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- Jan 14, 2008
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- 63,469
We first got a hint of the Revolution strategy when Cake Poker announced it would boost its top rakeback rate from 33% to 36%.
To counter this and to compensate for the loss of former skin Lock Poker, the Merge Gaming Network has announced it will reinstate its own 35% rakeback scheme,
exactly one year after it folded its rakeback program. Back to the future? Maybe social gamers Zynga aren’t the only poker company out there that’s considered “creatively bankrupt?”
Perhaps that’s unfair. After all, Merge is planning to introduce a redesigned lobby next month, which will soon be teeming with hundreds of players all refusing to play each other because they’re not obvious fish.
At the risk of stating the obvious, rakeback is designed to appeal to a specific type of poker player: the multi-table grinder who generates lots of rake.
The short-term benefits these (generally) winning players provide poker rooms are ultimately negated by the fact that these are net-withdrawing players who prey upon net-depositing players.
This latter group is the lifeblood of the poker ecosystem, a steady resupply of which is required to sustain this business. Yet smallish poker rooms still view the net-withdrawers as their prize pigs,
and are prepared to go to great lengths to attract and hold these players rather than encourage new players that the water in the pool is warm and inviting.
A common refrain uttered by actors and musicians who have made it big is that they suddenly no longer have to pay for anything. When they were starving artists and could have used some help,
they had to pay for goods and services like everybody else. But now that they can easily afford to pay their own way, companies are bending over backward to give them stuff (and to be seen to be giving them stuff).
The money that rakeback-friendly poker rooms kick back to winning players is money that can’t be used on promotions designed to attract the ‘right’ type of player (net-depositing).
It also depletes these companies’ R&D budgets (assuming they have heard of such a beast), ensuring the innovation stagnation that currently plagues the industry.
CalvinAyre.com
To counter this and to compensate for the loss of former skin Lock Poker, the Merge Gaming Network has announced it will reinstate its own 35% rakeback scheme,
exactly one year after it folded its rakeback program. Back to the future? Maybe social gamers Zynga aren’t the only poker company out there that’s considered “creatively bankrupt?”
Perhaps that’s unfair. After all, Merge is planning to introduce a redesigned lobby next month, which will soon be teeming with hundreds of players all refusing to play each other because they’re not obvious fish.
At the risk of stating the obvious, rakeback is designed to appeal to a specific type of poker player: the multi-table grinder who generates lots of rake.
The short-term benefits these (generally) winning players provide poker rooms are ultimately negated by the fact that these are net-withdrawing players who prey upon net-depositing players.
This latter group is the lifeblood of the poker ecosystem, a steady resupply of which is required to sustain this business. Yet smallish poker rooms still view the net-withdrawers as their prize pigs,
and are prepared to go to great lengths to attract and hold these players rather than encourage new players that the water in the pool is warm and inviting.
A common refrain uttered by actors and musicians who have made it big is that they suddenly no longer have to pay for anything. When they were starving artists and could have used some help,
they had to pay for goods and services like everybody else. But now that they can easily afford to pay their own way, companies are bending over backward to give them stuff (and to be seen to be giving them stuff).
The money that rakeback-friendly poker rooms kick back to winning players is money that can’t be used on promotions designed to attract the ‘right’ type of player (net-depositing).
It also depletes these companies’ R&D budgets (assuming they have heard of such a beast), ensuring the innovation stagnation that currently plagues the industry.
CalvinAyre.com