Empire WILL respond

[hashi92]

oh yeah

theyll come up with another empire500 bonus and than take it back after a ton of people have jumped on there network. or offer insane rake back and than start closing accounts because its against there policy. i dont understand why rake back should be any concern of poker sites anyway. rake back is money that poker sites have already decided to give to there affiliates. isnt that why they give rake back to affiliates so that they increase traffic.

[SinCityGuy]

[ QUOTE ]
They are a multi BILLION dollar corporation and won't just sit back and watch their players leave for PP.

[/ QUOTE ]

With all that money, maybe now is the time for them to buy a telephone.

[1800GAMBLER]

People should give the OP more credit, he's on to something here.

[Danielih]

You are a big empire affiliate?

[scott2130]

It is Sunday night and I won't be playing much this week, so I will give Empire a chance to strike back before I move back to Party. Coming from a business background, what your are saying sounds reasonable, but it will have to be good to make up for the loss of all those fish. It is 7:25 and EP has 7,359 players compared to 50,420 on Party. That is alot to overcome.

[scotty34]

It would make sense for basically every poker site to "respond" to Party's action. If they are paying attention to their customers, they would realize there are a TON of high-volume players who can't figure out where to place their loyalty right now. This would be a great opportunity for any site who can make a good offer that caters to the players' needs. Stars has the right idea, and I'm sure many others, including EP, will come up with their own plan.

[StellarWind]

You guys are missing the most important thing about Empire.

They have a powerful affiliate network. Note that I am not talking about the rakeback affiliates but real honest-to-God big website operators and direct-mail businesses who pull in fish.

I have gotten more direct (non-rakeback) solicitations from Empire affiliates then all other sites put together.

Up until now most of the fish they caught had to be thrown back because when they went to sign up, the software rejected them because they already had an account with Party.

To a lesser extent I'm sure the same problem plagued Eurobet and Intertops when they tried to convert their punters to poker.

That is over. It is now open season on Party's entire customer base. No more genteel (read: ineffective) competition from sites like Stars and Paradise. Real competition from determined adversaries.

It's going to be a real war.

By positioning itself as the high-price player, Party has left itself very vulnerable. It's not that rake reduction has been a particularly effective marketing weapon, but the high-price environment ensures that Party's competitiors will have plenty of money to lavish on their affiliates and keep them motivated.

Meanwhile existing and future rakeback deals will ensure that many of us don't completely abandon them while things sort out.