Mr. McFly has already completed the feasibility study. And it has been confirmed as valid by a comprehensive panel of industry experts as they all also collectively thought about it.

I just give you points to think over:
- 2000 active players should work out as an average 100 or less average per hour
- start up with 20 qualified staff is a 700 to 1 mil expence per year
- would you work on all market against USA, Italy, France and spain government? Just mentioning the bigger ones
- You really think that 3k pro players used to not deposit can keep up a poker room?
- Why a new player should play on a new poker offer infested with pros with smaller tourny than unibet or smaller offer?
- planning to develop mobile? It is about 50% market on any game at the moment (sport, casino and poker) in case you will need to develop two platforms

Last idea, many fail to create a poker room during the boom gold age, why should group of poker pros be able to do so during a time poker is contracting?

Just few points to understand your plan better....

This idea, however difficult it seems right now, scares Amaya much more than a strike.

Decent read, well thought out. Would have taken me much longer than 2 hours to write.

The 2 hours was typing time.

That's hilarious. Right up there with Why did the chicken cross the road.

Soo much too read such little time

Hi SageDonkey

The below isn't criticism or negativity - I'm trying to contribute to your idea.

[1] STUDIES & REPORTS & STUFF
No. You don't need a feasibility study, not yet. Probably not ever. Because what you need is...

[2] A BRILLIANT IDEA
You need a Unique Selling Point [USP] & you don't have one

In a currently shrinking mature online poker market you need to provide a very, very attractive USP that anybody can understand at a glance. If you can't state your vision of online poker in three simple sentences of less than 40 words total - you haven't got something to sell. You need to think like someone sat across from a Hollywood producer who is trying to interest the mogul in a movie script, if you can't grab the mogul's attention in 3 minutes you've got nothing. Unfortunately I didn't get a 'vision' from your OP of what sort of experience the casual punter can expect at your poker emporium.

QUESTION: What is going to excite, engage & entertain Mr & Mrs Joe & Joan public when they click on "SageDonkeyPoker [dot] com"?

QUESTION: What will keep 'em there long enough to give SDP a drive around the block?

Having "poker integrity" & player investment/involvement & all those good things you mention is a model for how your imagined site is structured & the general ethos behind it, but those things aren't the USP that will grab Joe & Joan Public & drag them through the front door of your place. The backers thing isn't the core of what you want to achieve for example.

[3] Your USP must...:

...be so distinct & special it would be too difficult, bothersome or uneconomic for your mature cash-rich online poker competitors to copy. Your large competitors are selling mass produced shoes while you are charging fortunes for hand made customised distinctive footwear - the big boys don't want to have to manage such an operation where every minute detail matters enormously

...resonate with some demographic of Joes & Joans despite your site traffic being ridiculously small at first

[4] A scenario from recent history:

In the UK in the food/drink retail market we went through a long period of poor, sub-par quality products in a mature, seemingly saturated market with food/drink readily available everywhere. Then various hard working entrepreneurs found niches to exploit resulting in:

** Speciality real breads & beers sold through the existing network of shops, stores, supermarkets, pubs & restaurants

** Explosion of small chain & independent single store speciality shops that concentrated on say only selling wine [oddbins] or deli items or the like

** Niche pubs, bars & restaurants

All the above were aimed at potential customers bored out of their minds by over-processed, tasteless foods/beverages & lacklustre pubs, bars & restaurants.

These customers were prepared to reach into their pockets & pay a substantial additional markup for a quality product that tingled the taste buds

THE BIG QUESTION

So what have you got to offer SageDonkey?

I suspect it's going to have to be a boutique, speciality experience that can thrive alongside mass market online poker because the mass market should NOT be your target. If you go for mass market & you have some success the big sites will easily adjust their offerings to entice your customers back - killing your action. Your customers would probably be consumers [not a dirty word] at your boutique for some of their poker enthusiast budget while also mixing it up with time at the white bread mass market outlets

Is the poker demographic large enough to keep a boutique operation in business?

You have built in a number of incorrect assumptions into your post, which are not things I have stated.

