huh?? I dont get the logic behind this.

also you can expect a big number of regular players switching sites so they can swap their blinds back and force.

Strikes and boycotts plain don't work, the greed factor will have players sneaking back on to play on the now weaker field, just look at cereus.

All sites including cake have no reason to lower rake and i doubt you'll convince all the regs to battle it out at a small site with all the other regs.

I like the idea of mass sit-outs and protests because we all can still play but be raising awareness where it counts, amungst all the fish.

Then what would you propose in place of a boycott/sitout?

I like the idea of mass sit-outs and protests because we all can still play but be raising awareness where it counts, amungst all the fish

Mass sit-outs that disrupt the games always struck me as inappropriate and likely ineffective. Not a fan. JMO.

I like the avatars idea though. And I generally don't care for most of these, "hey...lets do _____ to raise awareness." I doubt their effectiveness too but I don't think they would cause any harm.

LOL at some of the requests in the thread though...one of them to make the rake HIGHER to a $5 max (huh?) and the recent one for 4% rake which would actually be higher than what many players around here actually pay (after rakeback, etc etc).

I thought this went without saying. I am talking long term vs short term. Drop the rake and the sites and affiliates make more in the long term. Of course in the short run they will lose.

4% rake with all the current rakeback promos that exist would be very beneficial to the poker economy.

You still get xx% rakeback, just that overall the rake paid is 20% lower, so your rakeback will obviously be less, but overall you are paying less.

Thats obv for cash games.

S&G's and tournaments have always been raked too high. 10% fee is ridiculous. A flat 7% fee that scales down to 5% for $200+ tournaments would also really be great.

This suggestion was later recinded: OP stated something to the effect that they held a mistaken notion that was the cap for those limits currently.

That is simply incorrect. Yes, they do work.

When France nationalized poker Poker Stars decided that they would try to completely freeroll the regulation and try to pass 100% of the costs of it onto the players in the form of massive increases in rake including a preflop rake. The French players were understandably less than thrilled about this and went on a number of strikes and boycotts. As a direct result of this, Stars ended up substantially decreasing their rake and completely did away with the preflop rake.

IMO, the sites really need to get more creative and aggressive with monetizing their player base with alternate revenue streams that do not include rake. In so doing, I think they could lower their rake substantially and actually make more profit.

Idea#1: This idea presumes that sites are not currently earning interest on player’s deposit balances. This presumption is based upon statements by the sites that the money is held in trust. If true, this is a huge lost revenue opportunity. Contact the people that regularly hold 5-figure plus balances and get consent to invest their money in some conservative investment vehicle such as treasuries, money-market funds, etc. Offer some revenue-sharing to the poker player to get his consent.

Idea#2: Groupon just turned down a $6 billion offer from Google. Groupon is a site that offers, in general, one amazing deal or coupon for a given area each day. Even though Groupon keeps 50% of the revenue generated and also retailers must offer at least 50% off their product, retailers still love it because Groupon has so many eyeballs and is a fantastic way to market their product and get people in the door, so to speak, even if first initial sale is a loss leader.

The big poker sites have a lot of eyeballs. If you include play money players, the numbers should be quite large. Why not offer daily deals, similar to Groupon, which would need to be specific to each country. For example, online wine retailers, vacation spots, or really any retailer with an online presence so that poker players from all over the country could take advantage of the deal. My hunch is that poker players would flock to these deals when they are priced well rather than just trying to sell overpriced stuff in the store. Look at the vacation deals offered at LivingSocial “Escapes” for one particular aspect of their business model that you could copy.

Idea#3: Advertising. I don’t really see much advertising on the sites. Again, they have the eyeballs, why not run advertisements? If you did it in such a way as not to be obnoxious, I think this could be a solid money-maker. One way to structure it would be to offer an additional rakeback percentage to the poker players that were willing to have advertisements turned “on.” Play money players obviously would not have a choice.

