Poker site rewards/bonuses

[Limey777]

Bob, I'd like to thank you for your time and information. This whole thread has truly been an enlightening, educating experience for me.

I have plenty of buddies (no really) that play online and I know for a fact that not one of them could explain this concept of rakeback to me. It will make for an interesting conversation at our next game.
I totally agree with every statement made in your last post and had fun googling "effective rakeback rate" (It's all coming clear(ish) to me now!) It's not often you'll find me reading articles when there's poker to be played (unless I'm too tilted to play). I guess today was a welcome exception to the rule.

I'd like to get involved in some of the 4king tourneys but as stated, my computer would most likely blow up, I'm nursing it along right now but everyday I get a little closer to a much needed replacement.

So I'd still like to know, which room has the best looking "gear" for styling and profiling when I hit the Casino?

[pirates831]

rakeback >>>>> pokerstars programs.

i get rakeback every 24 hours whenever i play at carbon.

i don't get anything of value at stars. i once got a poker book.

full tilt i got rakeback until they closed my account.

pretty sure i have rakeback at cake or betus, too.

[sos_egg_n]

Bob quick apology for my previous post did it without thought.


Easy way to resolve issues is sites make it clear before you sign up with them about rakeback.

Although they dont care then as you are already signing up. ie-i signed up using code off the net with fulltilt so they know i have a affiliate....surely they also know thay i may not understand what this code means......i used it to confirm my signup bonus which i was entilted to with or without a code. So MY AFFILATE gives me NOTHING and he gets my rakeback. So as far as i am concerned i have been cheated / conned by my affilate.

But also with fulltilt and others this is the obvious nature of affilates in most cases.... as soon as poker sites set up this scheme it can have probs if affiliates are not clear on the situation and it is in a affilates interest to offer nothing back to the player.

ie - i no longer play fulltilt and never will again = they lose.
what i find sick is fulltilt (and i assume other sites) will not tell me who MY AFFILIATE is so i cannot cancel. As an inncoent poker player i did not realise some average jo can make money off the back of me so clearly by a scheme these sites promote.


PS let me make clear this is not the case with rakebackrack.com or Bob here as there site is for that purpose and clearly a player understands rakeback alot more when visiting there site and are entilted to rakeback and as we can see from this thread and previous Bob expains fully and clearly whenever this issue is mentioned.

Rgds

[Limey777]

Although they dont care then as you are already signing up. ie-i signed up using code off the net with fulltilt so they know i have a affiliate....surely they also know thay i may not understand what this code means......i used it to confirm my signup bonus which i was entilted to with or without a code. So MY AFFILATE gives me NOTHING and he gets my rakeback. So as far as i am concerned i have been cheated / conned by my affilate.

Hello, me again. I'm intrigued and confused again. I don't understand how you could sign up using an affiliates code and not know who they are. I'm not trying to be a smart*** I'm just trying to educate myself on the pitfalls of playing online poker. If somebody could elaborate on this apparent scam it would be greatly appreciated. Is this a common occurrence?

[scrawnybob]

hi

Quote i used it to confirm my signup bonus which i was entilted to with or without a code. So MY AFFILATE gives me NOTHING and he gets my rakeback. So as far as i am concerned i have been cheated / conned by my affilate.

rake is NOT the players & rakeback is NOT a right

and affiliates who dont offer rakeback have NOT ripped off players

its like saying amazon has ripped a customer off because they find the same thing cheaper at macro a year later ... no body has a crystal ball and people cant expect to get wholesale prices if they want to shop in the high street

Affiliate have offered bonuses etc all in good faith at the time - then the rules change or options open or rakeback comes along .... its really is NOT as simple a players like to make out or as much of a right as players seem to think

I dont offer rakeback on Fulltilt - that doesnt mean Ive ripped anyone off

rakeback is NOT something players are entitled to or something affiliates have kept back

if players sign direct to a site - they dont get rakeback

only through an affiliate -

some affiliates choose to earn next to nothing and offer rakeback - but equally have sites which have near zero content - low costs / low on content

some choose to spend alot of time and money building sites with resources instead of offering rakeback (or end up offering it even if they think its bad idea)

websites dont run themselves for free - and effectively affiliates are getting paid for performance related advertising - IMHO NO affiliates should feel they should have to give up any of their pay (for their work) ... rakeback got invented by affiliates to try to scalp other affiliates and offering more and more "incentive" than the next guy

either way if a player doesnt know about rakeback but signs up to a site via an affiliate to get a better than or equal to the standard bonus then they have NOT got ripped off -

they have got an equal or better bonus than they would have done - and they wouldnt have been offer rakeback by the site in the first place (because the sites dont want to give players 30% of their money)

