Empire rules.

[MicroBob]

thanks cup - do we get to know who else?

[lorinda]

Sorry MB, I just looked at the mods at the bottom of the page.

Lori

[MicroBob]

you think i'm smart enough to actually do something so complicated like looking at the bottom of the page? (thanks for the handy tip!! I'm less than brilliant this eve).

[rt1]

Its me, morgant, inthecup, craig_r, and some others. We are all experienced / long term affiliates.

[TheMetetron]

Aren't you, morgant and crag r all raketracker?

At least that's what I'm assuming you are. Never really known who's screen name that is.

[morgant]

here is our initial thought process behind this forum.

we built this forum to be informative about rakeback, the process involved, how it works, how one gets it, and eventually we want to help evaluating the different rakeback providers(we think). there are many misnomers in the rakeback game, for instance the very original topic of this thread. the letter of the law and the spirit of the law are two entirely different things lorinda. i am in continual contact with the owners of empire poker and while your reading of their rules is accurate, you are the first person to ever bring that to my attention.

this forum is experimental for us and we will learn the process by trial and error. We are trying to create an unbiased forum, that provides information on how to become an affiliate. and how to obtain rakeback. we didnt sponsor the forum by www.raketracker.com because we didnt want to overshadow the concept of this forum by plastering raketracker all over it. we feel the players, once informed about the rakeback/affiliate process, will be able to decide for themselves who to choose, and who the longstanding, honest, and professional affiliates are.

as lorinda has pointed out, there are many intricacies in the rakeback business, i have built an organization around these rules, and spent thousands of hours along with my partners establishing contacts with the sites we represent and learning what we can and cant do, what the players can and cant do, and how to most effectively provide this service for our users.

we dont allow rakeback %'s for many reasons, most importantly, the sites dont allow it. lorinda may ask then, how do we offer it? the sites dont mind paying us within their structured tiers for the marketing we do for them. however, when affilaite XYZ(hypothetical example) starts offering 39% to his players, and that site only gives out 40%. the affiliates like myself, who have built a business around this, cant survive on a 1% profit margin. in time affilaite XYZ wont be able to survive either and eventually the players will be emailing affilaite XYZ asking where the past months payment is. if the market has raised rakeback % to 39%, i must then go negotiate with the pokersite to give me 45% so i can remain profitable and competitive. now the site is struggling to remain profitable and cant offer me 45%, then with the headaches and nonsense they must consider killing the rakeback market, which party did by removing the tracker reporting. in a long winded way, i am hoping some of you read this, and can understand that getting a 1/4th discount on your poker play is a pretty good deal. by bartering and trying to get more, this could potentially kill the market. hence our refusal to allow percentage talks.

we appreciate any questions, or comments, but i hope this summed up some issues. i have a very strong understanding of this market, we created www.affiliateEV.com so people can take advantage of our knowledge and contacts in the online poker world to build business for themselves, or group together a bunch of friends to get a discount on their poker play across the internet.

thanks
morg.