UB-2 Comments

I've read many of the comments, mostly negative, about the UB-2 marketing scheme. I don't view it as being quite as negative as some others. Here in Las Vegas, many casinos have cash rebate programs for their slot players, and one small casino is now even offering a small rebate on some of their table games. It seems to me that UB-2 is just extending this concept to some degree. As for its legality, I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment on it.


Now despite the above statement, I suspect that UB-2 will have a difficult challenge in becoming highly successful. My experience, when it comes to poker, is that the most important thing a cardroom can do to assure success is to produce good poker games.


Of course this is easier said than done, but one aspect of producing good games is to run your cardroom well in every possible way. In the B&M world this includes properly structured games, good dealers and brushes, proper location, fair enforcemnet of rules, etc. In the Internet world, this would include good software, fast and reliable support, connections that only rarely fail, etc.


So what's my point? For any cardroom to be successful, they need to concentrate on their product, which is of course the poker games. It seems to me, and this is my main complaint against multi-level-marketing schemes in general, is that the product is never that important. The emphasis is on the recruitment of people and the what you get in return is usually not that good. This I believe, is why most MLM's fail.


Of course only time will tell if UB-2 goes this route. But my advice to them would be not to neglect your games. Let the MLM aspect of what you're doing be secondary.

I don't know much about UB's mlm, so my comments are about MLM in general. I have been pitched to participate in MLM's on a few occasions. I have never joined.


The first thing I noticed when looking at MLM pitches is that the prices are usually considerably higher than the prices for similar products sold in grocery stores. The folks pitching the MLM plan always tell you that this is because the products are vastly superior to anything you can by in the grocery store. However, the real reason that the prices are high is commissions. In one plan that I was pitched, the commissions were about 10% of the wholesale price--and this commission is paid to every person in the chain of distributors. If you are 5 layers deep, half the price of the product is going to commissions.


The fundamental problem with MLM's is that the two ways of making money, selling the product and recruiting new distributors, are in conflict. The more distributors you recruit, the more competitors you have for your retail sales. MLM'S have a lot of the dynamics of pyramid schemes. They tend to collapse after the market gets oversaturated.

That's interesting. My wife was recently been exposed to an MLM that was literally giving away their product. Of course to become a member of the MLN there was a large fee.