So, why aren't party gift certificates rakeback?

[somapopper]

Before I get into this, I want to make it clear that I don't have any vested interests here, and I'm not giving out any bonus codes or making any reccomendations through pm.

So, a major affiliate offers party poker gift certificates for raked hands played. They have a great deal of other shwag that a player can choose, but since pp gift certificates are more liquid than a foreign currency for all of us, they are essentially just cash. The site doesn't in any way hide their offer, and I'm pretty sure they are quite big and on the radar.

Why is Party allowing this? I don't feel like most affiliates could get away with it. Is it because of the other schwag, they can make a reasonable case that these are "player incentives" instead of bonuses? If some other affiliate decided to offer a variety of items including gift certificates, would party let it fly?

If there's not going to be any above the board RB at party, quite frankly I would prefer that that was the situation for everybody. We as players have a much better chance of seeing decent internal party rewards if party decides to cut affiliate percentages on long term players, and/or high volume ones. If one or a handful of affiliates are going to be allowed to give effective rakeback, the more risk neutral amongst us will find a way to get there, and party isn't gonna pay a decent percentage to players and then pay 20+ to affiliates.

As a player with an existing account, I have a strong preference for a well designed internal reward system. I have an affiliate I trust, but it seems very unlikely that I will ever be able to move my current account to any affiliate, as I believe I signed up directly. Even if I hadn't, I think Party really doesn't want to be moving people from one affiliate to another.

So, the only option available to myself and many others is to open a new account. The need to fund this account with a new deposit option, and register a new email, makes me believe that this is just asking for trouble. Also, even though this doesn't amount to fraud in a traditional sense, it feels like fraud to me, and I just don't feel comfortable with that.