Hi.

So there is this idea that it would be easier for everyone to win if there was no rake which is true.
How do you sustain a "business" then? You don't make it a business, you make it a club, run by members.
So the system would be as follows: pokerroom is sustained by donations from winning (or losing) players. Naturally the burden of that will be shifted onto high stakes players, contrary to what we see these days. Donations could be overt - players will receive badges which will make them more friendly to play against. If people will be willing to donate even more then the club can start running freerolls to invite new players etc.

As a start it would have to be a kickstarter project or something. If enough money is gathered to keep it running for, let's say 1 year and it fails then it will mean poker community doesn't care and the idea can be forgotten forever and ever and we have to depend on high raked sites.

What do you think?

The first thing to do is come up with an edgy name that will get attention. Perhaps WSEX Poker.

Well, of the dozens of threads we've had on this topic, it's certainly not the worst, especially when you throw in the Kickstarter idea. Not saying it would work; I suspect you'd have a hard time raising the capital you'd require. But it's not impossible IMO.

Make a rake free room which is full of casino links and ads. Have account in 5casinos, no popups. I mean the end game in 95% poker rooms is casino, so maybe it could work, especially if it's rake free could promote multiple different casinos.

How are you going to get the other 90+% of revenue you'll need?

So you think a online casino revenue that is poker marketing focused would be 90%rake and 10%other? I think it's the opposite.

I think I was being pretty generous at 90%.

Let me elaborate a bit. A $3 CPM is fairly average ($3 per 1,000 impressions) in the industry. Of course, that's going to vary greatly depending on what kind of click-through rates you're able to generate. The good news is that people already sitting down with money online to spend on poker should be a decent demographic for online casinos. The bad news is that you're showing ads to the same people over and over again - their effectiveness is going to be extremely low, and I don't think you'd be able to get anywhere remotely close to a $3 CPM in the long run.

A $3 CPM with an average of 5 players to a hand would mean $3 per 200 hands, or $1.50 per 100 hands, if you showed a different ad every single hand. But I'd be surprised if you could keep advertisers with anything more than a $1 CPM, and that's probably still far too high. So best case, it might make up some decent portion of rake at 2 or 5 NL, but not much higher. And would poker rooms be profitable if all they ran was 5 NL and under?

Free deposits, rake free tables, the site or poker room just takes 10% of all withdrawals. Losers don't pay a dime and winners get to keep 90% of whatever they withdraw.

make it 5% and I am in

does the room pay the transaction fee?

also, do you what percentage of deposits are withdrawn, or do you just thunk this would somehow work (despite massive costs)?

@OP: i'm pretty sure, the self-centred poker-community, who is all about maximizing winning, is happy to fund a poker room just out of good will. sure, if this is a massive fish farm, regs would love to keep the company running, bur were do you get al the deposits needed?

What the hell? Do you know how much you are paying in rake?

That site wouldn't win much money

That's what i have been asking myself too. Would happily give 10%!

There is good news for the guy who deposits $1,000 multiple times, plays a while, gets crushed and loses $4,500, then decides poker is not for him halfway through his 5th deposit. By cashing out and paying $50 in fees he can now say that only losers do not pay a dime, so he finally wins!

If a site has to fund the transaction cost of deposits say, 6%, how does collecting X% of withdrawals sustain a business model ?

Very generous of you to offer 5% for money that cost say, 6% to bring in.

You do understand that cost of deposits is just one cost. Other business costs include marketing, software, hardware, employees, accounting, legal, licensing, etc.

Tough to pay the operating costs when your margin on deposits/cashouts is -1 % and you have no rake/fees poker revenue.

A tough model to sell to prospective business operators ...

A poker site model does not WIN money. It typically charges a fee for services, either rake for cash games or entry fees for tournaments.

Why do you think high stakes players are going to play at a site where they pay the bulk of the rake (sorry..."donations")?

So pros have been complaining about paying too much rake, and now you want them to pay all the rake? Do you think by calling it "donations" it will cost less for winners to pay all of the rake than just paying their share on a traditional site?

You guys are overestimating how much is saved by making it a non-profit club. The huge amount it takes to set up and keep a site running is where most of the rake goes to, not to corporate profits. And without the profit motive, good luck having people committed to addressing the myriad of issues faced when running a site. Just ask Phil Galfond.

everything nowadays is a monthly subscription so why not make a sub poker room. low stakes pay like 10 bucks per month and the higher you play the more your monthly fee is. high stakes pay 100 e.g. additionally you can add small fees for the winners like 1-2% for withdrawing above 100 dollars or something like this. all in insure for 1% is not that bad for both, site and players i guess. plus you could implement paid extras that have no actual impact on the game, for example avatars or special themes. gaming companies make a lot of money with it.

I've been thinking about online poker sites and how much it costs to run them. I can buy CSGO or any other $20 game or less and these games have no problem having online servers which people play for hundreds of hours. Why can't online tables be run without me paying thousands of dollars in rake? Why aren't online poker companies undercutting/outcompeting each other by offering lower than the standard 5% take with $3 cap?

To make it more fair, how about adjusting how much you pay in subscription fees based on how many hands you play? Oh, wait...

All these ideas are just different ways of paying rake, and traditional rake methods ensure an equitable distribution of how much everyone pays based on the stakes they play and how many hands they play.

It is more like the winners need to pay 80% of their winnings and the losers 30% of their deposits. 50% of winnings and 0% for losers is a very good deal.

DING DING DING! If companies were charging a lot more in rake than it took to run the site, other companies would easily undercut them and take market share. In competitive markets, the prices paid by the consumer approach the cost to produce the product.

Because it will be full of fish who's gonna have a higher chance of having a positive winrate with no rake in the game.
Also I called it donations because it will be voluntary.
I mentioned possibility of making it visible so the altruism can pay you off in the long run, by making fish more willing to play against you if they see you contribute more than others. Or there could be beginners tables which are allowed for new players and contributers only.

Considering people's good intentions they wouldn't be the only ones to pay it. I said the burden would be shifted onto them because they are the ones who can afford it the most.

Those contributing the most are almost surely consistent winners (i.e., the best players). Making it visible who contributes the most is a convenient badge identifying tough players to stay away from.

Recreational players/fish are barely even aware of rake. They are not going to be drawn to a site because it has lower or no rake, and they're not going to reward the toughest players for paying their share of rake by getting into games against them.

What makes running an online poker company so expensive?