Players Union

[GrannyMae]

Earlier in the thread, someone raised a point we would be willing to test .... would a player switch to a smaller, albeit growing site once his rakeback/affiliate program is undercut by IGM ?

imo, in the absence of a rebate coming at end of month, the sharks will indeed go fishing elsewhere.

there are many medium sites, true included, that would be VERY easy games for the 2+2 pro. however, even trying the games were never an option with the rakeback they were tied to.

[Stu Pidasso]

[ QUOTE ]
Earlier in the thread, someone raised a point we would be willing to test .... would a player switch to a smaller, albeit growing site once his rakeback/affiliate program is undercut by IGM ?

imo, in the absence of a rebate coming at end of month, the sharks will indeed go fishing elsewhere.

there are many medium sites, true included, that would be VERY easy games for the 2+2 pro. however, even trying the games were never an option with the rakeback they were tied to.

[/ QUOTE ]

If the incentive is large enough the grinders will play just about anywhere. Look at GamesGrid, tough tables, lots of software issues, just starting up yet the have no problems getting several 3-6 and 2-4 games games going duriing prime time.

Stu

[MicroBob]

I don't know what the chances of success of this kind of organization are. I suspect not very high but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be worth trying.


But the discussion that has developed as to whether or not sites want winning players there is kind of mind-boggling.


Does party really need to view me as a leech that they need to 'tolerate'?


Lets ask party if they really just 'tolerate' the winning player.
If some 15/30 and 30/60 player making $300k/year there were to offer to leave because they felt bad about all the money they were depriving from party's business I somehow don't think party would really say/think, "whew. We're glad you brought this up. All that money you are winning is REALLY cutting into our profits. If you would like to leave party for good then we would have ZERO objections whatsoever because we will definitely make more money WITHOUT you here."

If a long-term winning player were to 'offer' to leave it is pretty obvious that the site would prefer to keep him around.



This notion that the poker-room doesn't really want winning players is silly.

[MMMMMM]

[ QUOTE ]
IGM will be bringing in enough new players to easily offset the few that will leave because of lack of rakeback. IGM gets to clean the place up and look good in the eyes of the regulators AND investors by putting an end to rakeback (which the regulators will see as problematic. public companies really can't have rakeback and expect to be put on buy lists. paradise has shown what needs to be done if you are a public company. regardless of the cost in business, there just can't be open, tolerated rakeback).
...
this is a big year for poker and whether it is a B&M or an online site, they want and NEED to be legitimate. if levitra and pepsi are going to start sponsoring players and adding money to events and creating leagues etc etc, rakeback must be controlled. the bigger picture of SPONSORSHIP and clean books has begun to take over imho.

[/ QUOTE ]

Would you please explain why rakeback is in any way objectionable in this sense? Seems to me the only reason it is illegitimate is because Party says it is illegitimate.

Why do you see rakeback as problematic in this sense?--after all, it is merely independent reps offering their own incentives to attract customers. This is not at all uncommon in the business world nor is it illegal. When you go to a car dealership and buy a car you may get incentives from Toyota as well as the local dealer.

I can see where it might create hard feelings if the rep stops giving promised rakeback, but that is not what I think you are talking about here. Why shouldn't independent distributors, reps or affiliates of publicly traded companies be allowed to offer their own incentives to customers, from a public company/legitimacy standpoint? Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how it is inherently or fundamentally illegitimate; it's just that Party made it illegitimate in their T & C. Undoubtedly they had their reasons for so doing but I am havcing a lot of trouble seeing why this would be an issue as far as regulation of public companies or anything like that.