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Ok, Dealer dan, then the thread stays and the topic can hopefully resume.
Hi everyone,
Rakeback is always an emotional subject in the gaming industry, as proven in this thread! I guess some see rakeback as their given right (ie whales/ professionals) whereas others (respected operators) see it as an evil we could all do without.
Forgive me if this seems like a blatant sales pitch (!) but at 32Red we are categorically against rakeback – we do not offer it whatsoever to any of our players and we do not condone any of our affiliate partners who choose to do this – indeed a part of our Ts and Cs when you sign-up as a partner states that to use rakeback as a promotional tool for 32Red Poker is prohibited.
Whilst this may upset the small minority who enjoy rakeback with other operators, we would rather work with our affiliate partners highlighting the USPs and offers we have to welcome players into 32Red Poker (such as good customer service, promotions, loyalty points etc) which we feel far outweighs any rakeback amount.
Thanks for your time and I look forward to the continued debate!
Cheers,
LeeI shall add you to the list of rake back free pokers then.
If I can find it again, that is.
Okay… Thank you all so much! You have given me ALOT to think about! I first started thinking about rakeback, when I started dealing with No1 Poker Room, being a smaller newer aff program.. I was looking for ways to sign up my new players… As you can see by my post in the (I don’t want to say bad
…) “not so proffesional yet” affiliate thread that point is now moot. After No1 1stly didnt come through, I thought offering say a month of rake back, might help bring them back into players good graces.I am still though considering offering rake back to a few of my players.. One in particular, is a HUGE player, I’ve actually watched him play once or twice, and he tends to stick to very low limits (.25-.50 NL ring) Only 1 table at a time as far as I can tell, but my rake from this player is generally around $1000 a month! He prefers two casino’s .. One is mine, one is not.. hence the reason I was looking for a little more incentive to sway him toward playing my casino all the more (yes I realize I call poker rooms casinos .. I’ve tried to retrain myself
)Soo… to be an evil (and in my own opinion.. unfair to my smaller players) and give the guy rake back.. or not? (there are also a few other players that I might consider offering to as well…)
Any other ideas for keeping my guy playing on the sites I promote, and not the ones that I don’t? ( I absolutely despise his choice #2.. not that it matters being that he is already signed there)
Cathy
Hi Lady,
I have or had a huge player just almost ever since MGS opened their poker rooms and like you; I wanted to keep the guy happy. However in my case more because I’m just too dumb to know how to get set up to do a rakeback than anything else ….. I simply would send him some money every once in a while.
However I eventually lost him other than I think he stops in and plays on my account every once in a while. … likely when he’s having bad luck using the rake back account.
rake backs are not so different a situation than what the sod business experienced back in the 80s here in KC. There was an excess of turf sod (which is unusual around here, if anything its the other way) and anyway the competitors began cutting each other’s throat until they were basically working just to meet payroll and that was about it.
There is a loosely based association they all belong to where needless to say some heated debates arose but in the end what i consider the “smart” people were able to make the rest of the bunch listen to reason and realize that all they were doing was hurting each other to the point of bankruptcy.
Had everyone stuck to their guns and NOT went the rakeback route; two or three years from now everyone would be in a hugely better position than they will be now due to this occurance.
Yes some of those who sold out and went rakeback have made their money and then some. But consider what if everybody sold out in such instance? The only reason these rakeback sites are doing as well as they are; is because of the rest of us who are smart enough to see that to enter into this debacle would eventually result in the competition being so tough that you’d be looking at some silly percentage that could feasibly go as low as 1 or 2 percent.
If you think that sounds crazy you’re very wrong. Simply look around and you’ll see its already starting to happen but since many have chosen not to waste their valuable time and resources entering into a race that isn’t going to have a prize that justifies the risk – it is a slower process but one that I think in the end will still have the same sad results.
So yes it is the “God given right” to cut your own and your competition’s throat but is it smart? I think not.
I reward high rollers of any type as soon as they become known to me.
I don’t need to know their rake, just how much income they generate for me.
I do it for casino and bingo players, too. I just wish the pokers, casinos and bingos would do an equally good job with the players I cannot identify.
bb1webs, I totally agree with your assesment of rakeback. In the long run it will not work because they will end up giving all thier profits away. I really like the loyalty bonus system of poker stars. It really has great prizes and they make it known how to get them…(pp is fuzzy in what they offer). I really think more programs need to make loyalty bonus systems that are fair for the player and are reacheable that will negate the pressure for players trying to find something in return which is why they are turning to rakeback. Players are flocking to poker stars not becasue of the rakeback which would be impossible to give because they offer cpa…but because how they treat customers. Btw this looks like a poker stars love fest…but I am just pointing out what they are doing right. They still have yet to get back to me on a player account that should have been tracked to me….with 2 emails and no response its frusturating. But thats from an affiliate standpoint…
I read an email the other day regarding a new loyalty program at Purple Lounge.. Well Okay.. let me rephrase.. I skimmed over an email…
Hehe, anyway I liked what I saw in the 2 seconds I spent on it.. and it is in my ummm should I admit I have one.. “things to get back to folder”
DealerDan wrote:Sorry but this is just plain wrong to single out Party and say that the RNG favours weaker players.I’m with you here. You see more goofiness (good and bad) because of the sheer number of hands you can play compared to a casino table. Not only that, but there will be more bad beats because more people are more willing to play junk when they aren’t sitting close enough for you to reach out and tap them on the shoulder. If you’re playing small money limit games, there are a ton of players that will *never* fold. That’s both online and off. In that case, you’re hardly playing poker anymore and it’s closer to an elongated dice game.
