Online Casino

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Few things to clarify from my experience and knowledge
– Party never supported rake back of any sort. When I was at Party, we tried to combat it with sincerity.

This is absolutely not true. Bonuswhores.com and PSO both were allowed to offer rakeback and I know there were many more smaller sites that openly advertised it. They were given full consent to do so as were endless skins. PSO was the rakeback site that CAP (wasn’t it or another affiliate forum?) forced Party into a reneg of their agreement with PSO. Literally thousands of players lost a monthly income due to this. For some reason existing players could not continue to get rakeback as per their deal with PSO and PSO’s deal with Party. It’s one thing to stop allowing sites to offer rakeback to new players but to force them to reneg on deals to their players is ridiculous, especially when it was fully endorsed by Party at one point.

Quote:

Rake back affiliates don’t send volume of players to any poker rooms

Oh? Why did Absolute, Doyle’s Room, UB, Bodog and Full Tilt allow untagged players to start getting rakeback when the UIGEA passed? It’s because they wanted the massive amounts of MGR these players were producing at rooms that no longer wanted to accept US players.

Quote:

Only small players in the industry allow rake back, coz they are happy with good players who can generate rake and not volume. These are the real villains in our case here.

Really? Full Tilt is a small player?

Quote:

Party was being used by rake back affiliates without their consent, and did take a while to take a stand, but that’s besides the point.

After the official Party stance of no more rakeback their system was still geting abused. Party sure taught all a lesson though when they retroactively removed all players that showed up as having previous accounts. Some affiliates reported having hundreds of thousands of dollars in negative MGR. It doesn’t seem like Party ever moved these players back to their original affiliates though. Win/win for Party.

Quote:

I don’t know why the poker rooms don’t just offer rakeback as a bonus program and leave affiliates out of it.

Dom and I agree here. Look at Poker Stars highly successful VIP Program. It’s not technically a rakeback program but it is as close as something could be without giving an exact % of MGR back. The trouble is that many sites have tried this and it never worked. Sites that come to mind are Superior Poker, Poker Champs, and several now defunct Dobrosoft sites. Also look at the lack of success 100% rakeback sites have had. Cardcrusade failed, WPEX has struggled and finally went down to 75% even though this week they are back to 100% and of course the failed Zero Rake from years ago.

It seems that some poker rooms prefer for the ignorant to miss out on rakeback as they can hopefully sign players up directly and use that extra rake for promos, extra profit or both. I certainly see their side. It certainly makes poker rooms end up with some resentful players when some get rakeback while others cannot.

Rakeback is not all bad for poker rooms though. A slightly losing or break even player is replenished with cash every month to continue playing and generate more rake every month. Let’s say a player deposits $500 and loses it while producing $1500 in rake. If he gets 33% rakeback he gets his $500 back and the house makes $1000. The next month repeat and the house makes another $1000 they would not have made unless the player made another deposit, something they may or may not have done. If this player would have moved on the house would have missed out on $11,000 (minus whatever cut the affiliate got) that year. Rakeback isn’t as bad for the poker rooms as many think.

The non rb affiliates have some great points though as there needs to be some safeguards to prevent player theft. The problem with promoting sites on a network is that a player can always move skins if they are unhappy. Promoting standalones will help prevent this as rooms like FT will not allow multiple signups no matter how hard people try.

I’ve never been an affiliate but I used to own Rakerebatereview.com so I have taken that experience from players and affiliates to form my opinion. Currently I do not have any job in the industry as my moderation jobs of volunteer.

[Anonymous]

Good morning :hattip:

I’m ready after a good night’s sleep :wink-wink

@Dominique 142339 wrote:

Personally, I don’t bother monetizing my poker traffic, even though I have a large strategy section and a good one, and a busy poker forum. It’s just not worth the touble to build a player base, and building it to a point where I can get decent CPA is too time consuming.

I am much better off concentrating on casino and bingo, even skill games.

Well, I think this is the problem. Many “normal” affiliates have given up, or they don’t care enough. It’s really sad. I would really like to see some sort of action against this, because without the player theft poker could be really profitable!

Don’t concentrate too much on skill games. Backgammon rakeback is “the new thing”….

[Anonymous]

@Satya 142337 wrote:

Karim can’t be held responsible because there are 1000’s of affiliates like him who promote rake back and some of them are sponsored and encouraged by the most favorite affiliate programs in the industry.

