Paradise poker multis have no rake?

[jedi]

Paradise Poker has been running multi-table tournaments recently, and as far as I can tell, they've advertised that it doesn't have any rake. It's supposed to be some sort of promotion for starting multi-table tourneys.

Because he was curious about this, my buddy added up all of the buy-ins and compared it to the total prize pool. He came up 9% short, meaning that Paradise took 9% of the buy-ins for themselves. He then did this for another tournament and confirmed the 9% result from the last one.

With some extra confirmation, I'm sure people can figure out if this is the truth, that Paradise is advertising a no-rake multi table structure, but in reality, taking 9% from teh prizes. Can anyone else confirm this who plays on Paradise?

[jw2k]

It looks like your buddy is right. I just added things up for their $10 limit hold'em game (1pm EST). Total number of entries are 429. They quote a total prize pool of $4290.
The payouts, see below, add up to about $3903.77 (got $3903.57 the second time I added them). That's a 9.01%
rake there. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt when I email them this afternoon, and submit a "bug report".

1st $975.98
2nd $585.58
3rd $390.39
4th $292.79
5th $253.75
6th $214.71
7th $175.68
8th $117.12
9th $68.32
10th $48.80
11-15th $37.09
16-20th $29.28
21-30th $19.52
31-40th $13.66
41-50th $11.71

[La Brujita]

The take the 9% in lieu of a entry fee.

Here is the link:

Paradise Poker Tournament Rules

It seems an odd way to do it.

[Greg (FossilMan)]

Not an odd way, just an uncommon way. It is what the WSOP has been doing for all their events the last 2-3 years.

However, if Paradise is doing this somewhat quietly, but also making a big noise about having "rake-free" tournaments, they deserve to lose ALL their customers to the other sites. If that's what they're doing, I know I'll never go back (I quit the site long ago for other reasons).

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[William]

It is correct that they take 9% from the entry fee. I mail them and ask and they confirm it.

[La Brujita]

Greg,

When I said odd, what I meant was that the 9% is somewhat buried in there terms and conditions. That is, I went to sign up for a $50 multi tourney and couldn't find it listed anywhere on the tourney pop up.

They are not claiming anywhere so far as I can tell to be rake free, they are just kind of hiding the rake, if that makes sense.

The money works out the same in the end, of course.

Regards

[Greg (FossilMan)]

While what you describe is not AS unfair as advertising rake-free events, the fact that they make it hard to determine where the rake comes out is still somewhat troubling, and a bad sign regarding the attitude of management, IMO.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

[Al_Capone_Junior]

I just checked the coral tournament, $15 entry no rebuy, 535 entries.

535 x $15 = $8035.00

Then I added up all the prizes from 1st-60th. I came up with $7311. More importantly, I subtracted my total from 8035, then divided by 8035. I got 0.090, or 9% of the prize pool as missing.

I will email my results to paradise immediately, along with a complaint, then cash out unless they provide a very good explanation. I suggest everyone else do the same.

I knew it was too good to be true. Besides, the structure of their multi tournaments is the worst online by far.

al

[eastbay]

That's not a rake, that's a fee.

Or something lame like that.

[jedi]

Okay, so given that there is a 9% fee, is this something to be pissed off about? My friend told me that it was advertised as no rake until end of January, but this is second hand information, so I don't know if it's true or not. If it has been advertised as no-rake, then it's fraud at worst and sleazy at best. However, it IS on that link, which talks about prize structure, so is this just smoke and mirror nonsense? And the bottom line being, what do we do about it in the end? It makes a $30 tournament really into a 27.30 + 2.70 tournament. It's really not that much worse than other sites, except for the sleaze factor, right?