A rant about Party Poker

[PokerPaul]

OK, i am getting really fed up with the way Party poker is using its market dominance to push everything they can into their greedy hands.

Running a business to turn a profit....no problem with that, thats the beauty of capitalism.

But the extent to which they have recently gone to absolutely milk whatever they can off of their customers / affiliates / skin partners to the degree they have is beyong operating for profit and pretty unethical. Its enough to make me boycott that place, even with the high volume of traffic and selection.

At some point i really hope this comes back to kick them in the ass.

A couple of examples:

- the whole PPM package they offered for sale for PArty points, but not before you had to play your ass off for a week accumulating Thousands and thousands of extra dollars for them in a race before 15 others get to finish line before you do. And they wouldn't give notice to players once the alloted numbers of players reached that milestone, purposely keeping others in the dark so they would continue to play and play and generate rake for them.

- WSOP packages - they are evaluating the WSOP packages you win at their site at $13500!!!!!!. Just to compare, stars has theirs set at $11000. What does the extra 2500 get for the players. WSOP entry comes in at $10500, so they are taking $3000 from prize pool for hotel and food....lets face it, i doubt that portion comes even close to $1500 for a couple of days in vegas, so guess what they do with the amount over....put it in their pocket. Its unethical...if they advertise a $13500 package to be won, it better all go to the player since they already make tons in rake off these tourneys, and not artificially inflate prize cost so they can stuff some extra in their pocket.

- The war they are trying to wage to avoid players getting rakeback deals. Lets face it, the players who go for rakebakcs are obviously heavy volume players ie. their very best customers. So what if some of their best customers (many from these boards) try to get a rakeback deal in place. Its no less $$ to them. What do they care what the affiliate does with his dollars, if he wants to give some back to the very players that earned it. Its mind boggeling just how shortsighted and greedy they are. Its like customer service in europe. Shortsighted on whatever they can squeeze right now and who cares about longterm satisfaction of customers.

- the BB jackpot - how do they justify them winning 30% of the jackpot everytime it hits???? I don't know of any casino that does that, espiacially when the entire pot is made from an extra 50c rake they charge from every pot. Maybe holding back some for admin thereof, or just for some additional revenue, say 5-10% which is still generous, i could understand, but 30%??? Thats way over the top, hundreds of thousands in just a short period.

Couple that with the high rake they charge, and the hi tourney fees, and the rakeback i got for past 2 months might be revoked, and i think its time for me to give some of the other sites a chance, the ones willing to put more emphasis on the consumer.

I just can't fathom why i should keep giving them my business any longer.

[drewjustdrew]

[ QUOTE ]
Running a business to turn a profit....no problem with that, thats the beauty of capitalism.


[/ QUOTE ]

[Paul2432]

I generally agree, but your post contains some inaccuracies.

1) I believe the WSOP package includes $2000 cash to the winners. Only $1500 is used for lodging.

2) Party loses money when players go to another skin to get rakeback.

3) 20% of the BBJ is used to reseed the next JP. Party only retains 10%. (effectively 12.5% because the reseed money gets subjected to the 10% rake)

The reason to give Party business would be you make more there than at other sites. If you can make more at other sites then play at those sites.

Paul

[MicroBob]

Good points imo (both by pokerpaul...and his evil twin paul2432)


FWIW - I didn't have a problem with the way they structured the Party Till you Cruise promotion.
As many of you know...I won my seat on the cruise through this promotion. I played 4 days of 10/20 6-max on 4-tables for MANY hours a day.

It was obvious from their rules that they weren't going to stop the promotion if they got their 20 winners before the end of the week.
You play the hands and get the points...if you were one of the first 20 to claim the spot then they told you that you got it a couple days later.
If you didn't like this promotion then you didn't have to play in it. I didn't think it was a big deal.


Obviously other sites have done promotions where you can get a prize or WSOP seat or whatever if you play the most hands in a 2-week stretch or whatever.

They show the standings on their website and I think it's updated daily so it SEEMS like everything is good in that regard.

Pokerplex is doing one of these...and I think Truepoker (or maybe gaming club or some other site that I don't play on) is also.

