Re: There\'s been talk on these boards of Party implementing some sort
 

you said:
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I have no idea what their plan is, but it seems like it could work for all parties concerned if it was some kind of tiered rewards program. In other words, the more hands you play, the higher % you get rewarded.

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I previously posted:

The whole thing works out much better if you make it an auto rakeback program exclusively for high volume players, with tiers according to rake generated. Obviously, you could continue to give an affiliate 3-6% of the players rake, (that's something like what they make now I guess) and in turn the affiliate could be expected to perform the same function they have, as advocates/ CS for a group of players.

A. There aren't many month in month out high volume players who are ignorant of rake.

B. You can still charge the base rake to the majority of your customer base.

C. Affiliates who expect to get 20%+ are obviously hurting the pro and semi-pro player base. Party really needs us more than the affilliates, because without the regulars, games break and revenue drops.

All this cloak and dagger, open an account under my girlfriend's dog's name, secret password BS, has really run its course. I'm tired of poor customer service and inconsistent policies. At least PS is consistent in their policy: lower rake, better player points, friendly service, no RB.

Unless party comes up with a solution that does not involve me begging and/or me sitting on my hands and not playing poker there for 60 days, I'm leaving. There are many sites that are happy to have my business and as many of us pay more rake than we do rent I feel we are entitled to a little god damn consideration here. Money isn't everything, and I'm willing to face slightly tougher competition to promote a better business model.

to which you responded:

Quote:
Party really needs us more than the affilliates, because without the regulars, games break and revenue drops.

Sincityguy: This is one of the most unintentionally humorous statements I've read in quite a while.



So, I guess that parts of my post are stupid doesn't stop you from stealing my thesis?

Re: There\'s been talk on these boards of Party implementing some sort of
 

Where do you get the impression they do not plan on doing this every month?

Personally I think it is way too low to begin with, but Party is clearly willing to pay you x amount based on the number of hands you play.

That is rakeback. How can you say not even close? If you mean the percentages and how they calculate the amount, agreed, but in theory, it is the same.

I do agree with your one point though, why would Party offer rakeback to everyone? Makes no sense...

I assume they will only offer it to high volume players, knowing that most of them are aware of rakeback anyway.

Re: There\'s been talk on these boards of Party implementing some sort
 

The part of your other post that I responded to had nothing to do with the area that you now show in bold text (which, by the way, I happen to agree with).

Re: There\'s been talk on these boards of Party implementing some sort
 

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I do agree with your one point though, why would Party offer rakeback to everyone? Makes no sense...

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For one thing, it would make everyone feel good, even the players who don't know anything about rakeback at this point. If nothing else, Party would benefit from this being spread by word of mouth. Second, they could structure it in a way that the low volume players get a negligible percentage, but something nonetheless. The high volume players would get a higher percentage. Third, and most importantly, once they notice, a lot of players would have the incentive to start playing more hands because of this, which would generate more rake for Party.

Re: There\'s been talk on these boards of Party implementing some sort
 

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For one thing, it would make everyone feel good.

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How cute.

Re: There\'s been talk on these boards of Party implementing some sort
 

What everyone seems to be overlooking is that, people play 10 tables and 90 000 hands a month for the rakeback. This is a win win situation for the player and the room. Take away the rakeback and many players will go up in limit and play two tables. The players variance will increase, but his work will be less stressfull.

I will probably play at party, but they will lose income.

I don't understand why everyone assumes that players will play as many hands without rakeback. We all do what is in our own interest. I don't think there's any loyalty in this industry.

Re: There\'s been talk on these boards of Party implementing some sort
 

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For one thing, it would make everyone feel good.

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How cute.

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Yeah, it was poorly worded on my part, but I followed it up with the tangible benefit of the recreational players spreading the word to their friends.

Re: There\'s been talk on these boards of Party implementing some sort of
 

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How is this a problem for Party? The only one that it is a problem for is the affilates. It's the cost of doing business either be competitiive or lose the customer.


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Affiliate A has a banner on "Soccerisdabezt.com" and gets lots of soccer fans to play poker. He doesn't pay rakeback.

Affilate B has a banner on "Pokahisdabezt.com" and has a base of poker playerz. He gives 15% rakeback.

Soccer fanz who got into poker discover Affiliate B and move to him. Affiliate A makes no more money for his work.

Affiliate C offers 275.39% even when he's not allowed to, and also spams the tables. The soccer fanz move to Affiliate C, and also complain about affiliate B ripping them off.

Affiliate A goes bust, and decides that banners with naked women make him more money. Affiliate B gets angry and writes to Party saying that Affiliate C is scum.

Party get two complaints, lose the affiliate who brings in customers, and probably pays out more money because Affiliate C is high turnover.

Lori

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The biggest problem Party has regarding this whole rakeback situation is that they pay the affiliate for as long as the player continues playing at Party. This creates a potetially HUGE profit for affiliates who sign up less-knowledgeable players, and provides a HUGE incentive for those affiliates to not only fight to keep their uninformed players, but also to steal new players from other affiliates by undercutting.

A solution: affiliates are only paid a set dollar amount or are only paid for a certain length of time per account (say 3 or 6 months). Now, this could potentially cause an enormous problem, if players are able to profitably switch back and forth between affiliates. However, Party can prevent this by implementing direct rakeback to the player after the inital waiting period is up (3 months, 6 months, etc). Also, by increasing the amount available to the player, it prevents players from constantly switching affiliates; since they can make more by getting the rakeback directly from Party, they're only costing themselves money by switching.

This also helps Party, because affiiates are only getting paid when they sign up new players.

(Note: this is somewhat similar to TruePoker, where affiliates are only paid for the first year a player plays there; however, since after this year is up neither the player nor the affiliate continues to get paid, it proves profitable for them both if they are able to fraudulently sign the player back up again under a new account.

Re: There\'s been talk on these boards of Party implementing some sort
 

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For one thing, it would make everyone feel good, even the players who don't know anything about rakeback at this point. If nothing else, Party would benefit from this being spread by word of mouth.

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"Come to party poker, where we will give you money to play."

Re: There\'s been talk on these boards of Party implementing some sort
 

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I do agree with your one point though, why would Party offer rakeback to everyone? Makes no sense...

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For one thing, it would make everyone feel good, even the players who don't know anything about rakeback at this point. If nothing else, Party would benefit from this being spread by word of mouth. Second, they could structure it in a way that the low volume players get a negligible percentage, but something nonetheless. The high volume players would get a higher percentage. Third, and most importantly, once they notice, a lot of players would have the incentive to start playing more hands because of this, which would generate more rake for Party.

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Crikey, this is what I suggested that PokerStars do about 3 months ago.

If party does it and succeeds, someone should hire me as an analyst.