RAKEBACK GOING...RAKE WAR TO START???

[MrGrob]

I wonder if the sites get rid of rakeback, and start thinking about cutting their rake, if we could get a rake war started?

Also, would it not be in the site's best interested to lower the rake and make more players break-even or slight winners?

Just ideas....

[lorinda]

It has always made sense to me that if people stopped signing up extra accounts to get money they were not entitled to then Party would have extra money to give to those of us who were honest enough to play by the rules.

However, there were some excellent posts last night in the thread that got pulled that, although didn't prove me wrong, certainly made it look like Party is probably just too greedy to understand that this would be a good way forward.

Lori

[MicroBob]

Agreed.


There is a difference between having the extra money to give back to players and actually GIVING it back to them in the form of improved rake, better points-programs, etc (as opposed to just lining their own pockets even further).


If they stopped rake-back entirely at all sites I just can't see them actually taking such a positive step as lowering their own rake.
If they did, most players wouldn't notice anyway (just as most didn't notice when they raised it back in Dec 2003).



Also agreed that there were some good points made in last night's thread. Too bad it was deleted but I do side more towards your line of thinking that it was becoming quite spammy.

[DanS]

[ QUOTE ]
It has always made sense to me that if people stopped signing up extra accounts to get money they were not entitled to then Party would have extra money to give to those of us who were honest enough to play by the rules.

[/ QUOTE ]

lori-

You are one of the best zoo/2p1us2 poster, and I've a1ways found your integrity and bruta1 honesty refreshing, so take this FWIW...

There are certain issues in 1ife that are so unfair/b1atant1y wrong, that it's worth making a stink over. However, in this case, if you refuse to 1eave Party for a skin (and 25-30% of your rake back), you're cutting off your nose to spite your face. Party (up ti1 now) has been perfect1y happy with this arraingement; it's 1ike an incognito way of creating market efficiency.

Yes, 1ower rake and more bonuses wou1d reward the 'straight shooters' better, but partaking in rake back may be bending the ru1es, but it's not as horrific as you make it sound.

Dan

[mmbt0ne]

'L' key missing on the keyboard?

[lorinda]

I am aware that I'm pretty much on my own on this one, no apology needed, in fact, even if you were wrong, then no apology needed anyway, it's an internet forum /images/graemlins/wink.gif

I have always taken the view that rakeback takers are driving up rake, and I have always been in the minority with that view.

HOWEVER, if I'm going to have that point of view, then it would be very very wrong of me to take rakeback.
The fact it IS against the written rules, even though it is not against the "actual" rules is a final factor in deciding that I would not be on the strongest of ground if I took it.

People who have PM'd me would probably almost all testify that my repsonse to "Should I get rake back" is almost always "Yes, but I don't want to know about it. Be aware that it's against the rules" or similar.
This is because I can seperate my own view from what is good for the individual.
This does not mean that I won't be happy if it all comes to an end, but it does mean that I wouldn't take part in helping to end it, other than by not taking part in the whole thing myself.

If it all ends (Which I doubt anyway), and it doesn't benefit internet poker within a few months, I expect more "I told you so's" than I've dished out myself by a factor of about 20.

As to bending the rules.... It is clearly stated on the sites of these companies that it's against the rules.
Would you buy shares in a company that allowed shoplifting?

Lori

[MrGrob]

I had asked about rakeback, but have decided not to do it as of last week. I just don't like the idea, and would rather see a lower rake, then some getting some back, while others don't. Even if everyone signed up...the hosters are still skimming off the top. That is just shaddy....

EDIT: Oh, and it is not like sites need help getting players anymore...so, if we get rid of rakeback, and lower the rake, even the players that were getting rake back would save. Maybe not as much...but it would be better for all.

[Jim Kuhn]

I am in the same boat as Lori. I have played alot of internet poker in the past five years without a single rake back. I 'whore' alot at low limits but also play 15-20 hours per week of multi-tabling $10/$20 and $15/$30. I am probably missing out on hundreds of dollars a month. It would be great if the rakeback money was returned to all players either via reduced rake or promotions.


