Rakeback Players vs. Prop Players

[O Doyle Rules]

To a degree, don't these type of players serve the same function? It seems to me they both benefit online sites by keeping the most tables open as possible. I know there has been talk of the reasoning behind Party's decision to put the hammer down on Pokernow was due to their upcoming IPO. You would think the practice of rakeback players could be easily justified in the same vein as prop players. An ordinary and necesary business expense to keep tables as full as possible.

I think Party made a bad business decision by not rewarding their most loyal players more incentives to keep them playing there.

No doubt, a good majority of these players fled Party for the rakeback. I think a better business decison by Party would have been to set up a system to reward the high rake volume players handesomely, thus keeping them on their site. I fail to see the logic they used with their skins, creating an environment for rakeback business to explode, thus costing them their base of their most loyal players.

Instead of using a positive to get these players back, they have took an extremely negative one. (the Pokernow incident) It seems to me a more positive step like Party offering a large bonus to high volume players in exchange for a payment upfront by the large volume player would have been a better route. (Another poster recently suggested such a proposal.) For example, the player would pay 1 or 2k upfront for a bonus code that would get them back say 10K in bonuses for a large number of hands played. (say 50k hands) I think this would have been a win win situation for Party.

If Party decides to continue down the same road with the other skins that they have taken with Pokernow, I for one feel that this will have a big impact to the total traffic numbers at Party. Even though, they primarily lost their high volume players to rakeback skin sites, they are still getting a piece of the pie. If rakeback goes away entirely with the Party skins, I do believe a large number of these players will be looking to take their business elsewhere altogether. Why would party want to alienate the play of the high rake volume players?

[iluzion]

rakeback players are there because affiliates are pulling in new players. prop players are there to keep tables going and start new tables, i have a friend who props for a fairly large site. he has a shift manager who tells him which table to sit at, and when x number of people have been dealt in, he must get up and move to the new table which he is given, wait for players, and repeat. while they are both there to encourage play, huge difference in how its done.

[memphis57]

As was pointed out in a previous thread, you can make a case that rakeback players are parasites that Party would just as soon be rid of. I'm not saying I necessarily believe this, only that I can see how some Party execs would. And that's all that matters, if they believe it, not whether it's right or not.

The argument goes like this - rakeback players are highly skilled, frequently professional players who can consistently beat the average recreational players on the site and who withdraw money over time. They make up a big minority of the players but are disproportionately involved in the site's play because they multi-table, frequently playing 4,6 or even 8 or more tables. Their presence causes the average player to lose more money and lose it faster than they otherwise would, sometimes causing these players to become discouraged and quit playing altogether.

When a site is new and trying to build traffic, it may be useful to have the pros around so that there is always a game going on - but once a site reaches the size of Party, they can dispense with this. In fact, it may be that the ideal situation for Party would be to have a pool or equally bad players who bet on everything and allow luck to determine the results. Such players would keep swapping their money around the table until eventually it is all consumed by the rake.

If this is their goal, there are anumber of things they can do to discourage the better players, none of which we're going to like. But nobody promised us a gravy train here. The environment is bound to change, we can't control it no matter how we moan, we just have to watch it and look for new ways to make money. (And, I promise, there will always be a new way to make money every time it changes.)

[iluzion]

as much as it pains me to say it: you have a very strong point here. it is much more +EV for party to have only bad players on their sites, players like us just rob them of their money, alot of the winning players bash on fish too, and they will quit for that reason. party prolly is trying to keep us off already, if not continueing to do so. they have one of the highest rake structures out there for limit, to a fish thats no big deal, but to us we see what kind of impact it makes on our profits. there is a chance that this could be purposful. cutting rakeback as you said is a way to get rid of us winning players. we dont want to be paying that high rake without any of it coming back so this could very well all be them trying to get rid of some of us, who knows.