But 2 or 3 weeks of playing all these raked-hands (as opposed to 4-6 days) is far more unfair imo even if they are letting you know where you stand daily.
My solution to this is simple...I didn't participate in those contests.


Back to the Party till you cruise promotion.
I honestly don't know how many people actually tried to do this. A lot of people I talked with (both on the cruise...and even on 2+2) looked at the amount of points you needed and thought it was impossible.

I determined that with the double-points via their happy-hours that it was indeed possible...although quite the long haul.


Also - as you know...I would not have had any problems with party if I had NOT gotten the seat on the cruise.
I thought I had a 20% or so chance of getting it and was comfortable with that. If I didn't get it I certainly would not have thought it was party's fault.



Some of your other points are valid.
The BBJ is particularly silly imo.
The tourney-rake there is usually pretty bad (thus the reason I don't play many party tourneys).

The rake-back thing I don't have a big problem with.
They have previously stated that rake-back is not allowed. Now they are finally deciding to crack-down on it a bit which I think many of us predicted would happen eventually.
I do agree that they would be better off to just allow the rake-back and that they are pretty stupid for not doing so.

But I don't think they are being particularly 'unfair' or anything like that regarding the rake-back situation.


My bigger problems with party include software bug issues, sometimes bad tourney structures, slow and incompetent support, etc etc.
I have MANY issues with this site. I would LOVE it if all the fish would play on a different site instead.

But, for now, I consider it my best option for ring-games. I can make more money there then on other sites....and I am also comfortable with my money in there (I am not afraid of them running away with my funds) and their cash-outs don't take unnecessarily long.

[sthief09]

www.ultimatebet.com (http://www.ultimatebet.com)


enjoy!

[Enon]

I'd like to add a gripe:

I won a 4k prize package for a tournament in St. Maarten about 6 months ago and $1500 for the tournmanet entry fee, $1500 shipped to your party account for airfare and $1000 in hotel accomodation.

The $1.5k took about a month or more to finally show up in my party poker account and when I got to St. Maarten, I found out that our rooms only cost $400 total for the few days that I was there. I talked with the main partypoker representative from England who told me that once they found out the total money left over, the players would be compensated.

Since then, I haven't heard a word from partypoker and the Party representative has not returned my numerous emails.

[PokerPaul]

paul,

good points..

1) If thats the case thats slightly better, but i hadnt heard it was $2000 cash back.

2) Instead of taking it out on the players with rakeback deals and their skins..maybe party should change their own formula, so that heavy players to their site don't need to or want to switch to a skin for a better deal.

3)If it is indeed 10% they take...its still a heavy chunk but far more pallatable and i take back what i said in that case

[Jeffage]

I agree...I like it there =).

Jeff

[Teldar]

Enon,
Your comment is quite disturbing. You won a St. Maarten tournament in which they took $1,000 out of the prize pool for lodging and it only cost $400 and they didn't pay you the difference? I tell you what, online gambling may be a murky legal topic but fraud sure isn't, and in my opinion, that is exactly what that is. I feel for you and that is completely unfair. I just won a seat for the WSOP in which they are taking $2,000 out for lodging while there isn't a hotel on the strip except the Bellagio that costs that much. I am going to monitor this closely and if they do the same thing to the WSOP qualifiers, we might have to do something about it. I appreciate your post and will keep this forum informed.

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
when I got to St. Maarten, I found out that our rooms only cost $400 total for the few days that I was there. I talked with the main partypoker representative from England who told me that once they found out the total money left over, the players would be compensated.

Since then, I haven't heard a word from partypoker and the Party representative has not returned my numerous emails.

[/ QUOTE ]
Sounds like a legitimate beef. You might try submitting it to the Interactive Gaming Council (http://igcouncil.org/complaints.html) for mediation. I am curious as to whether the IGC process ever results in satisfaction for customers.

[M.B.E.]

Anyone with complaints about Party's business practices should probably send a copy to its regulator, at this address (http://www.gibraltar.gov.gi/gov_depts/internet_gaming/internet_gaming.htm):

Mr E. Gomez
Financial & Development Secretary's Office,
Treasury Building,
23a John Mackintosh Square
Gibraltar

Maybe if they receive enough complaints, they will require Party to correct some of its most egregious practices.