Thank you,

Jim Kuhn
Catfish4u
/images/graemlins/spade.gif /images/graemlins/diamond.gif /images/graemlins/club.gif /images/graemlins/heart.gif

[kdog]

I play without rake back also for the same reasons as Lori. There are still a few of us around who disagree with the whole affiliate system.

[hate]

This seems absurd to me. A company's out to make profit, and if the difference between gross revenue and cost gets lowered, they're going to have no reason whatsoever to lower what's passed on to the consumer. It's like the argument that killing class action lawsuits would lower health insurance costs. They may be the reason why insurance costs are going up, but the absence of such does not lead to the opposite.

[rivered]

The only people it helps with a lower rake is people who play to make money and are somewhat knowledgeable. For the fish, they don't know anything about rake levels or care. Lowering the rake won't change anything for them and they won't care or, more likely still, they won't even notice. So Party does the smart thing in this case. Set up rake back options for people who look for it and help give incentives for people to play. For the others, who don't know any better, Party still gets to keep the full ammount because it wouldn't matter with these people anyways. It's a win/win situation for them.

[lorinda]

It doesn't have to be in the form of rake.

The argument I've always presented, and I stress that most people think I'm wrong, is that any advertising money would come from their advertising money pool.
Affiliate money eats into that pool, but if there was less money coming from there, there could be more bonuses/lower rake/more promotions/more freebies/whatever.

When the term "Lower rake" is used by me, it's used loosely and not specifically meaning rake.

My fault for being ambiguous, but I've presented the case so many times, I kind of forget that new people come by all the time.

Lori

[DanS]

[ QUOTE ]
'L' key missing on the keyboard?

[/ QUOTE ]

101... yeah, it decided to break on me yesterday as bad karma for taking $6700 from one particu1ar on1ine casino this week. 1ucki1y, I'm gonna take it to Best Buy under their 'no 1emon po1icy' and buy a new De11 desktop in the meantime. I just got tired of 'crt1-v' for the '1', so I just use the 1 ti1 I take care of it.

Dan

[DanS]

[ QUOTE ]


As to bending the rules.... It is clearly stated on the sites of these companies that it's against the rules.
Would you buy shares in a company that allowed shoplifting?

Lori

[/ QUOTE ]

Great response, but bad ana1ogy... Party is trying to maximize profit, and whi1e they're not doing an optima1 job, at 1east they're trying. Subt1ety promoting an idea that retains big customers (though Brad1ey articu1ated why it's backfiring on them)is not the same as encouraging shop1ifting. Do you see w... never mind. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Dan

[DanS]

[ QUOTE ]
The only people it helps with a lower rake is people who play to make money and are somewhat knowledgeable. For the fish, they don't know anything about rake levels or care. Lowering the rake won't change anything for them and they won't care or, more likely still, they won't even notice. So Party does the smart thing in this case. Set up rake back options for people who look for it and help give incentives for people to play. For the others, who don't know any better, Party still gets to keep the full ammount because it wouldn't matter with these people anyways. It's a win/win situation for them.

[/ QUOTE ]

You just articu1ated what I meant to say, thanks.

Dan

[SinCityGuy]

[ QUOTE ]
I 'whore' alot at low limits but also play 15-20 hours per week of multi-tabling $10/$20 and $15/$30. I am probably missing out on hundreds of dollars a month.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thousands of dollars a month.

[Rudbaeck]

[ QUOTE ]
It has always made sense to me that if people stopped signing up extra accounts to get money they were not entitled to then Party would have extra money to give to those of us who were honest enough to play by the rules.

[/ QUOTE ]

You mean that the $350 million pure profit last year didn't allow poor, poor Party to run any more good bonuses for it's loyal customers?

Party getting heavy competition from someone else and earning less will be a much more likely start of bonus frenzies than Party earning more will.

[mmbt0ne]

haha, that's cool. I think I'll start to say 101 now. No one will get it, but I'll get a little laugh inside every time I see it.

