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I started with casinos and so I obviously make many times more money with them than with poker.
I have no idea if my poker income will reach the casino income some day.
I wonder what the difference would be in the average length of total playing time for a poker player versus an online casino gambler.
I think affiliates who promote poker rooms have two distinct drawbacks:
1) The rakeback issue – rooms that offer rakeback are causing affiliates to steal our players, and so even though we get a new player, his status is always in doubt.
2) The large rise of competiting poker rooms – with so many online poker rooms to choose from, a player is likely to try out many of them. Plus there are different levels of compeition and juicy games in each. For most of us, this means that having someone at, say, Party Poker, doesn’t mean that this player will be spending all of his/her time there.
I would be willing to bet that online casino gamblers might have a taste for variety, but might not switch around as much as the average poker player.
It depends a bit on demographics, but most casino players I know switch around. Now, some have several casinos they visit frequently. Many, many follow the bonuses. And that is getting to be a problem in Poker too.
The bonus situation has really ruined loyalty – if I were running a casino I’d take the risk and very gradually change my promotions so that bonuses are awarded after a certain amount of play. That would still mean you have a “wagering requirement”, but the player is not aware of it, and if s/he wins something, they will be able to withdraw it. There are casinos with nice loyalty programs, but players are trained to think bonus. I would start with a “split bonus” – the first half has a WR, the second is given after a certain amount of play and does not. It’s just words, but you need to use the words people are conditioned to go after.
Rake back is in a way a loyalty bonus. There is nothing wrong with it except that the poker room should be in control of loyalty rewards, not he affiliate.
The casino industry has been through the mess of affiliate incentivized play, and now poker is making the same mistake. It will resolve itself as more and more poker rooms will stop affiliate driven rake back. I will yet get to say “I told you so”.
So, as long as players follow purchase bonuses instead of loyalty bonuses you will see a lot of migration.
So you need to give players a reason to come back to your site. There is nothing you can do about the bonus mess, so you just have to position yourself so that you will be the only affiliate that player uses. Finding a reason for the player to do that without incentivization is part of the art.
Interesting to hear a veteran’s take on this.
I was sorry I wasn’t about to be in Vegas to meet you (as well as others) and hear your speech. It would have been great to find out about all of your takes on issues like this.