My proposal is not for a boutique poker site, it is for a pure poker site that has the best of all things poker on it and will cater for the mass market as well as for serious players and pro grinders and crushers.

The backing and staking element is a definite USP as no-one else has it and it would be a solution to the wild west, gentleman's handshake, my word is my bond total nonsense that exists within backing.

I have a number of other USP ideas, and contrary to how it may appear, I can condense things into snappier short paragraphs, as I am a professional writer of scripts for various things on a daily basis in the business that I own and I have won a couple of writing awards.

Poker overall is a fairly backward industry in my opinion, the lack of a system where backers are protected against default is a prime example of this, and there are numerous things in live card rooms that are ridiculous.

There are so many features one could add to a poker site that operators aren't doing, as well as many things that various sites have had on and off that no longer exist. So why not take some of the best ideas from the past and combine them with great new ideas and put them all in one place on one new site.

Even if it weren't a backward industry in certain areas, it is still the case that Pokerstars are going to "run over the table" and completely dominate the poker landscape.

There is nothing wrong with this as it is business pure and simple, but they can be challenged if there is the will and the investment to do so.

Also a new platform of the type I am suggesting could easily co-exist in the market place with Pokerstars because Pokerstars have openly declared in their business statement that they want more and more gambly games, whereas the kind of platform I am suggesting is somewhat the opposite, with it being very focused on the skill element of poker and the poker learning, community, backing, staking and bank roll building side of things.

If a large group of players made up a significant percentage of the investors and received some rake reductions along with equity for their investment then many will effectively get equity for free after not too long due to the rake concessions they will receive.

Yes I am suggesting a different kind of business model to Pokerstars, however its core will still be built on large MTT fields, heavily populated cash games and a prestigious live poker tour.

Can you please explain in a couple of short paragraphs, who are we going to win money from there IF such a poker site was created? Who will pay for the cashouts? Where does the fish come from?

This from your comment ^^ is the important thing to write first - not last

So your core products are in essence what PS already offers & they compete directly with PS

I am at a loss to understand what you're offering that is protected from being drowned by PS if your site begins to gain traction
I don't believe you can reach the traffic levels necessary & you can't do it quickly enough to compete successfully with a firmly established mass market supplier such as PS

I'm not seeing the added value to Mr. & Mrs. J. Public of the USPs you mention so far
Of course if you really do have one very good big idea you would be crazy to post it here on 2+2

Whatever it is you've got in mind that will reach down to me near the bottom of the poker pyramid - I'm not seeing it from way down here

Good luck though Sage

The site charges rake and juice and has rake back tiers based on volume, so is no different to how most sites currently work, but the amounts charged will be at the levels that campaigners such as yourselves want to revert to and remain at on Pokerstars.

New sign ups will be attracted by the breadth and depth of MTTs and cash games on the site, the number of players playing of which will have an immediate population boost by player investors playing on the site.

If there is enough investment money one can also consider buying/mopping up some of the smaller sites purely to buy the players in their databases. There are umpteen ways of procuring new players.

Plus for a new site one would naturally have a budget set aside for exciting promotions to procure new players, and in particular smaller stakes/weaker players who are the life blood at the bottom of the poker pyramid.

I really don't think it would be too difficult for poker players themselves who are either investors or those charged with running the company to put together some tremendously attractive promotions to lure new player sign ups, and having a prestigious live tour in conjunction with the on line site adds extra scope for promotions.

My OP is based on the fact that (it appears) that a few thousand Pokerstars regs/semi regs and likely quite a lot of casual fun players are not happy with having rake back and rewards reduced by Pokerstars.

The problem is that there is no viable large scale competitor to Pokerstars that huge numbers could move over to overnight or that could make up a significant amount of players' volume, so all I am saying is build one yourselves and part/main fund it yourselves.

It is a simple concept if boiled down, which is that if you use the services of a company an enormous amount and are making them a profit then why not own shares in that company, or much better still build your own company and effectively get those services at "cost" or near to "cost".

The backing idea for on line comps and MTTs is a blindingly obvious one, so I already have posted it.

The added value to Mr. & Mrs. J. Public as you put it, is to have far more creative, interesting and exciting promotions than Pokerstars or the poker industry in general has, and these I will not be posting on a public forum.