HOWEVER FullTilt dealing with them allowing Rakeback is a mess

the biggest problem is that even if an affiliate is prepared to iffer rakeback - fulltilt wont move signups over retrospectively to stay with that affiliate - its not even an option for affiliates to try to give RB to their old signups ... also as you point out fulltilt wont tell players which affiliate they are with - again this makes things more complicated

its a totally mess - and then results in rakeback affiliates scalping players from others and players encouraged or deciding themselves to try setting up duplicate accounted etc etc ... again this is why I dont like rakeback at all

rakeback or VIP rewards or however its better named should be handled by the rooms themselves only on a teired basis - and those costs factored into their own profits and maybe be some adjustment in how rooms decide to renumberate its advertisers / marketing channels

Rakeback hasnt always been around / wasnt so widespread

bear in mind there will be players who signed up to sites where rakeback wasnt an option / or even allowed to be offered by affiliates ... then it becomes an option ... the affiliate hasnt cheated anyone in that case

it wasnt so long ago that affiliates were NOT meant to offer FT rakeback ... other sites have only recently offered it managed in house for those affiliates prepared to take a big hit to part fund it

for players who understand rakeback and are prepared to jump through all the hoops and signup correctly via an affiliate offering rakeback at a new site then they can get rakeback ... however players need to be thorough and having to deal with rakeback problems again is more time and cost to the affiliates

anyway the subject and players views on rakeback as a "right" gets me properly wound up so I wont post anymore

cheers scrawnybob

[Limey777]

anyway the subject and players views on rakeback as a "right" gets me properly wound up so I wont post anymore

Sorry to hear that Bob, I've found this to be one of the most informative threads I've ever read. I'm trying to handle this with kid gloves because I sensing some aggravation but your honesty on this matter is what I would call a rare quality. It's not too often I read a post and feel a sense of profit but your thorough explanations are a pleasure to read.

[Limey777]

Well, good news to report on the Pokerstars VIP store!
Did a little snooping and apparently they will be restocking the shelves and bringing in some new items for 2010.
All supposed to be happening late Feb, early March

[Limey777]

Oh joy.
The new items are here, I can hardly contain myself. There's a new hoodie and T-Shirt both have a simlar plastic looking tacky logo on them. I'll pass.
There's a new zip up jacket though, FOR 8500FPP's
Based on my calculations that $85, I'll pass
Saving the best for last, the Pokerstars Corduroy Beret. Especially designed for all the min betters, min raisers and short-stackers. May as well look ghey while they play ghey.

Limey777 is slightly disappointed.

[scrawnybob]

hi

sorry re-reading some of the post Ive missed one of your questions ...

you mentioned "how could someone pick up an affiliate without knowing who the affiliate was" I think

banners and tracked links to the poker rooms are on ALL poker content sites ... once you have clicked on one (even accidently) you are tracked to whichever site first let you know about the existence of xyz site ... some sites are sneaky and put these tracked links everywhere (eg. where you think you will get to a review of xyz it actually goes direct to the site) ... then you are tracked to that lazy affiliate

4kingpoker's links go where you expect ... xyz review goes to a review, visit or download xyz room will go to the site, generally the tracked links are only in our xyz site banners or links that are obviously going to take you to the poker room.

basically 90% of people playing poker are NOT in forums, are NOT interested in getting rakeback, probably dont even deposit the maximum to make the most of a 1st deposit bonus ...

they dont shop around much and basically want to know if a site is safe and want to know they get at least the standard bonus if they use the link in the review they have just read

there isnt some great conspiracy - its just that most people arent that bothered - like buying a coffee at the place that is most convient and decent rather than shopping around to find the cheapest even if its a mile from where they were going

thinking about it that coffee analogy is maybe good to use ...

because in poker most people are also just playing for coffee money, or maybe the sort of price of a decent meal ... they are not playing $2000 TV or new car type money ... therefore for most people rakeback while it might be the "best deal" isnt really something you really worry about for coffee or where you have a meal ... rakeback is for big TV and new car type decisions

the old sytem of tracking is still used by the vast majority of rooms - however times have changed and it seems alot of affiliates seem to view it that if they dont like it and its not working for them - they can & will ignore that and make things work the way they want rather than the way things sort of still are ...

