Direct Party Rake Rebates to Party Players

[goodguy_1]

multipoker affiliates - not to be?


well, finally got an email telling me that multipoker was opening their affiliates program to signups. i replied eager to sign up, and got a response in a whopping 5-10 minutes saying that i should go sign up through www.partypoker.com. (http://www.partypoker.com.)


This is a response to crocksuckers thread on the staus of Multi-Poker's affiliate program.
I wanted to put my response in a new thread.

Party should give loyal fulltime players rake rebates.The marketing dollars should be spent on keeping current clientele not reaching out to a smaller and smaller pool of fish who play at a site for 1-2 maybe 4 weeks and disapear forever.If you dont think fishiness has peaked like I do short term or even long term you probably disagree with this statemnet but I feel it has.

That is horrible news crucksucker to Party players that were looking forward to signing up w/ Multi referral program to get rake rebates.

In my prior post on this subject at the end of the thread I pondered aloud about how Party could continue to allow its own players to flee to Party affiliates and get rake rebates....well hopefully crock what you say is not a new general policy for new Party Skin affiliate/rake rebate programs.. yet if it is then Party has caught on alot faster than I thought they would /images/graemlins/frown.gif

How are loyal Party players who already have Party, Empire and Intertops accounts supposed to get in on this rake rebate bonanaza.I feel cheated.

We need direct rebates to frequent players perhaps on a sliding scale.These rooms need to give back more to players not just to new players.

IMHO this last 1-3 months has been a top in the poker bubble sure we will see peaks again spurred on by WPT etc..but the hype for poker has peaked.Games will still be good new players will still join the ranks but the rate at which these new fish join online rooms has peaked.

Party specifically ..I have seen in last 2-3 weeks all pot averages across the board decline in the games I play:LHE, PLO and NLHE. And this is including Party's bogus policy of including uncalled bets on the river into the pot average.

I will still be playing no matter what..but selectivity is an issue now unlike before you could just plop down in any game and know 2-3 fish would pay u off w/ their subpar garbage.

The reason I mention my observations on fishiness at Party is that the existing fish can only lose money for so long.Maybe a month than the finally say to themselves fock this this isnt worth my entertainment value ..I'm going to go see a movie or do some thing else. To keep the fish level constant with prior fish dropping off Rooms need to continually repopulate their games with fish.WEll guess what?? short term at least and perhaps even permanantly the flooding of fish into sites has peaked.I'm not saying this wont change hopefully..in ayear or so we can have another resurgence.But when poker articles hit every major national and regional newspaper and magazine...it is at the least a short-term iindicator of a top.

I persoanlly hope poker has moved up to this new level and will stay here or move up . But my own observations are this: short-term fishiness in general has peaked right now.

With fishiness peaking the big Rooms:Party PokerStars etc should recognize that more of their focus should be on getting current players to play more and taking better care of regular players:
This means rake rebates to current loyal customers.The program should be simple sliding scale and not based on individual players ie brokering w/ each and every player that plays "fulltime" but a general schedule that all regulars can see. We would be able to monitor rake rebates as you would a bonus.

I understand all of this is wishful thinking on my part but I think fishiness has peaked in ring games.The tournies still seem to be fantastically fishy .Big rooms are now going to have to compete in a more mature business with lesser rooms but with an existing playerbase.That means whoever has a combination of the best games and whoever gives back the most value to existing players will be the best room to play.

Party needs to give back more to existing players.

[crockpot]

i wholeheartedly agree with you, but unfortunately party doesn't think that giving their existing customers incentives is necessary. (note that they have great deposit and re-deposit bonuses, but those are all for new members or after periods of inactivity) they have no player rewards program, jackpots, the sorts of things you see at all the other sites, because their marketing strategy works: give affiliates good incentives to refer players and watch them roll in.

another problem is how they would market this. surely the site would prefer that not every new signup knew about this program, but if only the very frequent players find out about it, this does not do the site much good since these people are already playing on the server all the time.

i am still anticipating the email back from multi. intertops claims their poker affiliate program is coming soon, so maybe there is hope on the horizon.

[daryn]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In risposta di:</font><hr />
i wholeheartedly agree with you, but unfortunately party doesn't think that giving their existing customers incentives is necessary.

[/ QUOTE ]

there's a good reason for this. it's not.