I agree, and I know RTR aren’t the only one. It just made more sense to use an example from a big rakeback site. And it made even more sense when he cried about players should be tracked to original affiliates.

For poker rooms, I can understand, they want profits, but if affiliates make it a point not to promote any poker room which encourages rake back, I think the situation would be different from what it is now. This idea has been supported by Lou, Dom and most of the big affiliates we have at CAP, and if this is acknowledged by all the members, we will have lesser issues with the said topic.

I agree. Again the problem is the rakeback thieves. They seem to be more organised than the normal affiliates. They even made deals with the poker rooms. They agreed to maximum 30% rakeback etc.

I don’t understand why they are getting away with this. I really don’t. If someone made a website with a good “offer” and it had detailed instructions on how you delete a casino account and open a new one, I am not sure they would get away with it so easy..

Anyone up for a rakeback ban? :popcorn:

[APCash]

Ahhhh…that’s where you misunderstood Benjamin….
I’m wasnt “crying” out that “players should be tracked to original affiliates”

I was merely highlighting the fact that this was the main selling point of their “We’re back” email.

My point was that Doyles have come back asking for Affiliate help as if nothing ever happened telling us that

Quote:

DoylesRoom.com US-players that moved to Full Tilt will be allowed to re-access their existing account. The affiliate referral code will remain the same and will continue to track their play.

….it’s like they are doing affiliates a favour and we should all be grateful.
How about bollox!

You need to know here that Full Tilt ACTUALLY offered Doyles the opportunity to track players (that migrated) through their original affiliates rather than directly through Doyles. Naturally this would have meant a reduced commission for Doyles and so they chose not to go down that route and chose not to tell affiliates about it until it was way too late….

So Doyles WERE given the choice to reward the affiliates who had brought them all the traffic in the first place…but they chose to bypass them….and now they want affiliate help again….

RTR

[Anonymous]

Quote:

I am here to discuss Doyles –
Get off your soap box and stick to the thread for once…

Please use this thread to discuss Doyles:

http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/bb/doyles-room-back-in-the-us-market.23209.html?

I am here to discuss rakeback :tongue::wink-wink

[Anonymous]

Karim can’t be held responsible because there are 1000’s of affiliates like him who promote rake back and some of them are sponsored and encouraged by the most favorite affiliate programs in the industry.

Personally, I like Karim. As a matter of fact, there are several rakeback guys I like and will happily hang with when next we meet at a conference. This is definitely not personal, and I appreciate Karim continuing to post.

This is not a witch hunt, I hate those. It’s a discussion of business models. It’s a matter of clashing business models, and a discussion of the state of the poker industry. If it turns into a thread that contains personal attacks, I will bring out the .

Let’s set moral issues aside.

There is a chain of events in the creation of a profitable poker player, and everyone who contributes to the profits made should be paid their share.

The people laying the groundwork, introducing players to online play and educating them about strategies etc, are not being paid for their service.

Players only generate a profit after they become good players. During the aquisition/introduction/training phases they are not generating much revenue.

So unless we find a magic wand that causes babies to be born accomplished in poker and heading for the internet, there is a segment of the industry that does not get paid for the work they do.

I am part of that segment and I resent it, of course.

There could theoretically be a way to handle this fairly without getting rid of rakeback. If the rakeback industry were to aquire players properly from revshare affs, no one would complain.

Problem with that is that the profit margin will become too tight for anyone to be profitable without creating the need for huge player volumes. The other problem is – greed.

If the affiliate sector that is now practically working for free ( I personally barely break even in poker) were to stop supporting poker, the market would crash.

The rakeback industry, and the poker rooms, count on the continued support by affiliates that will never see a profit.

Not a stable foundation for a business, is it now?

[Anonymous]

@Dominique 142375 wrote:

If the affiliate sector that is now practically working for free ( I personally barely break even in poker) were to stop supporting poker, the market would crash.

The rakeback industry, and the poker rooms, count on the continued support by affiliates that will never see a profit.

Well said! Anyone up for a rakeback ban? :popcorn:

And I agree, this is not a personal attack against RTR. But sometimes you have to use names, especially if you want to quote people….

Every time someone says rakeback affiliates steal players the rakeback affiliates say it’s a lie or false accusations.

Well, I decided to mail a rakeback affiliate to prove that I am not wrong.

