Rogue Poker Affiliates - Response to Jetset in Other Thread

[jetset]

QUOTE:I do not see the difference between spending your affiliate revenue on traditional advertising and promotion to bring in new players and spending it on (your players). Rakeback is just another marketing tool, just like PPC advertising.UNQUOTE

Cash Mirrors makes a good point imo - the affiliate is managing a business and provided he or she acts in a professional and honest way with his players, where's the harm? Unless the poker sites would rather affiliates brought in streams of newbies instead of retaining their loyal players?

But I think the original point of this thread revolved around rogue affiliates abusing rather than legitimately using the rakeback system ie screwing players over after making promises of a share of the commission.

I believe Pokeraddict's point on CRM is well made, too - there seems to be an unfortunate correlation between company size and dumbass customer treatment, but that applies often on the casino side too!

[swampwitch]

OK, we have somewhat of a consensus that rakeback, if done honestly and without stealing other's players, isn't a bad thing. Mostly.
So...question. What is the difference between rakeback by poker affiliates, and kickbacks to players by CASINO affiliates? I seem to recall the boards all lit up with allegations against two affiliates at the mere suggestion that they had done this.
Why is one bad, and the other "a good marketing tool"?

[mary]

I think on the poker side it's well known that the number of players any site has is extremely important, so there's more of a willingness to pay players to play (that's certainly true in the land industry, where there are "proposition players")

Players don't add to the value of a casino the same way they do a poker room nor do players see how their money is extracted from them, plus the house assumes more risk in terms of fluctuation. It's tradition that the house take care of offering rebates to players in terms of comps and promotions; the house has better information about which players deserve such benefits through player loyalty programs.

The growth of rake-back programs on the poker side is educating players on how the whole affiliate marketing system works and may create acceptance of similar programs for casino players along the lines of a player's club arrangement.

[pokeraddict]

(that's certainly true in the land industry, where there are "proposition players")

There are prop players online too. I have been one and I would bet there are 1000-2000 of them. Actually there are more jobs then players willing to fill them. A prop player would usually get 100% rakeback and most times paid directly from the poker room into their account, of course they dont have the freedoms either. They have to play short handed and help start games.

Casino rakeback would probably not be as easy to figure out. If you were to sign up 10 players, 9 lose and one hits a jackpot then you are in the negative but then you have 9 players wanting to get paid their rakeback right? So now this one player is negative $5000 while the other 9 are combined the other way. Your jackpot player would never come back if he had to work himself out of a $5000 winning hole to get a kickback. In poker the most a player would ever get in the hole is $100 or so from bonuses, unless the player only played during bonus times and then rakeback is worthless to him anyway unless the poker room did not deduct bonuses from MGR.

[mary]

Yep. house-banked casino games wouldn't be paid on actual win/loss. Slot clubs rate players based on their action and ignore the outcomes for just that reason.

A casino player who just won $5k on a slot machine is more likely to return to that casino/machine because they were lucky. Introducing a rakeback model would counteract that effect.

For a casino affiliate to offer casino players a loyalty club based on total action, the affiliate would need information from the casino about that player's betting history on an ongoing basis and I don't see that happening any time soon.

[cashmirrors]

The multiple accounts by one player (whether using variants of their own details, or "gnomes", IS a serious problem (since it is often done to abuse signup bonuses from the rooms, and "gifts" from affiliates).

IMO this is the opposite of rakeback (which rewards staying on one account in one room) as it encourages "whoring" one's play around multiple rooms (even if the player does not try and cheat, multiple room play is bad for the poker sites.

Rakeback creates loyal players. Why the hell is this a problem?

I think the reason some affiliates have a problem with rakeback is

1) They don't understand it.
2) Some unscrupulous rakeback providers are encouraging people to shot down accounts and reopen them under a rakeback agreement. This is player poaching, pure and simple.
3) It means that non-rakeback affiliates are basically dead in the water for the business of the 8 table 6 hours a day winning players who are a dream in terms of the rake they produce.

I think Poker rooms have a problem with rakeback because:
1) They don't understand it (although ironically, many of the casino-based rooms are the most friendly towards it - maybe because it resembles a comp program.
2) It encourages player poaching between affiliates (the rooms are only really worried about players moving from CPA signups to rev share, for obvious reasons, although the squeals of big non-rakeback affiliates might influence the affliate managers' views a little).
3) It encourages honest players to move to (other) skins (rather than create duplicate or gnome accounts).


I would think that if rakeback was brought into the fold as much as possible, all of these problems could be greatly reduced. But that won't happen because people are greedy and stupid.

[swampwitch]

For a casino affiliate to offer casino players a loyalty club based on total action, the affiliate would need information from the casino about that player's betting history on an ongoing basis and I don't see that happening any time soon.

Good point. I for one wouldn't be comfortable having that kind of information about my casino sign-ups, nor would I be comfortable doing business with a casino that would provide that information to me.

[mary]

Well, once players are aware of rakeback programs, they will "self poach" in the sense that they'll want to change their player account over to the affiliate that provides rakeback. They don't have to be recruited specifically at the table, they'll figure it out and shop around. Especially poker players.

I agree that a blanket ban is not going to work, because it's so easy on the Internet for affiliates who want to to get around such a ban.

The poker room has no incentive to keep players loyal to specific affiliates. If a player approaches the poker room and says, "Hey, I want to close this account and open a new one with you through another affiliate for the rakeback." why wouldn't the poker room comply? To refuse is to risk losing that player to another site entirely or to have the player attempt to create a second account, get signup bonuses, and create hassles down the line.

I see the whole "lifetime of player percentage" model under attack.

[cashmirrors]

I doubt self poaching will be a huge issue - there's a built in cap to what the rakeback afilliates can offer, so there will come a point where there's just no sense in switching. Once you get rakeback set up there's no incentive to swtich affiliates for the same room, and less incentive to look for other rooms to play at.

I see the gift for signup (CPA abuse) as more of an issue worthy of attention.

[dominique]

The poker room has no incentive to keep players loyal to specific affiliates.

No online gambling institution allows multiple accounts for obvious reasons - to prevent fraud.

All online gambling institutions will try to keep the player in their own site - so there is all the motivation in the world to keep players where they are - and that means with the original affiliate.

For a casino affiliate to offer casino players a loyalty club based on total action, the affiliate would need information from the casino about that player's betting history on an ongoing basis and I don't see that happening any time soon.

Rewarding high rollers is easy - they tend yo be obvious in your account. Unfortunately most high rollers are not aware that they could be spoiled by both parties - the affiliate and the casino/poker/bingo. They should be contacting the affiliate they like to go through.

Otherwise, screenshots of depositing plus a screenshot of play will pretty much suffice.

Some programs do let you track players - not by real name of course.