Party CFO conversation: Trip report

[StellarWind]

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-PartyPoker regards the high-volume, serious gambler as an acceptable, but sub-optimal customer.

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That's exactly what we are. Useful customers worth some effort to retain because we fill seats and allow them to collect rake. Winning players are an inevitable side effect of running a poker room and it might as well be us. Better than having the top tier of losers convert into winners which would leave them with fewer losers donating money.

But the big losers are the customers they really have to have to attract to make their business work. If you have fish, you will also have pros. The reverse is absolutely not true.

A key strategic issue has not been mentioned. The upcoming battle for market share is a crisis point in the industry that will likely determine winners and losers for a long time to come. Retaining pros right now should be important to Party because they need to keep our rake dollars from feeding the marketing budgets of their competitiors. They shouldn't make it easy for small competitors to get big fast by grabbing a big player base on the cheap. Growing rooms enjoy an upward spiral as greater game selection and increased revenues fuel even more growth. The opposite is true for shrinking rooms. Keeping the small rooms at bay and putting the skins into a tailspin will pay big dividends for Party down the road.