[LinusKS]

The smartest thing they can do is put more bonuses out there.

Advertising "We Only Take .25 Out of the First $5 in the Pot, Instead of .50" won't bring many new players in, but "$100 Bonus" will.

[Freudian]

I think you are wrong. I think if more people used rakeback (and thus moved away from the main Party skin) it would lead to faster change.

In fact, Party has been forced into action now. Something they never would have if everyone just accepted the higher rake.

edit: For me personally I have no remorse having changed affiliate. The first affiliate(s) I had on the Party network has earned way more on me than they deserve already. In fact if I had known what I now know I would rather sign up under no affiliate than under the affiliates I did sign up under.

[barongreenback]

The whole affiliate system seems so abritrary in who it rewards. I'd already signed up at several sites before I'd heard of rakeback. Any system that pays big money to some for the rest of their life without that person giving anything in return is bound to run into trouble.

I know people say that the sites get the player's custom in return for the rakeback deal but if that's what they're after then why not offer conditional rakeback to everyone?

There is a lot of competition between sites because of the money to be made so they're going to have to give us something. Simply cutting of the rake is to invisible to most so at the moment so they'll have to use other promotions.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who is starting to find the reload bonus buisness a bit fake. I move money into one account then out again. This must cost the site in neteller fees. Couldn't I just play the raked handsand get the bonus?

The only sustainable solution is a universal rakeback, permament (but smaller bonus) or rolling promotions(eg jackpots or tournament overlay).

[ChrisV]

[ QUOTE ]
It has always made sense to me that if people stopped signing up extra accounts to get money they were not entitled to then Party would have extra money to give to those of us who were honest enough to play by the rules.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh come off it Lori. Party's EBITDA last year was on the order of half a billion dollars, off the back of what must be a remarkably small capital investment. The amount Party takes out of my winnings every year is well over $50,000. Party sure would have extra money if not for rakeback, but donating it to you would not be top of their agenda. At what profit point would you start acknowledging that they simply aren't interested in sharing that money with you? $1 billion? $10 billion?

Online poker is a unique market because the paying customers are precisely those people who are likely to make poor choices with their money. This means that for winning players, a free market is not operating. There's been a lot of chatter on this forum lately about how people should vote with their feet and move to a rake free site. News flash: Party DO NOT CARE if you move off the Party network completely. They could lose every winning player on the site and their bottom line would barely be affected.

With the advent of skins, something interesting happened: for the first time, a free market for winners in online poker was created. Party most certainly DO care if you move to another skin, because you continue to rip money out of the network but without giving them their cut. What is happening now is Party desperately trying to stem the workings of the free market.

If Party have a problem with people opening multiple accounts on the network, then they should actually, oh I don't know, maybe STOP PEOPLE DOING IT. If they are incapable of doing that then that's their problem and they should not be putting the screws on the affiliates, who have not done anything wrong.

Chris....one of the more sensible posts on the whole Party/PokerNOW/rakeback issue.

You hit the proverbial nail on the head

As I said yesterday the main problem lies with iGlobal not enforcing the one Party Skin account rule.

They need to spend some of their hard earned(!) cash preventing the multiple sign up...

So they need to punish people....but how?
Ban them all together?...not in their interest.
Sue them? Maybe in their interest, the money they could sue for could offset the potential future earning from losing the player.
How about this...charge them double rake!

They need to make it clear that you can only have one account and if you want an account at a different skin then you must first close your existing account and wait to open a new account elsewhere. Perhaps all the networks should have an additional standard agreement that says if you contravene the agreement at any one network you will be blacklisted from all networks. Complicated me thinks.

The only point i think you are possibly mistaken on was regards Party (iGlobal) losing out if a player moves to another skin. Whilst iGlobal do lose a percentage of the players rake, they still retain about 20% as they charge all the skins this approximate fee to liense the software...so they're still getting some kickback.

I think the whole wait and see is the best way forward on this.

Regards

RTR

[Rednax]

Does anyone have any idea how much Party actually spends each year on the different forms of promotion that it uses to acquire and retain customers?