I personally would rather things get sorted so affiliates dont have anything to do with rakeback, the rooms handle it internally and we can get on with what we should do again like it used to be

everyone used to follow the same system so it all evened out in the mix - unfortunately once a few defy the system everyone else jumps onboard and it becomes the mess it has for both players and poker content sites

because of the way (originally correctly) that poker rooms track who has brought / developed / encouraged / recommended a player to a room ... it was tracked as the first affilaite link that a player clicked through gets the commission / credit for that player

this was (and really should still be the most logical site to credit) effectively the first site that exposed a player to xyz brand or suggested xyz was a good site / bonus etc etc

it was all about the affiliate being protected from other affiliates wrongly scalping a player but actually offering the same or similar offer ... so nothing to do with what the player got

this meant affiliates could concentrate on the important things - providing information / content / tournaments / community because it wasnt encouraged for other affiliates to steal from each others hard work

rakeback has changed that - because the money and the effort have got separated - big and small rakeback affiliates now give all the complicated but neccessary delete cookie instructions to be sure they signup a player and not the original site who will probably invested alot more time informing the player about xyz site ... from a player (who will shop around to find the "best deal") pov this also makes sense as they want to be tracked to the affiliate who is setup to pay their rakeback

with rakeback all this becomes difficult because suddenly players "need" to be tracked to the last person / the RB affiliate who didnt introduce the brand but is offering the "best deal" however after the other sites may have invested alot of time & money into reassuring player that xyz is a good choice ... think of the reviews / info / tournaments hosted at that site / cross reference info from other players in the forum etc etc

It is at some conent sites easy to become accidently tracked because of ambiguous links as explained earlier

most players to be honest are not prepared to do all that is required to be 99% sure to be tracked for rakeback ... Rakeback creates a whole gamut of problems for sites because you either join in with the grey area of doing it the same way everyone else does or you end up with a nightmare of admin where players decide they want rakeback but dont put the effort in to signup "correctly" and make sure they havent "accidently" got tracked to someone they didnt want to be tracked to

this is the fundamental problem - tracking was originally nothing to do with player control or players deciding who they were tracked to ... it was about poker rooms protecting all the affiliates from each other ... it was a B2B mechanism ... not a customer choice mechanism

at the moment its trying to make one sytem work effectively for too many variables / problems

one of the single biggest problems is that alot of sites cant / wont help move players from normal signup to rakeback under the same affiliate - some will, some wont, some will let you offering it "going forward for only new signups" ...

any solution that doesnt allow all affiliates to look after their good players is poor and most in this respect are poor ... so in many many cases the orginal affiliates WANT to look after their players but because of the excentric why the rooms work that becomes not possible - crazy crazy crazy

the rooms really need to do something about it but I doubt they will ...

over the long term I actually think rakeback will become a thing of the past - and being able to provide rakeback will get abolished - if that happens because they take VIP rewards internally then great but I actually think over the long term sites will just cut their acquasistion costs so much that rakeback at the current levels wont be able to be provided

this is ended up a very long post - but essentially poker content sites now need to be more concerned about protecting themselves and "closing the deal" than about getting on with providing good content and added value which IMHO is a shame

but there hopefully is more of an answer

cheers scrawnybob

[sos_egg_n]

Bob, apologies again as i see i have hit a nerve but i will add this


This is strange logic pokerstars do not allow rakeback to there players as far as i am aware but i assume they still have affilates who take a percentage(correct me if wrong)

As i have no way of claiming rakeback this does not in anyway frustrate or bother me. This would also be the same if NO affilate offered rakeback i cannot get it so how can i get frustrated about it. BUT when i find out i could claim it via other affiliates but i cannot because i have signed up via some guy/girl who has just plastered fulltilts name on the net somewhere i feel as though the only way i or any other player in that spot has left to feel is frustrated.


How many people do u think having never played online poker... play it as a result of seeing a solitary logo on a website that has nothing to do with poker as opposed to people who already have it in mind to play ie your site is poker related and you personally set up leagues hence directly attracting players to poker sites they may not of joined up with otherwise so u directly offer a service to both the player and the sites they join and clearly make alot of effort.


In my case my affiliate did not supply anything to neither me or fulltilt i was joining anyway so did this person deserve 1000 dollars for that?? No either way it would cost me the same but fulltilt offer me a service so i expect to pay them for this so not left feeling mugged off....Mr x on the other hand has not earned that in anyway.

I recall u made a reference to buying an item of clothing then trying to get your money back when it is discounted.....in this case it would be like me buying a jumper from Burtons (nothing to striking just smart casual so can use for certain nights initially then when ive had it fpr a while its becomes more for day use ie work) Then i see it discounted when i say can u refund the difference they say NO we have already given it to somebody else........As opposed to NO of course u or any1 else for that matter cannot claim any money back.


I agree rakeback should not be a players right and this would remain the case if affiliates did not offer players rakeback but as the selfish ones do thats where as a player can see i have missed out.

Rgds