Rogue Poker Affiliates - Response to Jetset in Other Thread

[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.

 

[mary]

I guess I'm not being clear enough.

I'm Joe Poker Player. I sign up through a non-rakeback affiliate (I don't even know I'm doing it, of course).

Then I find out about rake-back, so I want to sign up through the rake-back site.

I contact the casino and tell them exactly what I want to do. I tell the casino/pokerroom that I'm not interested in having multiple accounts, and I don't want a new sign-up bonus, I just want to be able to be in a rake-back program.

I also tell the casino/cardroom that if they don't cooperate, I'll sign up through the rake-back affiliate at another casino/cardroom entirely.

So, at this point, the casino/cardroom can a.) facilitate my cooperative signoff/sign on, b.) lose me as a customer or c.) play spy games with me because I'm going to go clone myself anyway.

Why wouldn't the casino/card room do what it takes to keep me as a customer? After all, the non-rakeback affiliate won't know. There's no benefit to the casino/card room to enforce player loyalty to specific affiliates. I, the customer, am initiating the change. It's a violation of the affiliate/cardroom relationship (and possibly the contract, depends), but if the affiliate never finds out, what's to stop the cardroom?

Basically, from a marketing standpoint, offering rake back is a huge advantage. It's easy for players to understand. It certainly makes them aware of a portal site and loyal to it. It allows the portal operator to do whale targeting beyond the rake back percentage because the system is all set up to give play information to portals already.

The problem is that once it gets going, there will be a "race to the bottom" as rake-back % increase in a bidding war for players. Then there will be the inevitable frauds and folds--much like the % bidding war + zeroing out of negative balances is now crashing from a similar race for affiliates.

 

[dominique]

The poker room likes to keep the status quo. It makes no sense for the room to shuffle affiliates - its just a headache. Everyone complains and the original affiliate who had the skill to attract the player in the first place will drop the poker room like a hot potato if the room doesn't prove the ability for good retention. There are plenty of rooms that either do not tolerate formal rakeback or that pay it themselves. There are also poker rooms that tolerate it but will not support it. Very few actually facilitate it. Affiliates have no reason to put up with dishonest poker room operators, if they don't get paid for the players they send because the room steals them out of an account, it's easy enough to just promote a different room. There is a new poker room born almost every day.

This player you describe would be a lot better off to just go back to the place where he clicked on the link and tell his/her affiliate they want rakeback. If they are the type player that profits from it, they will likely get it and then some - extra care and tips and personal attention etc. I spoil my bigger players rotten when they identify themselves to me.

Rakeback is just a new name for an old game. All industries reward good customers. Casinos, Pokers, Bingos and their affiliates are no different. It's been done for years. Its just always been up to the player to ask.

 

[mary]

Ah, but then we run into a logic problem: the affiliate that offers rakeback when approached by the player is an affiliate offering rakeback.

If an affiliate is willing to offer rakeback, wouldn't it make more sense to inform all their players that is the case and so get the marketing and retention benefit of offering rakeback? Instead of taking the risk of having players lured away?

I don't think it would occur to many players to ask for rakeback. I'm not sure most players have any clue as to what affiliate "owns" them; they visited a site and clicked on a banner. Sites that offer promotional programs in their own identity (Gone Gambling leaps to mind here as does Casinomeister) have such a relationship with their players, but Winner Online (for example) probably doesn't.

I agree that an affiliate that is sending large numbers of players to a poker room might have the leverage to make the poker room behave. Smaller affiliates might not and the poker room might just go ahead and allow the player to do what the player wants to do, switch, so that the poker room keeps the player.

Again, it's a problem of conflict built into the model. Affiliates have to keep running to stay in place; the work they've done in the past doesn't guarantee their place in casino's hearts. They have to demonstrate an ability to continue to send new players. If a competitor is also impairing that ability (through the marketing advantage of rakebacks for example) the affiliate has no leverage.

Do casinos/card rooms even have language in their T&C's to address the issue of player initiated affiliate jumping? If not, it's worth getting a statement out of them.

I don't think a cardroom administered rakeback program makes any sense at all. Why not just advertise a lower rake and save a lot of hassle? Unless it is a tiered structure thing (rakeback % if you play over four hours a week) or a psuedo affiliate deal (rakeback if you bring in five new players a week).

 

[Freudian]

This player you describe would be a lot better off to just go back to the place where he clicked on the link and tell his/her affiliate they want rakeback. If they are the type player that profits from it, they will likely get it and then some - extra care and tips and personal attention etc. I spoil my bigger players rotten when they identify themselves to me.

Rakeback is just a new name for an old game. All industries reward good customers. Casinos, Pokers, Bingos and their affiliates are no different. It's been done for years. Its just always been up to the player to ask.