Alright, I get it. But some kind of players' union has to happen before that I think.

In my OP I mentioned a players union as part of the business model for a new platform, as well as high levels of communication and transparency between owners and players.

In my opinion a new web site should also have a section that offers counseling and advice to those with poker related gambling problems or issues.

Another variation on player investment for a new web site is that there could be two prices for equity investment, a cheaper price for equity with no voting right on the future and ongoing policy of the company and a more expensive equity price that includes some voting rights.

There's nothing I'd love more than an independant, low charging poker site with a regular (mixed) playerpool. It seems, though, that there are obstacles that are simply too high.

1. Trying to persuade investors to put up money to develop a v expensive software with high maintenance cost, to actually make less money of players than their competitors is not a strong sell.

2. If players were to fund the new site, there would have to be some kind of rake-reward for those, who put up money. Recs at stars don't care about the changes made, so why would they help to set this up. Consequence: Good, winning players will be the vast majority of investors.

Recs who hear about this new site will think, wow, this is a site where some, the winning players, will win my money and actually pay less of a fee to play at this site. That they themselves will actually end up paying less rake than at stars won't matter, people in groups just don't act rational.

If the funders don't get any direct rake benefits, then, unless this site grows into a major player with a sustainable profit margin, investing will be very -EV. In short: They will pay the rake they intended to save (and probably a lot more) up front.

3. Regulation is going to be a bitch.

I can't speak for the rest of Europe, but in my part of Germany (Schleswig-Holstein), poker is officially legal as of a couple of months ago. That is all very well, but the only sites that got a licence to operate here are Stars, bet365 (Ipoker) and a third one, not sure which one exactly. Means: Tilt didn't get one, Party didn't get one, William Hill didn't get one, 90 percent of sites didn't get one.

While this only affects a small part of Germany right now, other parts will follow soon. Given that a major, reputable site like Party is not allowed to operate here, a new site is not going to have a chance.

Maybe I'm guilty of being overly pessimistic about this, because my area got so heavily regulated, but it is definetely not going to get easier in the future to get a license anywhere in Europe.

Just my two cents, Phil

All the points you make, bar one in my opinion, are very good ones and are ones that a proper feasibility study would need to look into.

The point where I disagree with you is regarding recs being sophisticated enough/aware enough/or bothered enough about the financial origins of the site or that some players on their table may also be investors and therefore have a built in rake back advantage. (something that has been present anyway up to this point on Pokerstars by there being "rake back pros")

As I've stated on the boycott thread, as well as here, the market is efficient, so the bottom line is that players of all types will be attracted by the size of MTT fields, the volume and choice of cash games, and any bonus stuff such as promotions, rake back, rewards, and satellites to live comps.

Anything outside of the above paragraph is irrelevant to poker players. The site could be owned by The Devil or by Mother Theresa and players wouldn't care either way.

You mentioned the Pokerstars rakeback pro's. I don't think any of those pro's are or even can be shareholders of stars. The rakeback is paid from profits by Amaya, the controlling shareholder of Pokerstars (I assume).

In this case though, the players profiting from a rakeback deal will control 100% of this site. I can't see a way, in which putting themselves in a direct advantage over the customers of the site, with whom they interact directly at the tables, is legal. I don't think this could be done in a regulated market.

If you went the indirect way and paid the rake benefits as a return of investment for shareholders, the players would not get a benefit based the rake they actually earned, but on the size of their initial investment.

isnt the feasibility study already done for whatever it is you are proposing by poker/betting rooms that have the infrastructure and capability (to do whatever it is that you are proposing)?

is stars a ******ed giant that has set his course? or do you think that Stars will do everthing in its power (which is alot) to undermine such an initiative, if they even think its serious? "boom, positive rake changes, everbody stays" for example, nice for the players there, screwing all the investors.(plus unfortunate playerpool cause i cant remember the last time some ****y pokerroom bit the dust and faithfully paid out the existing balances) I obv dont know **** about buisness, but that new born poker company probably doesnt have alot of margin when a monopoly starts undercutting the market.