Quote:

Subject: I have an existing account at Littlewoods. Am I eligible for rakeback
Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2007 12:03:05 +0200

I signed up last year. I really like Littlewoods but my affiliate cant give me rakeback.

Can you help? I rake 1000-3000 every month.

Thanks

Quote:

Hi.no problem!

Thank you for your email. You can get rakeback but you need to open a new
account

Littlewoods (and the other Cryptologic rooms) have no problem with multiple
accounts

Therefore you should uninstall the software and delete your cookies and
internet files

(In your internet browser click Tools>Internet Options> Delete Cookies and
Clear Internet Files)

Then you can visit our page for that room and follow the instructions to
download and create a new account. This should be fine.

Then send your details to us and when you have
started playing there we should be able to confirm your account within 24-48
hours.

The Littlewoods page can be found here URL deleted

I hope that helps? Please feel free to contact us if you have any further
questions.

Kind regards
XXX rakeback

Quote:

Terms and Conditions

2 OUR RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS
2.1 Register your Referrals
The term “Referred User” refers to a user who satisfies the following (i) is a new end user who originates from your web site, e-mail newsletter or other method, (ii) uses the link set up through the LWL Management N.V. site to connect to a property participating in the Affiliate Program and registers with that property, and as a result of registration with the property (iii) opens an ECash Account.

2.2 Track Customers’ Play
We will track the Referred User’s play and will make available periodic reports summarizing their activity. The form, content and frequency of the reports may vary from time to time. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to provide you with remote online access to reports of Referred User activity and the Referral Fees generated. You can get access to such reports through the LWL Management N.V. site at http://www.littlewoodscasino.com

2.3 Referral Fees
You will be entitled to earn fees in respect of Referred Users introduced by you (“Referral Fees”). Referral Fees shall be calculated using the percentage fee method, which is described as a continuous fee derived from the percentage of the monthly Net Win generated from Referred Users (“Percentage Fees”). “Net Win” is defined as the Referred User’s losses from wagering, (less) Referred User’s winnings (deducting incentive deposits).

You shall not earn Referral Fees from Referred Users generated in bad faith, or arising from unauthorized advertising or promotion. In the event that we determine that you have engaged in any form of unauthorized advertising or promotion, or engaged in any unlawful or bad faith activities (regardless of whether you had knowledge of the same), we reserve the right to take various actions including withholding Referral Fees and immediately terminating this Agreement

We have 2 problems here.

1. The rakeback affiliate should not be able to receive commissions, because the players are not new end users. This is a problem the poker rooms must solve. It’s their responsibility!

2. In my opinion this rakeback affiliate has generated users in bad faith. These players should be moved back to the original affiliate!

[Anonymous]

@Casinolisten 142382 wrote:

Well said! Anyone up for a rakeback ban? :popcorn:

And I agree, this is not a personal attack against RTR. But sometimes you have to use names, especially if you want to quote people….

Every time someone says rakeback affiliates steal players the rakeback affiliates say it’s a lie or false accusations.

Well, I decided to mail a rakeback affiliate to prove that I am not wrong.

We have 2 problems here.

1. The rakeback affiliate should not be able to receive commissions, because the players are not new end users. This is a problem the poker rooms must solve. It’s their responsibility!

2. In my opinion this rakeback affiliate has generated users in bad faith. These players should be moved back to the original affiliate!

yes, i agree with you 100% on stuff like this….. that is totally wrong for the rakeback affiliate to tell them its ok for another account to be opened (even if they are tagged to another affiliate).

And yet again, i think this should be monitered by the actual poker rooms or action taken against the affiliate by the poker room if the rakeback affiliate is breaking rules, like the example above.

And to Dom, i believe CPA is still very much active in poker – if you can send a good amount of players, a good cpa is easy.

But even rooms where i send just 5-10 players a month, i get a $200-$250 or so cpa – ***** So i would advise anyone who is on MGR at a room that allows rakeback and feels strongly against rakeback to email them and ask for cpa because they believe there players will get pinched by a rakeback affiliate *****

I promote 15 poker rooms on cpa/mgr, 12 of them im on CPA and the other 3 revshare (i am rev share by choice and can switch to cpa if i wanted at 2 of these rooms) the only room where i dont think i can get a cpa is williamhill (but i have never asked them)

[APCash]

Let’s not beat around the bush Ben, that email is ours :wavey:

I think the problem lies in the use of the word “steal”

IMO (and granted I have been known to be wrong) to “steal” something is to actively and intentionally obtain something that does not belong to you.
To steal a customer would be to actively and intentionally acquire a player who does not belong to you and already has an account at a particular poker room.
This can be done in many ways including but not limited to:
buying rather dodgy email lists and spamming
or soliciting players at live events sponsored by a particular room.

