might just be semantics but I violently disagree with above.

Their core marketing plan is For the person or people that invested in RIO (aka the owners) the overwhelmingly important goal is to make money. Let's keep it 100

The goal and the plan are almost never mutually exclusive in a business, but in online poker they sort of are.

It must be semantics. English is not my first language, I must not be expressing myself clearly.

Of course investors'/owners' main goal is to make money. I never meant to imply that that's not the case. It's a given.

All I'm saying is that based on what PG himself has stated the way this particular brand is choosing to balance site v player profitability is different than other providers currently in the market. Are you arguing with this? Because I'm only recapping here what's been said by him, not speculating. You can find all the detail in his previous statements and his latest Joey Ingram podcast.

No, not arguing that, as you said, that is messaging they came to market with.

Yes, just semantics. (fyi your English is better than some English speaking members here )

In same way RIO could choose to offer casino type games (and maximize profit) they chose not to, in support of their brand/messaging. Same thing as a rake structure that is perhaps more player friendly, thus not maximizing revenue.

If they have access to enough markets with needed liquidity, I suspect they are going to do very well.

Full Tilt proved that great software and/or playing where "pros" play will attract recs and take share from established brands.

Casino type games seem very dangerous line to cross especially for poker room what is trying to strongly position itself as different room from other rooms today what cares only about profit and not at all about poker industry long-term.

Is this really given?

I mean a lot of business hope they will make money, but are obviously money -EV and owners / founders do it mainly for other reasons.

And from how PG acts about RIO poker I have a feeling that what drives him is the idea to keep a dream of beatable online poker alive and not seeing a niche with high income potential.

This is a really good point. I've found anyone's motivation toward just about any endeavor or job can be expressed in a simple formula.

M = IV(a) + IV(b) + E

IV(a) = the joy of just doing something ( I like digging this hole, its fun)

IV(b) = the joy of looking back and taking joy in what I did (I dug that hole, Im glad I dug that hole, that hole is good)

E = External stuff i.e. money, fame, etc

Everyone's formula is different ( and even different for them for different endeavors/jobs) but always adds up to 100.

I'd agree with you, Regardinf RIO, Phil's E seems to be the lowest of the three. Not sure how he splits IV(a) and (b). Wild guess but I'd guess weighted toward (b).

That's a good thing for the industry/players and I guess him. perfect scenario.


pro tip... if ever needing to motivate someone (mainly in business environment), if you don't know their M ratios, you are sort of flying blind.

I agree. But even in that case profitability is still a condition that has to be met.

Otherwise whatever those other reasons/motives/objectives are can not be funded, not under the for profit business set up anyway.

So making money willy nilly becomes a goal of even this type of operator.

Choosing to forgo maximising their profits in favour of satisfying other motives is a prerogative of a profitable business

Can you believe that en empire like Full Tilt and now Pokerstars is going to die off, they both had so much going for them, and greed has pretty much taken over to the point that Stars is killing themselves.

Phil will do well, just look at his competition, sure they might be very savvy business guys, ruthless even, but they know jack **** about poker, I guarantee that everybody will leave their sorry ass. People only play because they have no other "good" options!

If Phil does as he plans, then profit will come, huge profits. People will flock to his site, it's just a matter of time before he surpasses Pokerstars. Though I'm not sure about all this anonymity bullcrap and no hud, don't see the point honestly.

Big tourney's is a must to get the average Joe interested, once they are on your site, they will start to fill the cash games too, it's just a matter of time.

Hopefully the people of the US wake the **** up and take their freedom back and make sure they are able to play online poker again. Still shocked you aren't allowed to play poker, yet can gamble your life away on anything from lotteries to the horses, where you have almost no chance to actually win anything. I'm shocked that the people haven't spoken up, I mean they are taking your rights away, how can you not riot or do something together? They are treating you like a child, and you do nothing??? They are serving, not the other way round, wtf??

Anyways!!

Sure Phil and co want to make money but you don't have to try and get every ****ing nikkle you can like these sites right now, they squeeze every player out of a healthy living. It's absurd, their greed... They could of continued to rake in hundreds of millions, but they got so greedy that they will go broke!

It's a balance, grinders need to be able to make a living, and the site needs to make a buck too. It's not rocket science, we can both eat, no need to be greedy, but what has happened across the board is pathetic, and just goes to show you that people are disgusting greedy vile individuals.

Hope you don't become one of them Phil, good luck. If done correctly, I'm sure it will be a success.

People will need a bigger range of games to play at RIO than is offered so far.

Not wanting to be a party-pooper, but it's going to be a big grind to get past Pokerstars or even Party Poker.

Who even knows about RIO other than non-fishy players who log on at poker forums?

Agreed, it will take time but it's a given imo. I'm sure Phil will be advertising, he should be anyways, his only competition is a ****ty company with a name, with brand recognition, its still **** though. With advertising and word of mouth, news travels fast, in today's society with social media, word travels a lot faster.

Give him 3 years and he will be the biggest site out there.

Phil mentioned somewhere that they will definitely be adding more games.

Which again RIO is a perfect platform to become a hub of mixed games. High rake is even more of a killer in limit games. Some stakes on Stars are virtually unplayable because the rake is too high, especially for split pot games.

And with Poker Go, for example, starting to expand their coverage to more game varieties mixed games might become a decent part of the future of poker.