There's advertising, for example, and all of that money actually leaves the system (unless some ad execs use some of their profits to gamble, lol). This money probably mostly gets new customers.

Then there's bonuses. All of this money comes back into the system (that is, gambled on the Party tables). This means a dollar can be raked once when it is bet and lost, and then raked again and again until it is all Party's - except of course for the money that gets removed from the system by winners or people leaving Party to play elsewhere. Still, it is money that Party is spending, with the goals of getting new customers with the first-depost bonuses, and retaining existing customers with the reloads.

And then there's the money to affiliates. Much of the rakeback money to players will find it's way back into the system, although these players will remove some as personal profit. But a lot of the money that goes to the affiliates themselves, whether bonuses or rakeback, is removed from the system. These costs are to acquire new and retain old.

I'm curious how effective these different methods are, and what the true costs are, both in terms of money that is likely to come back into the system, and money that will leave.

[CountDuckula]

[ QUOTE ]
So Party does the smart thing in this case. Set up rake back options for people who look for it and help give incentives for people to play.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is incorrect. Party does not "set up rake back options" for anyone. They have an affiliate program, but they explicitly state that it is against the rules for affiliates to kick back their commissions to the people who sign up under them. They may have been lax about punishing the people who violate the rules, but that doesn't mean they approve of the rakeback schemes; they may not be aware of the extent, or they may have a hard time pinning down which affiliates are offering rakeback.

I think that the people who benefit from rakeback are rationalizing that what's good for them is also good for the sites, and either disregarding or misconstruing the sites' opinions on the matter.

-Mike

[hate]

You misconstrued what he posted in present tense as being what Party currently does. The fact of the matter is that they've been condoning rakeback for a long time now, and these are the people that give a huge chunk of their income to the sites. Assuming they're not aware of the extent of cash rakeback or they've been technically unable to stop affiliate rakeback cashouts is naive and stupid. I'm not going to defend rakeback because it is against their ToS and it's their right to selectively enforce, but it's just like I wouldn't defend my egregious copyright violations were I found out.

[lorinda]

who have not done anything wrong.

How come people keep using this line?

Seriously, what am I missing.

Let's post those rules again.

[ QUOTE ]
2.7 "Fraud Traffic" means deposits, Gross Revenue or traffic generated at the Website through illegal means or in bad faith to defraud us, regardless of whether or not it actually causes us harm. Fraud Traffic includes but is not limited to spam, false advertising, deposits generated on stolen credit cards, collusion, manipulation of the service, system, bonuses or promotions, offers to share the Affiliate Fee directly or indirectly with Players, and any other unauthorized use of any third party accounts, copyrights or trademarks.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's before you even address the constant spam that people like raketherake hammer us with on these, and all other, forums.

Lori

[lorinda]

They need to make it clear that you can only have one account and if you want an account at a different skin then you must first close your existing account and wait to open a new account elsewhere. Perhaps all the networks should have an additional standard agreement that says if you contravene the agreement at any one network you will be blacklisted from all networks. Complicated me thinks.


[ QUOTE ]
Company reserves the right to run and utilize a shared table, server and database platform ("Shared Game/Table Platform") which enables players from PartyPoker.com to play with players coming into the games, tables and tournaments from other sites and brands to the same Shared Game/Table Platform so that the players may be pooled into common game/tables regardless of which site or brand they may have entered from. In such event, you agree that you may be pooled into these common game/tables, at Company's sole discretion, and that to the extent that you breach the terms and conditions of one site or brand, Company may have you blocked, in part or full, from the entire system so that you may not play through any site or brand. Further your play patterns, personal data, depositing limits and history may be calculated and shared across the system to counter fraud, over-depositing and other matters, as Company shall decide in its sole discretion.


[/ QUOTE ]

The words "sole discretion" means it's up to them, not some snotty little affiliate who thought he could beat the system.

Lori

[ChrisV]

My post should have read "the skins, who have not done anything wrong". All the skins have done is refuse to police affiliate schemes for Party, which presumably under their contracts they are not responsible for. Once again... it is the responsibilty of IGM to stop players doing this if they want to.