The most common method (and one that you cannot imagine how much I abhor seeing) is hitting on players using chat at the tables. That to me can definitely be classed as stealing a player. There is simply no excuse for that sort of behavior. If an affiliate is ever caught doing that (and I mean directly linked to the offence rather than some other disgruntled third party trying to frame the affiliate) then the affiliate contract should be terminated or suspended for a minimum of 3 months at least. The trouble is they often get off with a warning and then another warning…
Nobody is ever prepared to take serious action except in the case of very small affiliates/individuals where the loss of potential future revenue will not bother the poker room.

We do not actively and intentionally pursue existing active players. We do not use spam – we do not turn up at live events to acquire players – we NEVER chat at the tables about rakeback. We do not “steal” players.

We ALWAYS work within the parameters afforded us by the Poker rooms. And if a poker room tells us not to do something, we don’t. No two ways about it.
We used to offer Party, they asked us to stop, so we did and came up with a different program, the Snowball Freeroll (which they later used as the model for the Monster program –(that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it )
BTW – I cant remember who said Bodog have stopped rakeback earlier in their thread, but that simply isn’t true. They have a “one rule for some, one for another” policy. We don’t offer it but we know people who do
The same is true at so many rooms….if you aren’t on the right team (nudge nudge wink wink)…or don’t have your office in the same building ….then you can’t offer secret rakeback!

Ben – we share more of your opinions/views on how the industry sucks than you would believe – anyone who heard me speak in Amsterdam would know this to be true – but (AFAIK) we do not currently do anything that we aren’t allowed to do

Best regards

RTR

[Anonymous]

I have to wonder if teaching a player how to do a rakeback will eventually lead the the player trying this with casino accounts….I see a domino effect here.

[Anonymous]

Casinos look at it as “incentivised play” and frown on it.

To steal a customer would be to actively and intentionally acquire a player who does not belong to you and already has an account at a particular poker room.

IMO that is what is happening. Answering to queries with instructions of how to dump an existing affiliate does exactly that.

[Anonymous]

The loyalty/retention program of all casinos – online and land based are based on rakeback or cashback or giving away a % of the losses/rake back to the players as bonus or comps. This concept is not new and all casino and poker rooms have their own loyalty programs which are based on this concept.

The advantage of having rake back affiliates in the industry is that they can help a new or not so popular poker room in getting a bunch of high rollers in no time. The downside is that these affiliates have the ability to move their entire player base to another new room when they are not happy with the existing room.

There are smart rake back affiliates who try to steal existing players from the room and get them signed up under their trackers. And amongst these players there would be many players sent by other affiliates. This is the real threat to the non rake back affiliates.

I can see two possible ways to combat this issue. Either work with the rooms who don’t offer rake backs or if they allow rake back, they don’t allow multiple accounts or changing of the affiliate tags or work on a cpa deal with these rooms. Also apart from the fact that you may decide not to work with these rooms at all.

Retaining players and maximizing player value is the poker room’s job and they should be allowed to do it.

=========

Pokeraddict, officially, Party Poker never allowed rake back of any kind. Few skins on the network use to offer rake back and their agreements were terminated due to this reason.

When I said – Rake back affiliates don’t send volume of players to any poker rooms, I meant that they are not capable of generating new depositing players in volumes every month. Most of these affiliates have a captive audience whom they market to and once these members are signed up at a room, the number of new players decreases.

FT is definitely one of the bigger players at the moment. But we are talking of the scenario 3 years back when rake back was introduced. Much has changed since then, more so after the legislation. The industry can be divided into 2 categories of operators – ones who believe in increasing the market base and get new players and second who believe in attracting the existing players from bigger and existing poker rooms by offering them a bit extra. The second category can be and has been benefited by offering rake back.

Hope this clarifies.

