Dutch Speaks Out on ZeroRake

[Exsubmariner]

Actually,
The only site I know of that charges monthly membership is PSO. All the money is play money, though, and they use their ranking system to select people to be sponsored into tournaments. For people only willing to spend $15 a month on poker this works great. Frankly, it is the only viable model I see for doing what you are talking about without having a site full of 2+2'rs trying to take each others money. Those games would probably get so tight you couldn't put a needle through them. I know I wouldn't join. No fish = no action.

[Beach-Whale]

I don't understand the reason why a fish WOULDN'T join a site with a no-rake option. And besides, you could pay rake at ZeroRake if you wanted to.

If a no-rake site is well run and promotes itself well, there's no reason why it wouldn't be able to succeed.

[Beach-Whale]

[ QUOTE ]
There was no stealing done with ZeroRake, the site is closed now.

[/ QUOTE ]

When I read this, I thought I'd start the software to check if you were correct in it being closed, and it seems that you are wrong. The software started, even updated itself, and the same guy I usually see there when I check if there has happened anything with the room, was sitting and waiting for action at four tables. So it seems like it's still chugging along, but not gaining any speed.

[lorinda]

No, I've never had anything to do with ZeroRake. They
pretty much ripped
off my idea of RakeFree, implemented it pretty poorly,
and failed miserably.

Nothing like Pokerspot then.

Lori

[lorinda]

I don't understand the reason why a fish WOULDN'T join a site with a no-rake option

Because most fish have $100 and they want $30 before you even play a hand.

This doesn't impress the fish, who now need to double up to get just beyond even.

Lori

[Shoe]

I agree with you on one point... that the major sites would possibly (not likely, but possibly) run a smear campaign against zero rake to protect their revenue.

The more likely scenario is this. People are going to play where the masses play. They want to play at a site where there are lots of people online, with a large selection of games. The reason zerorake failed is because 95% of the poker players don't even know what rake is. They don't see it, they don't care about it. They just want to be able to play for "free." And to them, free is no monthly membership fee, not zerorake. I know that sounds contradictory, it is. I know zerorake would save me thousands of dollars a month if I could play there full time. But I can't. Sharks don't want to play against sharks. Sharks want to play against all the other fish in the sea.

Now, on the other hand, if zerorake would have been the first major poker site, that is how every site would run today. Unfortunately, those profit minded people at the other major poker sites designed a much more profitable way to run a site.

[Billy Baroo]

nt

[MS Sunshine]

Follow the reasoning here:

They had no games. That is why they failed. No smear campaign, no smug minions, just no games. I would have loved to been wrong, along with everyone else that pointed out that they were underfunded at start-up. No ads, no killer promos, no prop team so that there would be some games. nothing. nada. zero. zilch.

The big sites, and their evil minions the affiliates, didn't decide in some smokey backroom to have ZeroRake pushed in front of a bus. ZeroRake was in the middle of the street trying hug the oncoming bus. This was self-inflicted.

MS Sunshine

[TylerD]

This is a post from the NVG made by PokerPaul that lends Dutch's story a bit of credibility:

[ QUOTE ]
No i dont think actionpoker had anything to do with Pokerspot..however, i can tell you that the outfit behind actionpoker and lasVegas from Home..Jake...is nothing where anyone would want to put their $$$.

They were also involved with Gutspoker i believe, another miserable failure.

Nothing wrong with trying to launch a legit business and having it not come through..but these guys are out to screw and swindle every dollar they can out of their clients/partners/vendors...and ive seen first hand.

He used to be (or still is) a risky equity stock pusher for mining exploration firms on vancouver stock exchange, where they would pump up a stock price artificially to their clinets, then dump their shares at higher price and leave customers holding when the prices drop.

Similarly they swindled amny people into basically performing beta testing for action poker, and then failed to deliver what they should have gotten.

I was almost going to purchase the whole ActionPoker outfit until we did some due diligence with some clients, and vendors. At the time it was the 2nd or 3rd busiest site on the net.

What he was asking for was outright laughable, but we knew poker, especially online poker was about to take off, and we still thought it could be viable given it was an established site with regular clientele. But those discussions and his pressuring us artificially made us walk away.

its truly a shame how some people try to screw people around to score some additional $$$.

[/ QUOTE ]

[Beach-Whale]

[ QUOTE ]
Because most fish have $100 and they want $30 before you even play a hand.


[/ QUOTE ]

Well, Lorinda, you got it a bit wrong there. At ZeroRake, you don't HAVE to be a member and play rake free - if you choose to do so, you can play as a non-member and pay rake instead.

And Dutch's plan, as far as I know, was to take the monthly fee as normal rake, and just stop taking the rake when the monthly fee had been dropped for the player.

So no one is intent on forcing a fish to pay any member fee to start playing. This would never be a reason for a fish to not play at a no-rake site. I agree it would be stupid to implement it the way you think it is/would be.