If I had signed up to Party and came to you, you wouldn't be able to give me compensation. Why? Because the complaining affiliates at CAP killed individual trackers at Party. So you would have no way of knowing if I am a good customer or not.

 

[mary]

Dom did suggest that players submit screenshots.

But oy, then the new forging of screenshots industry would be born...

 

[cashmirrors]

If I had signed up to Party and came to you, you wouldn't be able to give me compensation. Why? Because the complaining affiliates at CAP killed individual trackers at Party. So you would have no way of knowing if I am a good customer or not.

Oh well, I guess we should all forget about rakeback then so the affiliates can get bigger profits. /sarcasm

Ironically, more and more of my income is coming from being an affiliate these days, but I'm still a player at heart.


Dominique - if rakeback is "just new name for an old game", why do you, and the rest of CAP hate it so much? I'm not just trying to be smarky here, I genuinely do not understand the opposition to it.


Mary - rooms can work with rakeback affiliates without offering it to everyone. I believe some of the Prima skins are actually automated - instead of sending all the monthly commission to the affiliate, they deposit the player's share in their account IF they know it's a rakeback deal. But they don't just give it to everyone who signs up, only through rakeback affiliates. I could be wrong though (I don't offer rakeback, or play at those Prima skins)

 

[mary]

I think I know why Dom (and other affs) oppose rakeback programs.

There were affiliates who tried it in casino land--they'd sign up players on a CPA program and promise a kickback to their players. As far as I know, no portal has sustained that system; not sure why. Maybe they were all too flakey. Maybe the bookkeeping involved and the difficulty of proving just which players signed up where made it impractical.

Most likely the kind of players who find kickback casino programs and use them are really bad casino customers -- too canny, hence ultimately unprofitable for the affiliate. (Poker players on the other hand would not be bad this way in a rakeback situation)

The problem with rakeback is that affiliates can get into bidding wars to acquire players. This would have the effect of driving down all affiliates' income; I think it's quite logical for them to oppose that.

Atlantic City land casinos had that problem and it happens in other industries too. Getting into a bidding war to buy customers can be just as much work as acquiring customers by other means (providing services and content) yet it lowers one's return for that work.

Were such bidding wars to open of course we'd see players "self- poaching" chasing higher rakeback rates and a thriving "educating poker players on how to shop and how to migrate" portal sector--much as there are many, many sites on bonus hunting today.

I don't have a solution. I don't think the system of portal operators rewarding the players who know enough to ask is a good system either (though it has worked in the land industry for years). That has the potential of making loyal players really, really angry if they find out that somebody else got a sweet deal for being a squeaky wheel that was not offered to everybody. It's just unfair.

So:

*a situation in which rakeback is expressly prohibited by all cardrooms is open to abuse by secret deals; encourages players to create multiple accounts; opens the door to players getting creative and forging deposit information.

*a situation in which rakeback is permitted by some and prohibited by others is open to abuse by secret deals, multiple accounts, forgery and could create a "race to the bottom" for earnings

*a situation in which rackback is an industry standard practice could create a "race to the bottom" in earnings and some movement on the part of players chasing ever higher rakeback rates.

This is predicated on the "percentage of lifetime player value" model. Were the cardroom and affiliates to go to a one-time "headhunters fee" per player, then the rakeback problem is solely the cardoom's and not the affiliates anymore.

The problem with that model is that then the affiliates have incentive to keep moving players around as new signups. The card rooms wouldn't like that, but at least it would shift some of the power into the affiliates' favor.

 

[cashmirrors]

I got some casino CPA kickbacks back in the day, but only from friends. The problem with applying casino logic to poker (as many sites and affiliates do) is that poker is not played against the house.

There are a lot of rakeback providers right now, and they all offer fairly standard %ages for the same rooms. Pokeraddict would be more knoweldgeable than me, but I think there's not a lot of room for price competition between the rate the affiliates pay out.

Rakeback does NOT create multiple accounts.

If a player is too lazy to close his accounts before opening new ones then technically, yes, but they only play on the one they get rakeack from. Signup bonus abuse creates multiple accounts.

I think it's part of a player's lifecycle. They start off as an idiot at an affiliate website. Then they become a winning player, start talking to other winning players and discover just how valuable they are. It's only natural that they want to get their fair share of this money.

The Poker champs system actually has a lot going for it (everyone gets rakeback through the room, rates go up the more hands you play). However, I don't know how recreational players view this.

 

[dominique]

The Poker champs system actually has a lot going for it (everyone gets rakeback through the room, rates go up the more hands you play). However, I don't know how recreational players view this.

Superior Poker does this too, but rake back kicks in after you reach a certain level. You still get the bonuses, too.

 

[cashmirrors]

Who are superior with? If it's a decent network, I might have to look into that.

It can be a nice system.

 

[dominique]

They are with LVFH, aff program is SharetheRake.