Note also that rakeback is not prohibited by that clause in the terms of service. What is prohibited is ADVERTISING rakeback. This might seem like nitpicking, but it is not. It would be ludicrous of Party to try to prohibit all external rakeback schemes, both because they can never prove it is happening and because it amounts to a prohibition on me doing any other kind of business with my affiliate ever (in case he's cutting me a good deal in return for the rake).

[lorinda]

My post should have read "the skins, who have not done anything wrong". All the skins have done is refuse to police affiliate schemes for Party

Sorry, that makes much more sense.

What is prohibited is ADVERTISING rakeback. This might seem like nitpicking, but it is not.

Again, I agree, but look around the advertising here.

A domain name like "WeGiveRakeBack.com" (Which is basically what most of the banners say) was always asking for trouble.

Lori


Lori

[lacky]

lori, it's all up to them. It's their tables. They could bar all skilled long term winners tomarrow (like has happened to card counters) and we couldn't do a thing.

scary thought actually

Steve

[Shoe]

IF they crack down on the rakeback affiliates, it will be to increase THEIR profits, not to share with the players.

[Benjamin]

[ QUOTE ]
"They need to make it clear that you can only have one account and if you want an account at a different skin then you must first close your existing account and wait to open a new account elsewhere."

[ QUOTE ]
Company reserves the right to run and utilize a shared table, etc ...

[/ QUOTE ]

The words "sole discretion" means it's up to them, ...

Lori

[/ QUOTE ]
Hi Lorinda,

I've browsed the TOS for Party, and I never saw it explicitly stated that there is a rule: 1 person may only have 1 account on the Party network. Is that explicitly stated anywhere? (I know I should go dig for myself, but figured you would know the answer.) There is the registry check (and possibly other software checks) that somewhat prevents it, but is there an explicit prohibition?

Another question for anyone in the know: Does the Party skins' affiliate agreement(s) also clearly prohibit rakeback? Or is that just Party?

And, finally, in a previous post you quoted from the affiliate agreement: "offers to share the Affiliate Fee directly or indirectly with Players" as generating Fraud Traffic. Chris claimed that only prohibits advertising of rakeback, but this phrase would seem to apply to private message offers as well, unenforceable though that may be. Yes?

Thanks for any responses,
Benjamin

[lorinda]

If Soleo who bumped this wants to know the answer, I suggest he ask himself in future.

Does the Party skins' affiliate agreement(s) also clearly prohibit rakeback? Or is that just Party?

The one I've been quoting is PokerNOW.

Chris claimed that only prohibits advertising of rakeback, but this phrase would seem to apply to private message offers as well, unenforceable though that may be. Yes?


Personally I believe you can read that phrase any way you want because of the weird context in which it is written.

and I never saw it explicitly stated that there is a rule: 1 person may only have 1 account on the Party network.


[ QUOTE ]
In such event, you agree that you may be pooled into these common game/tables, at Company's sole discretion, and that to the extent that you breach the terms and conditions of one site or brand, Company may have you blocked, in part or full, from the entire system so that you may not play through any site or brand. Further your play patterns, personal data, depositing limits and history may be calculated and shared across the system to counter fraud, over-depositing and other matters, as Company shall decide in its sole discretion

[/ QUOTE ]

Seems to say that you can play more than one unless they don't want you to.

Lori

[Soleo]

[ QUOTE ]
If Soleo who bumped this wants to know the answer, I suggest he ask himself in future.

[/ QUOTE ]
LOL, no I posted message but then decided that he asked you and so you must reply.
I wrote and deleted that Eurobet has clear prohibition against rakeback in their Affiliate Terms: "Eurobet does not allow revenue sharing deals between players and affiliates". This has been sent personally to each affiliate as additional points of agreement.

[lorinda]

/images/graemlins/blush.gif

Well.... you can see how it looked.

Thanks.

Lori

[Benjamin]

Thanks, Lorinda

I appreciate your comments. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Benjamin