[Anonymous]

@RakeTheRake 142390 wrote:

Let’s not beat around the bush Ben, that email is ours :wavey:

I think the problem lies in the use of the word “steal”

IMO (and granted I have been known to be wrong) to “steal” something is to actively and intentionally obtain something that does not belong to you.
To steal a customer would be to actively and intentionally acquire a player who does not belong to you and already has an account at a particular poker room.
This can be done in many ways including but not limited to:
buying rather dodgy email lists and spamming
or soliciting players at live events sponsored by a particular room.

The most common method (and one that you cannot imagine how much I abhor seeing) is hitting on players using chat at the tables. That to me can definitely be classed as stealing a player. There is simply no excuse for that sort of behavior. If an affiliate is ever caught doing that (and I mean directly linked to the offence rather than some other disgruntled third party trying to frame the affiliate) then the affiliate contract should be terminated or suspended for a minimum of 3 months at least. The trouble is they often get off with a warning and then another warning…
Nobody is ever prepared to take serious action except in the case of very small affiliates/individuals where the loss of potential future revenue will not bother the poker room.

We do not actively and intentionally pursue existing active players. We do not use spam – we do not turn up at live events to acquire players – we NEVER chat at the tables about rakeback. We do not “steal” players.

We ALWAYS work within the parameters afforded us by the Poker rooms. And if a poker room tells us not to do something, we don’t. No two ways about it.
We used to offer Party, they asked us to stop, so we did and came up with a different program, the Snowball Freeroll (which they later used as the model for the Monster program –(that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it )
BTW – I cant remember who said Bodog have stopped rakeback earlier in their thread, but that simply isn’t true. They have a “one rule for some, one for another” policy. We don’t offer it but we know people who do
The same is true at so many rooms….if you aren’t on the right team (nudge nudge wink wink)…or don’t have your office in the same building ….then you can’t offer secret rakeback!

Ben – we share more of your opinions/views on how the industry sucks than you would believe – anyone who heard me speak in Amsterdam would know this to be true – but (AFAIK) we do not currently do anything that we aren’t allowed to do

Best regards

RTR

Beautiful words, but in my opinion it’s bullshit.

When you teach players I have already referred to open new accounts on the same poker room its theft. End of story.

Rakeback sites have no content. They don’t bring new players to the industry, because newbie’s don’t know what rakeback is.

I think the anti-rakeback members at CAP should get together and do something about this. Yes we can choose CPA but it won’t change a thing…

BTW I don’t have a problem with rakeback, if it’s handled by the poker room. It can be VIP points, cashback, rakeback or whatever. But I refuse to pay rakeback bonuses out of my commission while the poker room can keep their share. Do we really want a poker affiliate industry where 5-10% commission is standard business?

[Anonymous]

Quote:

Pokeraddict, officially, Party Poker never allowed rake back of any kind.

BW and PSO both had agreements that allowed them to offer Party rakeback openly. They are the ones mentioned in this thread. They are not the only ones but are certainly the biggest.

http://www.casinoaffiliateprograms.com/bb/partypoker-com-update-on-new-release.5798.html?&highlight=rakeback

Perhaps “officially” is the key word. Party has allowed many affiliates to openly offer rakeback there years ago including the ones I have mentioned. I guess allowing and it being official are two different things.

I’m not trying to be a pest, just pointing out that Party has had a different stance on this in the past. Obviously now and for the last 2+ years Party has had a very tough public stance that rb is not allowed.

[Anonymous]

@RakeTheRake 142390 wrote:

We do not actively and intentionally pursue existing active players.

From your site

Quote:

If you already have an existing account with InterPoker, you may still be able to sign up with us for rakeback. Please contact us here for more details.

INTERPOKER SIGN UP INSTRUCTIONS
1. Uninstall the software
Make sure you do not already have the software downloaded – if you do, you need to uninstall it:
(Start > Programs > InterPoker > Uninstall InterPoker)

?!?

Quote:

Ben – we share more of your opinions/views on how the industry sucks than you would believe – anyone who heard me speak in Amsterdam would know this to be true

I heard you speak in Amsterdam. You told us that you only referred one new player to this industry. Your mom.. (or was it the other rakeback affiliate?)

Quote:

We ALWAYS work within the parameters afforded us by the Poker rooms. And if a poker room tells us not to do something, we don’t. No two ways about it.

I would like an affiliate manager to comment on this. Mark from Focal Click mailed me some time ago and told me they don’t allow players to have more than one account and that players can’t be tracked to a new (rakeback) affiliate.

How is this possible when Sun Poker is a part of the Cryptologic Network? :hattip:

[Author]

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