Right. Using BTC doesn't mean you're immune from local legislation, like others have suggested. Phil can't just start a BTC site and accept US players and operate in European counties without a license and not face any legal consequences.

IMO the advertising idea has merit. You could do it a million different ways. Here are a couple of ideas:

1. Create a co-op. Give tournament tickets or rakeback to players buying products from sponsors.
2. Create advertiser sponsored overlay tournaments. Players that watch an infomercial get free or reduced buyin. Players willing to accept a phone call from a sales rep get ticket to higher buyin tourney, etc.
3. Sell products/services to players that cash out.
4. Give incentive for players to group together and sign exclusive deals w/ sponsors. For example, say 100 players agreed to buy all of their disposable razors in exchange for xyz. Really it could be anything; VIP service, for example, overnight cashout, free netflix for a month, etc....

I really think this sort of cross marketing strategy could work.

I really don't know the answer to #1; but I believe that the revenue from advertising could potentially be much bigger than you (or most people) surmise. See my last post for some ideas. It's not just ads themselves, which provide little revenue, but the potential for co-ops and cross marketing that I think could work.

As to 2, I don't agree with your premise. Sites could sell advertising right now, but they don't. Why not? Because it is not simply about maximizing revenue at all costs.

Those of you saying advertising is worthless have no life experience in the real world.

Restaurant chains will actually staff extra employees on the nights commercials are scheduled to air on television because of all the extra business generated from the advertising. Companies don't spend s**t loads of money showing you that same annoying commercial over and over for no reason. Advertising works incredibly well and is going to need to be a huge factor in the launch of the site.

My Heineken had an idea for Phil's new site - A never ending Rush Poker tournament:

There are different buy-in levels, like $1, $5, $10, $20, etc… all the way up.

Each player starts with 10k chips whenever they buyin.

There are cashout thresholds that you have to reach to make money, like 100k, 200k, 300k, etc… And your prize depends on your buyin level and your cashout level -

For example - If you buyin for $5, and cashout with 300k chips, you qualify for $X prize.

You must play a minimum of 1500 hands to qualify

Players compete against each other regardless of buyin level – only skill matters

Unlimited rebuys, no addons

I would be surprised if a poker site could get $1 per 1000 ad views for showing ads, which is a common metric for online ad revenue. On table ads would probably pay much lower. Also players probably wouldn't like products being shoved down their throats while playing poker, this is a reasonable attitude and (I think) would likely extend to any cross product monetization a site might think of.

Why do this when you can just follow the industry standard of raking pots and buy-ins?

totally this

Galfond is a prophet.

I'd like to focus on the bolded part of your post (emphasis mine). I don't buy this argument. Do you think people generally liked having products 'shoved down their throats' when tv or radio first came out? Well, probably not, but that doesn't mean that the concept wasn't successful.

And I wouldn't do basic ads; not enough money in it. I would go with highly targeted stuff. More ideas (just ideas, I'm not saying all of them will work):

Do full commercial breaks for the entire site, so everyone playing is watching the same thing at the same time. Make them interactive and rewards based.
Sign up for newsletter, gain access to special freeroll. Agree to watch a 30 minute sales pitch via Skype, get rakeback for a week. Buy a product, get xyz. Give players chance to become affiliates. Make rewards based on chance to mitigate cost. For example, bet on your next flop and if 7 hits you get reward, if not you get whammy.
Let players buy and sell rewards. Let players play for rewards and the house rakes a portion.

Have sponsor funded tournaments with the condition of cash out to be to get a phone call from a sales rep.
Have cash outs forced to go through interactive video prior to getting funds with the opportunity to spend some of the funds on products (I guarantee this would be very valuable for almost any company to participate in). Reward the buyers accordingly.

I don't really see people enjoying their poker experience with things such as those being put in front of them. It kind of detracts from the fun of playing poker. There are also a lot of hoops to jump through with what you've proposed for what would likely be a small reward. That could hurt someone's experience and damage a site's brand. People are willing to fund their own time on a site, going through xyz for a little more money might not be a lot of fun.

This is exactly and the most important thing the new poker site needs to succeed. Be creative. Putting ads is good way, but excited ads, not banners. Video format during the breaks. You need powerful partners here. For example BMW or Turkish AIrlines or Amazon, they can be main sponsors of the site. Dont be scary to contact them. Winamax is offering sunday surpsise tournament with a random added prize for the winner and its very very attractive for everyone. Make daily "apple" tournaments with additional prizes (all ft players gets ipod...) and the apple slogan in the middle of the table. There are thousands of ways how to make it nice.
jebote idea that FT of main tournament of the week could be live is awesome.
Cuting rake for mtt's maybe half is very good point. Now "the unwritten rule " that mtt's rake should be around 10% i believe is totally "from the air"

legit lol´d when someone said chat abuses arise with the the table cap, people talk more, that´s not a bad thing. I play on a table cap site(that have existed for like 8 years now) and regs and recs banter about random topics alot, this is midstakes and above, but they have been playing on table cap sites for years and they know it´s just a bad move to be rude in any way so they talk about beer, girls, and sometimes ask rec what they do for a living and so on. Rec might be a busto degen, or actually a very successful guy that likes to spew money, either way honest or not he gets to feel good about himself and tell his tale even if hes lying, its about appearance. Some of the regs gets the question back and obv they lie to just keep the topics going but that´s just to not make em uneasy "yeah i play poker for a living" x4 on a 5-handed table is gonna make it cringy.

