Personally I find it damaging for the industry. Affiliates are the way of advertising on the internet; if their earnings are lowered the standard of online poker sites will fall as well. It is simply not liable to work full time for 5% of the players rake. As we can see now loads of pages offering rake-back is appearing every day…it does not require a lot of work to start a rake-back site…but a rake-back site does NOT offer any advertising, content, community of other features. (and that is what the payment is for!!)
The latest trend I have experienced is that major poker forums and poker sites are offering rake-back as well..simply because they have to..nobody uses their links anymore.
We were planning to enter the poker market big time, and are still working on a couple of poker sites, however we are now considering targeting other markets such as sports betting or online casinos.
Another thing I cannot understand is how some members of a skin can sit their hands up their a.. while other members of cannibalize on their existing customers.
It even happens in their own chatrooms??? The worst place I know is cryptologic which is crowded with people writing: “GET 25% RAKEBACK AT http://www.xxx.com”
If I was one of the established members of a skin I would go ballistic.