Especially since who knows, in 3-5 years NL could be easily solvable in real time by anyone with the right software.

Unfortunatelly there isn't a big culture of mixed games outside the US. I remember seeing Stud and limit games running in FTP and PS often before black friday and not that much after 2011. Maybe because in the US poker has more a history of being a social game with home games, and in the rest of the world it was mainly introduced with NL tournaments on tv.

Agree that exposure on poker go and other places is important. I always enjoyed seeing those old WSOP broadcasts when they showed a variety of dfferent games. If RIO puts a good mix of games (maybe a 10-mix), and doesn't limit to a cap of 40bb in big bet games (put 100bb cap instead) I think it can peak some good action.

might be a little optimistic. Back in the days with USA wide open and more liquidity than needed for all then yeah OK.

Today, RIO has sort of paradox in that I would think non-casino type fun games drive alot new active accounts.

Forgoing that puts them a disadvantage over existing sites who are clearly using that to drive new rec traffic.

Hyper growth in a niche market (poker) is sort of not possible.

full disclosure: all the above is pure conjecture as I have no direct experience operating an online gaming site.

I really wouldnt be surprised to see either Pot Limit Omaha or Short Deck become the dominant game of the future. Both offer way more in terms of fun, action and depth.

We'd have to look at the numbers, I'm not sure many gambling junkies that play slots or casino games etc have the patience nor the desire to play poker. They just want that dopamine fix, I mean why play a boring game of poker, that requires thought, patience and clicking many buttons, while they can just get that quick fix with slots for example.

I think there's a difference of people that come to play online poker and those that play casino games. Sure some might do both but generally speaking there's a difference.

absolutely agree with all you say.

the point I was trying to make...

If A is set of people that want to primarily play skill based games like poker.

B is set of people that want to primarily play less skilled fun type gambly games/poker variants etc

AB is subset that like to play both.

From potential size of addressable market

Is B is >>>>>>> larger than A? I think so.

Mathematically AB is > A.

A is a niche market. B for sure is not

If all above is true, then I think it follows that a site that markets to B has a larger addressable market and thus reduced headwinds to grow an online poker business. Conversely a site that does not market to B has has increased headwinds to grow (amongst all except the core of A who value not marketing / providing games to B,. though that core is imo a niche within a niche)

Is A a large of enough of a niche to grow a profitable (even mildly profitable) business. I have absolutely no idea.

RIO certainly thinks so.

EDIT. ftr I want them to succeed.

It took Pokerstars over 5 years to overtake PartyPoker during the boom, and that was only because the latter pulled out of the US.
I don't think you realise just how big and powerful Stars is, in comparison to upstarts like RIO, or indeed any of its rivals.
e.g. Right now, Stars has about 12,000 cashgamers online. The entire MPN network (which is closer to what RIO will be rivaling) has about 700.

Agree with all that.

But maybe now that the rest of the world is more poker savvy than when NL exploded and as the participating field becomes more and more competitive, the time is ripe for embracing other game variants? A lot if not most of high stakes cash pros play mix nowadays. If poker media covers that more maybe it trickles down to a wider population of players? Especially if RIO provides an environment where climbing up the stakes in those games is possible.

In US there has always been a rotation of what the dominant game of the moment was. Stud, Fixed Limit, NL, Lowball(on the West coast) etc all had their moment.

Lastly, I wouldn't rule out international fields merging again in a some not to super distant future. There's a chance IMO once inter state poker expands in US their next step will be to start accepting pools from other regulated jurisdictions. That would help mixed games obviously. Of course I might be way off in terms of this merging ever happening, purely speculating here.

PLO is another game that suffers from high rake. I'm sure Phil, being predominantly a PLO player nowadays, will create an environment for a healthy PLO ecosystem.

But its a completely different market, I don't believe any of those 12k cash players are going to stay at Stars, not after the radical changes and not after their disgusting ways of doing business. It might take a bit of time but eventually I see most players migrating over.

In fact, I'd be shocked if any players from here don't insta move over, we are aware just how shady and disgusting Stars et all are, they need boycotting and they need to die off! Fish/casuals are less aware, so it might take them longer, but like I said with some good advertising and word of mouth, I'm hopeful we get enough fishes at the tables!

Phil plays virtually no-rake games. The rake might be set as a bit lower at PLO and the rakeback can also help. The win rates (per 100 hands) in PLO are higher than in NLH.

I'm sorry, what ?

can I do this without violating any BBV Copyrights ?

I don't believe any of those 12k cash players are going to stay at Stars

I don't believe any of those 12k cash players are going to stay at Stars

I don't believe any of those 12k cash players are going to stay at Stars

You just being dumb. Zero chance that people are moving away from a site you can use trackers to completely anonymous site. Not to mention that rio ain't offering zoom games atm. And why would a fish leave? He doesn't care and most likely doesn't even know about rio. Obv some people will leave stars like they did when party announced the bew rb but it didn't really make any difference at stars.

You are spewing complete nonsense in this thread.

Do us all a favour and stop

A dude claims that Stars will lose all of its cash game market share to RIO .

yet....

I am the one spewing nonsense ??

please show your work on that calculation.

Stars already and rightfully lost most of it's Cashgame market over the last 2 years but they didn't lose it to party they lost it to a much stronger and more competitive player...