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Is
rakeback suffocating the online poker industry ?
With
online poker rooms making moves lately to reward affiliates for sending
in fish, rather than winning players, one can’t help but wonder: is this
a new way to combat the various
rakeback related
promotions that are currently being used to recruit players and which
reward those players who generate the most poker rake (winning players)?
The answer is definitely yes. Currently, affiliate websites
(among them rake back ones) are best rewarded for players who generate
the most rake. Despite the fact that most affiliate schemes feature APC
setups as well, affiliates usually opt for the revshare option which has
the potential of generating much more money in the long-run, by
rewarding the player and the affiliate for the generated rake.
Where does that leave the poker room? The bottom line is that in order
for a player to win big, several other players have to lose, so for each
and every one of these winners there have to be several fish in the
background.
The question here is: does being a big raker
equal being a big winner too? One can theoretically generate tons of
rake and break even at the end of the day. One can also lose money while
generating tons of poker rake, so I don’t quite see the parallel here…
With that in mind, is there really a reason for anyone to hate those
rooms which offer rakeback and to point the finger of accusation to them
for allegedly ruining the profit margins in the industry? Well, yes and
no. On one hand, rakeback programs do not reward winners. They reward
big rakers, who can just as well be break even or losing players. The
fish factor is not hurt there. On the other hand,
rakeback deals do bite into
the profit margins of everyone in the industry because of the
outstanding advantages they offer for players. A deal like the
Full
Tilt rakeback one which offers players a 27% rake rebate, will
definitely attract players from pretty much all the other rakeback-less
rooms, especially when it comes coupled with Full Tilt like traffic,
software and a bunch of outstanding promotions.
So is
rakeback here to stay? By the current looks of things I’d say it
definitely is. The fact alone that an industry leader like Full Tilt
poker keeps pushing it, offers it legitimacy and a right to exist.
Poker rooms and networks can forbid rake rebate and cashback deals on
their own turfs, but this doesn’t change the fact that sign-up bonuses
(and pretty much all other types of bonuses too) are rakeback deals too,
albeit limited ones.
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