Anyone that thinks anything close to what the OP postulates is remotely possible, either:

Knows very little about business and absolutely nothing about regulated online gaming markets

Or

Knows very little about business and absolutely nothing about regulated online gaming markets

/feasibilitystudy

Will it also include a december x-mas calendar?

Well, as a simple "thought exercise" it can be kind of fun for some people, but anyone who legitimately believes that Stars cares at all about this thread is just making themselves feel better.

Actually getting money and customers (in this case a lot of both will be needed) tends to be much, much harder in the real world than in theory, with the added benefit of a ton of unexpected complications along the way. The barriers to entry to actually compete with Stars are massive, and as has been said, the market is fairly mature.

The general ideas tossed around here may have worked 10-15 years ago, when a lot of sites were created, however this thread will pretty much die, likely before the end of the year, when there is not much more to say and nobody steps forward with any real money.

The last chance to stop Skynet stars was when they hadnt taken over ftp. i bet alot of the complainers now were aplauding back then.

as I remember that shady adidas dude that tried to buy ftp wasnt met with alot of positivity, even on this forum. I mean, it figures, the guy was shady...but still very shortsighted of the people here to be so gullible over Stars intentions

They're not happy because it doesn't suit them however the changes make sense and I don't believe anyone outside of 2+2 likely cares or thinks about them.

What you're effectively proposing (and I only read your OP quickly) is PokerStars as it currently exists are you not?

That isn't exactly what I am suggesting, because there clearly has to be a cap on rake back benefits as part of a player's investment, after which any equity bought is just pure equity, with or without voting rights, dependant on which option the investor prefers.

Yes one would think and expect that Pokerstars would react/respond/compete with any market competitor threat that they detect on the horizon or see appearing, but they would not know exactly what they are up against until a rival platform is actually fully launched and live and even a giant cannot adapt their own technology overnight and in some circumstances it may be too much aggravation for them to do so, too expensive relative to the benefits for them, or something they don't want to add because it doesn't fit their business profile or vision.

As I mentioned earlier ITT, Pokerstars' business plan is to expand more in the gambly games and casino games area, whereas what I propose has none of this at all, so whilst a new competitor arriving in the market place may be bad for them in some ways, such a new competitor overlaps with some of their market but not with all of it.

In addition, extra competition/choice is not always a bad thing. (Not an exact analogy), but if you owned the only MacDonalds in a High Street and then KFC and Subway opened close by, it may not necessarily damage your business much or at all, because now the High Street you are in is more attractive as a location for people to come to for fast food.

So competition and choice are often important elements of any industry.

I think the idea can work in the current era, but you are right that the thread will most likely die soon, but I am happy to still discuss what I am proposing as I think it may all be possible.

Getting any funding, usually amounts to there being some kind of snowball or bandwagon effect where once a few people want in it encourages others and then there is a kind of unknown point in time where it goes crazy and everyone suddenly wants in. It is all about presenting a very sound, well thought out and attractive business plan.

Yes there is a lot to read, but if you do have time (circa 45 minutes!) you will see that there are many things that differentiate what I am suggesting from how Pokerstars do things.

Should this thread gain some genuine interest from a number people, I do have a 6 to 8 point chronological plan of how to get from a blank sheet of paper through to the funding stage.

It is something that I have already formulated, but it is 2 to 3 hours of work for me to post it all, and I am quite busy with my own business at the moment including final testing of a new web site I have had built (for the non-poker related business that I run).

N.B. If Pokerstars (Amaya) did ever become concerned about a commercial business threat to their platform then the easiest hedge for them would to be investors themselves, so this near paradox of business risk hedging could produce a substantial piece of any required investment!

Before someone challenges this by saying that if they were major investors then they could leverage their bulk voting rights to push a new platform in the direction they want it to go, please bear in mind that a new platform would have a built in constitutional, legally binding framework that prohibits a lot of the things that Pokerstars have in their business model, and that the voting rights element to purchasing equity would be well thought out anyway.

For example, not each and every operational policy decision would be put to a voter referendum, but many policies would, and all customers, not just share holders would be consulted on an ongoing basis.