if you seem to experience toxic chat to skyrocket im pretty sure its because all of the Counterstrike/League Of Legends kids are now old enough to play poker that have lived in a toxic gaming environment since they were born.

Having a bit of a chat removes the botting/computer tinfoil hat a bit for the recs aswell.

edit: also some recs have a really good thrashtalking game themselves, ego does that to people . Played vs some guy for weeks and it wasnt a session he didnt thrashtalk banter, but it was all in good spirit, I mean, we were just throwing random shots, the only guys that are "toxic" in commenting players abilitiy, or other stuff like just seems genuinly out there to upset people are other regs.

Maybe something to take into consideration Phil:

A bunch of EU country's can play tax free within EU, hence the location of pokerstars in Malta. If you locate outside of EU, you could lose a decent potential customer base.

Wrt the advertising discussion, the 5-minute MTT break seems a no-brainer spot for utilising ads without them having to be 'shoved down people's throats'.

You're making the false assumption that recs are idiots who won't see the benefit of a different and overall lower rake system. Also most recs don't cash out more than what they deposited so they will never even see the effect of rake on winnings. If there are recs who get upset by this it's going to be a very small group of people.

There's a lot of people ITT who don't understand why lowering rake might also be beneficial for the site as well. Believe it or not, but sometimes companies LOWER the price of their product to INCREASE overall profitability. This tends to happen in especially competetive fields, and last time I checked there's over 20 sites for me to play poker on.

Nah I'm not assuming that at all.

My assumption is that a rec who binks the Sunday million won't expect or want to pay a fee on the winnings.

Let's say you had a site with a daily average of 20,000 players who each played at least one scheduled tournament every day, each player averaging 3 tournaments a day. Let's also say that on average each player reached one and a half five minute break periods every tournament. That gives you on average around 90,000 opportunities every day to play an ad, and for the sake of discussion let's say that only one ad is played during each break. For video ads I would estimate a site could probably get between $1 to $10 dollars for every thousand ad views. It would probably vary between those two numbers, depending on various factors. If my estimates are close to correct the upside on the high end would be about an extra $900 dollars every day in revenue. That's not a lot for a site to make at the risk of potentially alienating its player base. I might be underestimating the amount of ads that could be played but I think I'm close to accurate with how much money a site could bring in for every ad. A site could play more ads but it would be at the risk of further alienating its players, and if a site was reaching an average of 20,000 players who each played three tournaments a day that would be an incredibly valuable asset to risk over an extra $900 or so in revenue.

Such worship itt.

Maybe somebody should make some prayers?.

I started reading the first few posts after seeing the thread title,and thought what a great idea,especially since Amaya purchased Stars and turned it into a 'clip joint' a well liked guy such as Phil would certainly attract a customer base and make a decent fist of it. Then the experts started posting so i just skipped to here so as to avoid 'politics'....lets go go go Phil.

General consensus is that Phil will be a riveting success with the site, and we are all happy chappies (ladies) as we know Phil's take on things, due to his many insightful posts and interviews over the years,and frankly this has got to be the most exciting thing to happen to poker in quite a while. It will be fantastic when the US allows online again and Phil's site is more popular than Stars, and gets the business accordingly.

Amaya have really made a great company into a unpopular with players clip joint!Grinders who have payed much rake over the years at Stars have been shafted out of the rewards system they had already earned for the next year, shocking,and where are the Super things that Daniel said he was privy to that were to be implemented in 2016???? They are making Daniel, a guy who prides himself for his integrity, and all round honesty,look to be a guy who has mislead (at best) us,we the poker playing Stars public.

Because there's no human factor in them.
One thing you lose to a machine or disinterested dealer, the other thing to these m...ns again. And some times you play together with other players (you dont hate' em) not against them. I think this is fun.

Unibet's no chat box policy I think is really working out for the best and should be a staple for poker sites.

I was skeptical at first but 99% of the time it is used for hunting, abuse, scamming, spamming etc. and think its worth surrendering the 1% of the time its used for friendly ingame chit chat.

Watever drugs you on i want some of dat **** as well

Prayers? I already have a Phil shrine with a doll made from his hair. Don't ask how I got it.

I've sacrificed 2 chickens and a goat. I put in a call to Tom Cruise to get Xenu on board, as well. No chance of failure with this much supernatural support.

+1