[crockpot]

very true. it comes down to this: frequent players go where the fish are, and the fish are at party.

in an ideal world, we would see stars, paradise and ub putting in a lot more effort to get new fish to sign up. i do not believe it is a coincidence that these sites have three of the worst affiliate programs around. (and also three of the worst deposit bonuses)

this is an interesting aspect to the issue of whether affiliates are good for online poker. i'd like to see how beatable the party games would really be without marketing incentives.

[goodguy_1]

cool crock .I thought Intertops already had an affiliate program.If they get one you know who to PM immediately /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Crock the main point of my response to your earlier post is that if you assume fishiness has peaked or the rate at which new affilate signups has peaked and a core group of semi-intelligent regular players are playing ..these players will want more back from Party.I will feel like a shmuck not getting any rake rebates.

If general fishiness is maintained ..no worries.But my sense is that fishiness(ie bad players introduced thru affiliate programs or just direct Party signups) has peaked.
Not saying games arent good or new fish arent coming in I'm just saying in general games are not going to be as good nor are players going to be as bad as we've seen during this current last 6 month bonanza for online poker.


I hope I'm wrong btw /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Vehn]

Think of it from Party's side. How did they get to be so successful? Endless marketing, bonuses, TV commercials. Not being nice guys to their regular players. Now I'm not saying you're incorrect about the fishy peak, but I doubt Party believes that, and to some extent they have it right I think - sites with FPP promotions and other regular-player rewards have simply not been as successful as Party, so why would they change?

About the affiliate thing. First off I'm sure that Party management considers for an affiliate to give rake rebates to one of their affiliatee's to be affiliate fraud to some degree. The "reward" for signing up through the affiliate is supposed to be the $100/20% bonus and the TAF bonus, the affiliate program is supposed to bring in people that are new to online poker or unaware of Party/skin, not as a way for a regular player to get partial rake rebates. I'm sure they realize what is happening and are having multi &amp; intertops put a stop to it. Of course this will likely result in more affiliate fraud as more and more regular winning players realize that by having family members/friends set up new accounts &amp; affiliate accounts and playing off them, they are automatically saving $100-$200 per week if they play a lot.

Ironically though its created an interesting situation. When the first skin was released, by allowing Party players to sign up through Empire and receive the bonus it set the precident that Party doesn't really care if you do that - in other words, Party is still receive the vast majority of the rake of a player playing through a skin. Now it looks like their skin's are getting tired of the influx of bonus whores, affiliate scammers, and having to pay the cashouts of the winning players instead of having party do it. Most likely, Multi looked at the viability of the affiliate program and passed on it and it was probably a good move on their part.

Basically we the players are caught in a vicious circle where we will suffer crappy software, poor support, and no frequent-player rewards just to chase the fish, and frankly the fish don't care about any of those things, they'll go where their TV tells them to go, so we're screwed.

[goodguy_1]

this is an interesting aspect to the issue of whether affiliates are good for online poker. i'd like to see how beatable the party games would really be without marketing incentives.

I agree that in general affiliate programs have helped make Party fishcentral.The issue is what happens whens signups slow and some players are getting rake rebates and other players are not getting rake rebates.

Party will have to take a stance on this.If affiliate signups slow and current players that arent getting rake rebates wake up and say wtf?

It's a tough call the affiliate programs and Party's marketing on TV have defintley made it the best place to play.Without the fish being brought in by the marketing ..the rake rebates would be even more of a neccesity for regular players grinding it out against other decent players.

I had thought Lorinda's view of banishing marketing affilate programs and having rooms give back more to current players made sense..but on further review..it seems to me it isnt black and white.Ideally regular players want the influx of fish provided by heavy marketing thru affialtes and other media advertising AND to have some sort of a compensation ie rake rebates.If new signups are getting rake rebates then loyal players should also be able to get something back in the form of rake rebates not just the maintained fisiness of the site.

If site fishiness declines then I as a loyal player want more of the total marketing pool directed towards me and other players that play alot .

[goodguy_1]

good post vehn right on with your anaysis.In a thread last week.I said Party wasnt going to let this continue.
Does anyone an affiliate like Homer or Cup know if this signing up w/skins by current Party players for rake rebates is explicity fraudulent?Is there any reference to it in affiliate contract?

[lorinda]

In England, more people watched the final of Late Night Poker 1 than the superbowl (about 2m over here off the top of my head)

These numbers gradually declined and the show has now been stopped. (Although I believe re-runs are getting very strong viewing figures)

I imagine that once Party have got the players, we will see them giving away money to keep them, maybe 6-12 months from now.

