concise outline of WHY it would benefit the sites to lower rake. I have yet to see anyone convincingly do this, and until then, sites are not going to lower rake. I have no idea whether sites are optimizing the rake level or not, my guess is neither do they. However, in business, it's usually a bad idea to start lowering prices unless there is convincing evidence that this is in the best interest of the long-term health and growth of the entity doing so.
Site growth last year was > 100%.
This year its -3%.
The rake is pushing players out of the games. Imagine some 'fish' who plays $25PLO and is a pretty consistent 'loser'. He drops around 20 buyins in 20k hands. He feels like he really has an edge and just can't figure out why he's down 20 buyins. He starts to think the site is rigged and decides to quit playing and becomes one of those tons of guys at your home game talking about how online poker is rigged.
Obviously its not rigged. But that fellow that dropped 20 buyins in 20k hands actually won 20 buyins on the tables in those 20k hands. But he paid 40 buyins (!!!!!!) in rake. He leaves the games and that's that.
When that player is forced out of the games the games become that much tougher. And suddenly now the guy that was slightly better than breakeven is now a loser and ends up quitting the games. And now the games become even harder. So fourth and so on.
It becomes a downward spiral once you start to reach a certain point where the sites are taking more out of the games than players are putting into them. And I think we have reached that point. For online growth to go from > 100% to negative in one year seems like more than just random noise in growth patterns. This will be crystal clear next year when the games continue to deteriorate and the sites are seeing substantial losses of players.
The concern is that by the time the sites finally do something about it, it'll be too late.