An idea for Stars rakeback (hopefully new)

[SomethingClever]

Pardon me if this exact idea has been floated before.

There are lots of things to like about Stars. Great customer service, great tournaments, and I don't get the sense that they are my enemy, like I do with Party.

However, unless rakeback dies on the Party skins, it's very unlikely I'll play there for any significant amount of time again. Rakeback simply adds too much to my bottom line.

So how about this. Instead of screwing around with affiliates, why doesn't Stars just implement a better frequent player program that's more akin to rakeback?

Here's how it could work.

1) You need to reach a certain threshhold of hands played in a month to earn any rakeback (you still earn FPPs). Say... 10,000 to get 10%, 15,000 to get 20%, 20,000 to get 25% and 30,000+ to get 30%.

2) Stars then releases half of your rakeback as cash into your account, and the other half as a bonus that you must work off.

This method would seem to have many benefits.

1) No affiliate crap. Stars won't have to worry about affiliate dumping, scams, etc....

2) You have to play a high volume of hands to reach the rakeback levels. This should encourage lots more play even among losing players.

3) You have to play additional hands to "earn" the second half of your rakeback as a bonus. Even more play.

Stars, I've paid well over 10 grand to the Party skins in like the last two months, and I'm not alone. Want a piece of that? Please... work on something like this.

[spamuell]

This would be awesome. I [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] stars but I so rarely play there outside of when there is a bonus because rakeback is so important. I really hope something comes of this.

[jackdaniels]

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This would be awesome. I [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] stars but I so rarely play there outside of when there is a bonus because rakeback is so important. I really hope something comes of this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Truer words have rarely been spoken. I started my poker play at Paradise, moved to Stars and thought I found the promised land. The day I signed up for RB on a Party skin is the day I stopped playing at Stars alltogether (all you Stars grinders - don't thank me all at once [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]). I recently made the deposit for their bonus but aside from clearing it, I doubt I can justify playing there anymore. I would gladly take the tougher games at Stars with RB than the softer (I know this is becoming debatable) games at Party and skins with RB.

Lee, the above plan aside - I am sure there is a way for Stars to implement an RB deal with high volume players that doesn't have to be extended to your recreational players (maintaining most of Stars revenues) - if you would do that I know many here would move to Stars and establish a solid game presence there. I know this because I read this forum and it is always said. In fact, you read this forum as well and I'm sure you know all this already, I'm just hoping some additional push can be made in that direction.

[scrapperdog]

Why should stars start playing rakeback when they are the second biggest site without having any rakeback? I could understand if they were losing market share or something but as far as I can tell they are as popular as ever.

[spamuell]

Why should stars start playing rakeback when they are the second biggest site without having any rakeback?

You're right, they're very successful indeed.

But they could be even more successful.

[Sciolist]

Perhaps it'd be a good idea to mail your suggestion to support? I know that Lee Jones reads this site, but it seems better to guarantee management read it by sending an email than hoping Lee spots this thread.

[teddyFBI]

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Why should stars start playing rakeback when they are the second biggest site without having any rakeback? I could understand if they were losing market share or something but as far as I can tell they are as popular as ever.

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Not to mention that we already all have Stars accounts anyways...so by enabling any rakeback or equivalent FPP scheme, Stars would only be inviting a gnome-fest.

[spamuell]

Not to mention that we already all have Stars accounts anyways...so by enabling any rakeback or equivalent FPP scheme, Stars would only be inviting a gnome-fest.

They could allow existing accounts to receive rakeback, provided they played over x hands/month, either where x is a fixed number for all players or is a number based on the average number of hands the player currently plays per month. Or they could do it by $rake generated/month as well, or FPPs accumulated.

[stinkypete]

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Not to mention that we already all have Stars accounts anyways...so by enabling any rakeback or equivalent FPP scheme, Stars would only be inviting a gnome-fest.

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who says existing accounts wouldnt qualify?

[Sciolist]

Other sites wouldn't neccessarily have to set rakeback up as Party have. Should a site like PS decide to offer it, they could just run it on accounts already set up.

I would think the biggest argument against this - asides from "well, we already dealt 2bn hands, are the 2nd largest site and hit 60k a day on the site on weekends" - is that you'd basically have to extend this to everyone. Maybe it'd be a good promotion to run for a week?

To say "right, we're giving 20% of your rake back" is basically saying "right, we're going to make 20% less money from now on". I don't think it's a particularly professional or useful approach to only limit rakeback to n players, or to force it on new accounts only - you should reward your regular players afterall.

I don't know what kind of percentage rake PS earn from, say, the top 10% most regular players, but even if it applied only to them, you're still looking at -2 or -3% revenue. If you can get by without doing that, then you probably should.

Say you gain 2 or 3% market share and lose 2 or 3% of rake revenue on current levels, obviously it evens out somewhere along the line. I would guess that we'll start seeing competition on this basis once sites stop growing so fast, when the poker boom reaches a peak instead of stays on the upslope.