If they do not, with their shoddy software, shoddy support and generally shoddy perception of things, then they will drift back down the rankings again.

I believe they are good enough at marketting (They must be, there is nothing else going for the place) that they will realise this when it is required.

Give it time, we will see them rewarding long term customers again.

Meanwhile, we just have to hang in there.

Lori

[Vehn]

I imagine that once Party have got the players, we will see them giving away money to keep them, maybe 6-12 months from now.

If they do not, with their shoddy software, shoddy support and generally shoddy perception of things, then they will drift back down the rankings again.

I believe they are good enough at marketting (They must be, there is nothing else going for the place) that they will realise this when it is required.


Two words for you:

Paradise Poker

[Cyndie]

IMHO, or not so humble O, Party was in the right place at the right time and got very lucky with its inferior software, support and servers, not to mention fraud provoking promotions ...that alienated every long time supporter of the site...

I was at Party playing 3/6 stud so many hours a day that people assumed I was a prop long before I knew what a prop was...9000 raked hands per month, and I got a tee shirt, a cap and a $25 entry into a PPM tourney...Then I found out about the affiliate programs, and stopped playing until I propped there.

When Empire started, I contacted the people at Party to find out if it was ethical to open an account at Empire, and also to be affiliates of both. Empire promptly offered me a better deal, and was excited when I mentioned the absolutely logical way of not only acquiring customers, but also retaining them...we also discussed the problems with long term inferior software, and what it would do.

At that time we set up a "Legal" revenue sharing program with Empire, and I promptly sent a letter to Vikrant detailing the plan, as I had previously written him about the incentive that the affiliate program gave to fraudulent signups, and the fact that any poker player would find the loopholes and drive a truck through them!

To make a very long and ugly story very short...we no longer are allowed to promise players an exact amount for their play, but are allowed to give prizes to players and share our affiliate fees with players.

To my knowledge anyone who promises exact sharing via pokertracker software, or individual trackers is either underpaying...since the method that poker tracker uses to calculate rake is almost certainly less than what Party promises to pay in affiliate fees.

The individual trackers are possible on a small scale at Party, but not at Empire...and Party is not supporting individual trackers now.

The solution? Well, the problem was very clearly stated here that Party is marketing to a very fishy market that rates to either smarten up or go broke. That will leave them to the long term poker players who love the game, even if they don't have the time or inclination to play it for maximum gain.


There are two other main contenders for the poker player dollars...casino based or sports book based...the smaller sites...are probably going to have to band together to reach the critical mass. They just don't know it yet.

Or, there is another way.

[RollaJ]

[ QUOTE ]
IMHO, or not so humble O, Party was in the right place at the right time and got very lucky with its inferior software, support and servers, not to mention fraud provoking promotions

[/ QUOTE ]

BS! They werent lucky, they focused on what counts the bottom line, by giving bonus after bonus, and advertising to bring in fish they grew to what they are now. Luck had very little to do with it

[Cyndie]

You are entitled to your opinion too.

[O Doyle Rules]

Hi all,

First time poster, long time lurker. I have been corresponding with party about this very subject. I am a loyal player at party.(120,000 plus hands over the past 9 months)

I am not receiving any return of rake since I did not originally sign up thru an affiliate. I advised party that I would be able to sign up at empire and receive a percentage of my rake back through different affiliates that offer this. I asked party if there was any way they could return a portion of my rake directly back to me to reward my loyal play.

There answer was no, that it is against their business practice to return rake to players. In further, they also asked me to divulge the names of affiliates who make such an offer as this is also against their business practice.

(I did not reveal any affiliates to them and I will not in the future.)They stated they would close any affiliate's account that is returning rake back to players.

I find it very hard to believe that party does not realize that a return of rake from their affiliates is common practice.

I do feel that the present situation is very unfair to loyal long term players at party and change will be inevitable.

My suggestion to party was to reward only their most loyal players, starting at 10,000 plus hands a month, with the more you play, the more they pay.

Still waiting for a response.......

[Cyndie]

no, return of rake is not allowed...they are fussy about that...but you are allowed to give prizes to encourage play...go figure?

Why??? Go figure...I get angry everytime I think about it. Yes, it costs money to get referrals, and yes the affiliates who market offline want the larges share they can get, but eventually they have to realize that we are not asking for individual stats that violate privacy, but just that they credit our players so they have an incentive to keep playing at Party, and not go somewhere else!

