Predictions Based on Breakup of the Skins System

[ResidentParanoid]

Here's my read on the Party Skins breakup:

Party is making the move because revenue growth has slowed. New player signups and hand rates are not growing, and are not keeping pace with earlier trends. At best, they are trying to increase the rate of growth, but I doubt that. To please the financial markets, they need to show continued growth in revenues.

I predict that there will be a period of increasingly intense competition between the skins, and other sites. This will actually turn out to be a good thing for most players, as fees begin to drop (through lower rake and increased bonuses). This will likely take place over a few years. The market will be fragmented for some time, with many sites, with a re-consolidation in the future, when fees have dropped low enough that it is better to go for economies of scale and combine together many of the sites and skins.

If you want a model for this, just look at how the mobile phone market was born, created some huge winners (in equipment and carriers), generated a slew of carriers, which have recently consolidated into fewer carriers with the scale to be profitable at an acceptable rate. This played out over 10 or 15 years. During this time, the mobile phone carrier business went from a growth market to a middle aged, relatively mature market with slower growth.

[ResidentParanoid]

I am going to contradict myself: After reading more of the posts here, the competition between poker sites won't develop so fast, since the growth area for new players may be in other games (blackjack, sports betting, etc.) Until the total online gaming business starts to slow, there won't be as much competition. Many sites will probably follow the Party model and diversify into more games before starting a rake price war. In the end, poker will probably be a relatively small slice of the total online gaming pie, so there's less likely to see rake as generating a competitive edge.

[jakethebake]

So no one responded to your thread on a topic that is being discussed ad nauseum in the Zoo so you come back 5 hours later and respond to yourself. Nice! [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[Voltron87]

[ QUOTE ]
So no one responded to your thread on a topic that is being discussed ad nauseum in the Zoo so you come back 5 hours later and respond to yourself. Nice! [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

lol

so jake, how has this recent party move affected your poker playing? have you switched your rakeback deals? personally, im just waiting for the dust to settle. where are you playing mostly? are you compromising and playing party with no rakeback? do you have any of the poker software actually installed?

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
do you have any of the poker software actually installed?

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]