A party Rep contacted me recently to find out why...

[poindexter]

I play exclusively on empire and rarely play at party poker anymore. I gave no definitive answer at the time but I will post the answer here since they seem desperate to find out why their business is falling short of expectations.

Why is empire, eurobet, etc. doing so well? Because they take all of the high volume and successful players from party. Why Do all the high volume and winning players leave party? Because of RAKEBACK you dimwits. Why would we play at your poker room when we can get paid to play at the same tables on a different site? So what does party do about the rakeback problem? They eliminate any rakeback from their site; this causes even more players to leave. Who is left to play at party? A few pros from the step 5, 100-200 limit, and mtt tournaments, but The vast majority are uninformed players. Poker players in the know refer to them as fish. Good players who usually play for a party skin take the bankrolls from the clueless players who remain at party. The vast majority of these players either get good at poker which usually correlates with them leaving, or they stay and lose their bankrolls. This forces Party to replenish them or starve. Thankfully there are plenty of replacemnets now but what is the forcast for tomorrow?

Besides rakeback Empire poker offers incentives to play at their site which go beyond the crappy merchandise that you offer. Incentives for high volume players include Televisions, LCD’s, trips to Las Vegas, a $50,000 BI annual freeroll that is played by the 60 top tournament pros, a monthly 100 player freeroll that rewards the top player with a WSOP seat or a free entry into other tournaments, raffles giving out laptops ipods etc.

How do you get your client base back? I personally would like to return to take advantage of mtt's and steps that are missing from Empire. However the only way I will return with high volume play will be with a better rewards program and a rakeback deal worth 20-30% depending on volume. The rep I talked to hinted that there was going to be some improvements in the incentives party was offering. This is a good first step but without rakeback no one will return regardless of how much you beef up your rewards.

[rt1]

Be sure to tell these things to party if they contact you. They are trying to find out why you left and they are not always smart enough to figure out that rakeback was the reason... why else would they spend time talking to you?

You do not need to worry about any of the skins leaving, they will be around for a long time. Party cannot afford to suddenly lose all those players.

[OrangeHeat]

Party called me with the same thing. Then said they would be debuting some sort of cash back offer. I am not usre of percentage but it would have been $1750 on 45,000 hands of 10/20 6 max.

So maybe around 15%?

ORange

[BruinEric]

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This forces Party to replenish them or starve.

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As a minor clarification, its worth noting that Party takes in money every time someone plays a raked hand at Empire. Obviously they split the money with Empire, but also save a bit by not paying these players bonuses, rake-return, misc incentives, or paying Neteller fees.

While it would be better for Party to have these players exclusively at Party-direct, its probably an oversimplification to suggest that Party is facing "starvation" when high-volume players play on skins.

Party has other means at their disposal to deal with any potential revenue loss due to play at skins, of course. I'm sure all these contracts will come up for renewal at some point, and one would think Party has the upper hand during the negotiation with most of their skins.

Just wanted to be the contrarian here and point out that Party has other avenues available to them OTHER than being generous by providing rebates to high-volume players.

It is arguable that Party is better off making these players pay full freight in order to offset the potential "cost" of such a plan resulting in the impression amongst casual players that the site is some sort of shark pit. This is discussed on another thread -- and I'm not sure this is correct, but certainly Party people will think this angle through with all the numbers at their disposal.

[byronkincaid]

I have heard Party make less than 10% of their profits from players on other skins. Finance anaylsts have been saying for months that party should buy Empire for this reason not because of the obvious(to us) reason that they can kill off individual trackers there as well.

[dogmeat]

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I play exclusively on empire and rarely play at party poker anymore. I gave no definitive answer at the time

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So, you had them on the phone, and instead of telling them what you really though, you waited to tell us what you thought? Good going.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[SoftcoreRevolt]

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I play exclusively on empire and rarely play at party poker anymore. I gave no definitive answer at the time

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So, you had them on the phone, and instead of telling them what you really though, you waited to tell us what you thought? Good going.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

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Knowing Party's logic, if everyone they called said "We left because you don't offer rakeback" they'd just double their efforts to suppress it on the skins (Which won't happen) rather than try to appeal to our wallets.

[PrincipalSkinner]

I'm going to copy/paste your post and send it to party (from a different email address than the one on record with them). I'd like to see everyone do the same.

[StellarWind]

Party doesn't need to be told that high-volume players have moved to the skins because of rakeback. They already know from this forum, the rakeback forums, their customer account records, IGM-Pay, etc. I'm sure they know much more about this than we do.

If I get a call:

1. I will complain pointedly about the recent rake increase.

2. Emphasize that I am playing more on other networks where the cost to play is lower.

Don't make this Party versus the skins. That will just cause them to attack the skins. Make them understand that when they stomp out rakeback a big piece of their business will go away completely.

[Freudian]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I play exclusively on empire and rarely play at party poker anymore. I gave no definitive answer at the time

[/ QUOTE ]

So, you had them on the phone, and instead of telling them what you really though, you waited to tell us what you thought? Good going.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

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I wouldn't tell the Party rep that I left them for rakeback on another skin. Perhaps nothing would happen but it would truly suck to have Party put pressure on my skin and screw me/my affiliate.