[Vehn]

Welcome to the forum ODR. As I've said before, depending on exactly the rake-income relationship/distribution is between Party and their skins, most likely iGM would love it if their regular, winning players defected to a skin's affiliate program. Party would no longer have to pay their cashouts, and they would still receive what is most likely the vast majority of their rakes, probably 90-95%. I'm sure that the stupid affiliate loophole stuff will be changed pretty quick, though, as I'm sure its starting to dawn on them that there is the potential for massive fraud. If I were you I would find an affiliate (or have a family member make an account if possible) that will give you back most of your rake and jump ship fast.

[Cyndie]

Empire receives more than 35% of the rake and less than 50%, but just barely. and party pays for a portion of signup and deposit costs in proportion to the split...i am quite sure. Party pays for support and servers and licenses and most of the costs of keeping the game going. At least that is what is done in almost all skin situations.

[Vehn]

Then iGM is truly retarded if they only receive ~55% of the skin-rake. "Empire" doesn't do ANYTHING. They pay for advertising costs, and the accounting (cashouts/bonuses). Other than that they sit in their Scrooge McDuck-like vault and swim through their piles of money. F---, how much would it cost to open a Party skin? I really can't believe they could be this dumb.

[squiffy]

Wait, so are you saying that Empire really is a separate company, with different ownership? Just like say a McDonald's might be owned by a franchisee, who is closely affiliated with the MCD Company, but is a separate entity?

I thought that Party and its 4 skins were just different divisions of one company, the only difference being one is marketed in Europe, one in the U.S., etc.

[Cyndie]

Empire is run by people at Tradal.net . They agreed to market to get players to play at the same tables as Party Poker, and were aggessive about getting players to sign up and play.

As far as why Party would be stupid to give Empire money for the people they bring, Empire has much more work to do than a standard affiliate and affiliates routinely get 20 to 35% so why shouldn't empire get more, since they are taking even more responsibility than a standard affiliate?

Empire also run their own promotions and multi table tournaments. I do not know how the fees are split for those events.

[Homer]

no, return of rake is not allowed...they are fussy about that

Where in the affiliate agreement does it state that rake rebates are not allowed?

Please cut and paste the applicable section here.

-- Thanks, Homer

[Lebronomania]

I haven't read the affiliate agreement. I'm wondering if it mentions anywhere whether Party has the ability to end the program for already enlisted members. That is, can Party just decide to stop paying out a percentage of rake to affiliates? It wouldn't seem to me that they could, since the agreement would seem to be in the nature of a binding contract.

[Inthacup]

Cyndie is right on this one. Party may not state it in their affiliate agreement, but they certainly don't condone it. In fact, I've heard that several accounts have been closed as a result of this. In addition, if you ask them anything about sharing the rake, they will tell you that it is prohibited.


Cup

[Homer]

Party may not state it in their affiliate agreement, but they certainly don't condone it.

I've heard that several accounts have been closed as a result of this.

This infuriates me. If it is not in the affiliate agreement, then they shouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it, other than make it a part of the agreement.

[Cyndie]

so you don't like rules that can be selectively enforced either?

[Homer]

so you don't like rules that can be selectively enforced either?

I'm not sure if there's more to this post than meets the eye, but no, I don't like rules that aren't explicitly stated in the affiliate agreement.

-- Homer

[Adde]

[ QUOTE ]
I thought that Party and its 4 skins were just different divisions of one company

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
Empire is run by people at Tradal.net...

[/ QUOTE ]

From IGC, found on Party website. Click on the "all" link and scroll down to "iGlobalMedia".

www.igcouncil.org/members.php (http://www.igcouncil.org/members.php)

iGlobalMedia Ltd.
Associated Sites:
Ace Club Casino
GS: Casino County Online
Empire Poker
Portal: My Casino Opinions
Portal: Trusted Casinos
GS: Party Poker Online Card Room
GS: Starluck Casino Online
GS: PlanetLuck Online Casino

[Cyndie]

try www.tradal.net (http://www.tradal.net) empire is a marketing company that works with several casinos including casino on net, to get customers for their casinos. They also get customers for the site that is known as EmpirePoker. It is no different from affiliates having several different banners that they market.

Check out the marketing kit that they have...without getting you into my own web page, I cannot show you the popup banner and the statistics pages, but I have personally met one of the principles of Tradal just before WSOP, in Vegas this year, and was impressed with the ideas they have for marketing.