Those were just a few ideas off the top of my head. They might be good, they might be bad, but come on, poker sites—get creative. If Zynga can make ridiculous amounts of money monetizing their player base, WHICH ONLY PLAYS FOR PLAY MONEY AND PAYS ZERO RAKE TO PLAY, surely you can come up with some innovative ways to monetize your base, which includes both play-money and real-money players. And in so doing, you could lower the rake charged at the tables. This will lead more people to play at your site, which will lead to more non-rake revenues, which will lead to more profit, and so on.

It's easier to boycott a specific site as there are many options and especially when they are so much more expensive than the competition, but boycotting online poker cartel would be pi**ing in the wind.


Love the idea of putting the bankrolls in secure investments and allowing some advertising on the sites. Think this is gold for that 'community run poker site' project, maybe they could actually make a good amount of money doing it like that whilst producing a thriving field of poker players.

backing this cause all the way. Rake is ridiculously high.

We are dealing with an industry that will be seriously cut down in the US in the near future, they are making as much profit as possible while they can.

The idea of organizing globally with other players sounds fine but the it was easier in France as people are used to complain loudly + we were supposed to pay 100% of the new tax (+ pf rake).

It would be insane to lower the rake considering what's ahead for them in a not so distant future.

Regarding the advertising...I think it will be very tough for US sites to get US companies to advertize on a gambling website, but they could probably get some good revenue for it.

All I hear is nonchalant pessimism with no alternative options. I guess you'd rather sit on your hands and take it up the ass, even if PS does use a super special organic brand of vaseline (in form of VIP) on you.

Evidence that actions are noticed.

This is a very pathetic stance you present. You argue that their future is uncertain as a defense for them overcharging you for the service they provide??!?!? I bet you're a pillow biter.

I know this is site specific but I only play at FT.

First is the rake structure for Rush the same as normal poker? I'm assuming it is and if so that's one spot where the rake is ridiculous.

Second another spot is microlimit PLO8. So many split pots in that game you get raked to death. Playing this game is what opened my eyes up to how obnoxious the rake can be.

Last, I like how Stars has the rake graphically displayed (in chips) near the top of the screen. On FullTilt it's more hidden. You have to hover over the pot in the middle to see how much rake is being taken out on any one pot. I don't know if it's intentional but things like this irritate me. I know the sites have their rake structures clearly laid out on their websites, but they still seem to do little things to keep it hidden. People who don't pay attention probably fail to realize the rake is even there. I'd like to see rake somehow displayed graphically w/o having to mouse over the pot...

My thoughts were basically that Cake has a chance to gain by lowering the rake more than their competitors, which would help us get what we want and in the easiest way possible. All that would need to be done is for them to create a skin offering 80% rakeback. Do you think they would make more money than they do now if they did this? I think they would.

Why increase rakeback? Why not just lower rake by half?

Increasing rakeback exacerbates the rakeback pro problem. Lower the rake so it's nominal and put the focus on winrates instead.

It's an imperfect solution to a pretty difficult problem. This way they can make money off the fish who don't read any poker sites and don't care, and everyone else can play for lower rake. Orrr they could just lower the overall rake as well. I was just trying to come up with a solution that could actually happen today.

This is a completely ridiculous reply. You could tell me that you want to create little anti-rake voodoo dolls and do a big rain dance to solve everything and catch their attention. When I say that I think that would be a waste of time and not very effective it doesn't make me a pessimist. It just means I'm able to think critically and that I don't jump at every single, "hey everyone...lets do this!" idea that gets thrown out there.

If you are trying to convince me to join your cause you are doing an awfully poor job of it. I was actually saying something pretty positive in my post in regards to the avatars.

Voodoo dolls = Avatars?

You may be onto something here Bob...

Thanks for the Avatar, I'll use it wherever I can.

So you're saying increasing rakeback instead of decreasing rake by the same amount exacerbates the RB pro problem - please explain that one to me.

RB pro = majority of your profit is in the form of RB

If you increase RB percentages, it makes sense that you will entice more people to grind 24 tables nittily in order to receive RB+awards and care less about winning.

The flipside is, if you removed rake/rakeback, do you think you'd have as many break even grinders playing 24 tables nonstop (the way we have now)?

the reason they are break even in the first place is because of the rake, the'yd be winning without it