It’s important to distinguish between genuine incentives that reward good behaviour and those that lend themselves to abuse. Rake rebates in themselves aren’t necessarily bad, but affiliates who abuse them to steal players or unfairly compete with other affiliates can be. I think that any affiliate that runs an ethical business, incentives or not, could be successful in the long run. Those that work with no regard for others will probably promote themselves out of business.
Well, this is true with most things in the affiliate world.
Rake back is different though.
By allowing affiliates to offer rake backs, the affiliate program is in effect forcing all their affiliates to take a 20% cut in pay if they want to stay competitive. No one is going to sign up with me for Absolute without a rebate if the next guy is offering a 20% discount. Players would be stupid to do so.
So now I am forced into a 20% paycut, and the next guy loses his edge. So he offers 25%. Now I have to follow and so on.
Rake backs are an excellent idea – but should NOT come out of the affiliate’s pocket. If a Poker Room were to offer rakebacks to it’s players, both affiliates and players would flock there. It would be a very sensible way of promoting a room for the operator – sells better than bonuses, no abuse possible, and players only get it when they play.
Rake back is a dynamite idea if it is used that way – but if it is used to force all affiliates into paycuts in order to compete, the Poker room is doing something very unethical and harmful to the industry. Poker rooms will become unprofitable for affiliates to promote.
The reason rake back affiliates are doing well now is because they are syphoning possible players from the available player pool, and they do this at the cost of other affiliates. When we are all forced to take a paycut aff programs will have achieved the ultimate situation:
a salesforce that does not ask for insurance or retirement, builds advertising vehicles for free, purchases ads for the program, only gets paid when the program makes a profit, and puts 20% of it’s own earnings back to the customer as incentive.
Damn, try that in the real world!
Programs allowing rake back to be offered by affiliates are forcing us all to take a 20% cut in pay. This is not only unethical, it is injurious to the future of online poker.
Wake up, guys!