I have struggled with the rakeback issue quite a bit. I think you need to capture some rakeback players or you are turning your back on strong profit potential.
A small % of RB is better then none at all. My freerolls have built many loyal players that won’t shop my % that I give them. Many RB sites have zero overhead and offer their players very little except a good %. I send my players hats, shirts and host added money freerolls. I think LadyHoldem has freerolls so you can use this to explain why you can’t pay the highest %, but a fair one from someone you trust.
I like to use Battlefield and The Sun since they have auto RB and that keeps my paperwork to a minimum. I will do the paperwork and transfers for a good player anywhere also.
IMO, build long term relationships with players that will be loyal to you. Tell them you will raise their % as you grow. Then follow thru with your promise. I like to call my player on the phone, thank them for their biz and work out a deal they like.
Currently I have 1 player that is on RB that out produces 100 other players and I only make 10% on him. Big volume, consistent player that will continue to improve and earn. Would I trade him for the 100 that are non-RB? No, but i’ll have to work deals out with many of those eventually also.
I like Poker RB now. I think good players rarely go broke. They play within their bankroll and move up to bigger games when they improve.
I’m not going to lose them to the hundreds of rakeback sites without a fight. If you are offering them “perks”, hats, shirts, ipods, freerolls you can keep them, offer a smaller % and you and the player will have a nice deal.
Ok, I’m not going to pretend I have all the answers here on the subject. As for myself I’ve avoided anything to do with rakebacks because I didn’t understand it and every time the subject or offers are presented it came with a lot of hype.
However, the truth is it’s not productive to offer rakebacks arbitrarily to all potential players. That’s because not all players deposit or play at stakes high enough to benefit from such offers. As Shark suggested work with those you have already. More importantly try to educate your players if you can. If they’re not going to benefit from a rakeback explain it to them and why. They may not agree with you at first but in time they may thankyou.
What affiliates tell me is when you first start doing rakeback you can expect a sharp drop in income.
It will perform for you only when you do large numbers.
If anyone is ever consider doing rakeback, I would highly recommend that you only use rakeback where it is automatically processed into the persons account at the start of each month by the poker room, with a transaction history stating this.
The reasons for this should be obvious, but:
(1) It kills any chance of a rogue affiliate, as they don’t handle the players finances at all.
(2) It is convenient for everyone.
(3) Less administrative-duties on the affiliates side.
(4) Had a family emergency? Want to go on vacation? Just tired of being an affiliate? With transactions processed via the poker room automatically, then you don’t have to worry about how to handle those rakeback transactions in your absence.
I’m still on the fence in regard to rakeback, as I can see both sides of the argument and both have very good points. However, I think if a poker room is going to allow rakeback, it is imperative that it is something that is handled by the poker room itself, or the software. If JoeBlow signs up at Absolute Poker(just an example) for rakeback, then his affiliate screws him out of $5,000 then Absolute are most probably going to lose this player, while it also brings out bad PR for Absolute.
So if there are any poker room managers out there who allow rakeback, please consider making the rakeback automated throughout the poker room, so that the affiliates, at no point have to handle the players rakeback.
There are a few who do that already, but there are many who don’t, and I think it would be a lot smarter to issue it throughout the poker room.
Dominique wrote:What affiliates tell me is when you first start doing rakeback you can expect a sharp drop in income.It will perform for you only when you do large numbers.
It really depends. There’s a poker room out there who I am affiliated with, who I had one player signed up on, making about $20 in MGR a month. I’d promoted the poker room strongly via various means but there wasn’t a lot of interest.
The manager of the poker room then contacted me about doing rakeback. He had never tried it before, but was interested in it as his site just wasn’t bringing in anyone, despite various attempts. The poker room was a skin on a network BTW.
Anyhoo, 6 months down the road, we’ve got over 300 players there, generating over 100k in MGR a month. And in the first few months with only a few players, we were still making more than we were without the rakeback.
There’s a time and a place for it. Unfortunately, a lot of people don’t realize that and just think rakeback is the be all and end all of being a successful affiliate in this industry. Yet only being around 4 months, if you visit my site the word rakeback is almost considered a forbidden word, yet I’m doing extremely well in regard to monthly revenue, a lot better than I projected at this stage, and a lot of that is from poker rooms….poker rooms where players could get rakeback via another site at. So this is just some evidence that you don’t need to offer rakeback to become successful.
