ridiculous policy

[Shogun112]

I disagree with Dewi.  If I was running on an ipoker skin, like Blonde Poker for example, and I had my account frozen in any way, they just lost my business for sure, and, I would not go to any related sites, for example, BetFred, BlueSqu, Titan etc.  I am out of there to a site that is reputable...  WHy would I give iPoker the benefit of my business..  At the end of the day, we are customers, and we have a choice...

I agree with Ger...  If 100 players play a £100 tournament, there is a £10 juice per player...  £10,000 goes into a payout pool....   £1,000 goes to the skin....  Who cares who wins....  The skin juice does not change...  Sililarly for cash games... Rake per hour or rake per hand, who cares who wins or loses...  If a select number of players are winning big, then the skin juice is constant, the skin cant lose in that method...  where the skin CAN lose, is if iPoker want more monthle fees than the skin has earnt...  Either way, does not matter who wins, because the skin juice will be the same...!!

What I see here is iPoker (or somebody else) has millions in their accts, being monies that we leave in our own individual accounts, for us to play, probably making millions in interest...  If I win a decent amount next week and withdraw so that I can go buy myself something nice, then that pot of money that is being held by ipoker, is not gonna generate the same interest that it did last month.....  or.... Are they doing like insurance companies and banks are doing, and investing the monies somewhere, and by people removing large sums of monies, causing them a cashflow problem?

All said and done, am I going to go near ipoker, and unfortunately that includes the very nice sponsors of APAT, I do not think so until they start to treat customers like customers and convince me that if I suddenly have a decent win, I can actually have my money..!!

Carl..

[noble1]

 PLAYTECH POKER boss Danny Frishman has entered the rakeback debate that has taken place on EGRmagazine.com, saying that giving players linear percentages is "killing the industry" and that banning the controversial retention model has played a key role in the growth of the company's iPoker network.

Speaking to EGRmagazine.com this week, Frishman explained why Playtech decided to completely ban rakeback rather than capping and policing it as many other networks do.

"Giving players linear percentages from the rake they are generating creates a price war, reduces the bottom line to a minimum and does not incentivise loyalty. It is killing the industry by taking money from developing better platforms and promotion," he said.

"Our card rooms now focus more on recruitment of new players to grow the overall liquidity instead of circulating players between the different card rooms in iPoker, and we have players that are more loyal."

Responding to views aired by Karim Wilkins of RakeTheRake that the number of skins given out by networks made rakeback and its effects hard to police, Frishman said all new licensees are made aware of the policy and that the network ban is rigorously policed. "If someone does not comply, we do not hesitate in cutting to the policy to make sure they comply in future," Frishman said.

Wilkins' comments followed William Hill Online COO Peter Marcus' rallying call to poker operators on rakeback earlier this month, when Marcus told operators to "get together and be strict" on preventing affiliates and poker skins offering it.

Frishman continued that a further factor in the strong growth of iPoker was the number of sportsbooks on the network, including Bet365, Paddy Power and William Hill. "They bring in massive traffic of new, depositing recreational players. It gives us a big advantage over other networks. They are very good for the network ecology," he said

Playtech's head of poker also defended the affiliate lifetime revenue share model, which has been the focus of mounting criticism from some commentators for reducing the amount of money operators have left to spend on retention. Frishman said the model provides a strong incentive to affiliates to bring in quality traffic and enables operators to reach emerging markets and niches they would otherwise be unable to.

However, Frishman agreed that both poker rooms and big rakers, which the industry spends significant sums rewarding, would benefit if some portion of this spend was re-allocated towards educating new players about poker and recruiting new players.

"Maybe it's better for these players to leave more of this money for the industry to invest in penetrating new markets and getting new players, because those grinders that generate so much rake and get it back will then be making much more money from winning from other players than they actually make from rakeback. So it's also in those players' interest that poker keeps recruiting a lot of new faces," he said.

hmmmm William Hills views - William Hill Online (WHO) chief operating officer Peter Marcus has issed a rallying call to poker operators on rakeback, telling them to "get together and be strict" on preventing affiliates and poker skins offering it. Marcus criticised the controversial rewards model, in which operators allow affiliates and skins to attract players on their behalf by returning a share of the rake to players, for cannibalising online poker traffic and failing to bring in the new players needed to develop the online poker market.

Marcus said: "networks and licensees have to find ways of rewarding loyalty which don't encourage people to keep switching rooms or which involve stealing each other's customers. It's going to take time and be tough to get there, but the whole industry has to get together and be strict on this."

[noble1]

meanwhile Ladbrokes strategy for 2010 -  Microgaming is to introduce changes to its poker network aimed at increasing incentives to licensees to bring in more casual, depositing players, or "fish".

The Microgaming Poker Network (MPN) will on 5 January move from the contributed method of rake calculation, where operators' rake is calculated by splitting pots between the total number of players, to the weighted method, whereby rake per room is generated proportionally according to the amount individual players contribute to each pot.

The MPN's move follows those of Boss Media"s International Poker Network (IPN) and the Bodog Network aimed at rewarding rooms for bringing in greater numbers of casual, often losing players, or "fish", needed for the sustainable growth of poker rooms and networks.

Dominik Kofert of poker affiliate and community site PokerStrategy.com said that while Microgaming's measures do not go as far as those on Bodog and Boss, the latter introducing fines for rooms once their payouts exceed stakes by more than 99.8%, Microgaming's policy change will increase the value for network sites of acquiring loose, "fishy" players, who contribute high levels of rake, over "tight" players.

"An educated guess would be that tight players, who are often sharks, could be worth 20% less in relative terms and fishy players could be worth 20% more. So the change does help to tweak the fish/shark incentives a little," said Kofert.

[kaysing]

I"m still not getting this. For every loser there is a winner. For every dollar lost, someone wins a dollar. It is all perfectly balanced. For every dollar that changes hands, the site takes rake.

Simplez? No?

I suppose it could be some sort of cheap publicity stunt.

A site with 1000 players publicly bans 10 sharks and attracts another 100 players who think the site is only populated with fish.  Dont get it myself.  Like others have said the site surely don"t care who wins so long as the player numbers are high.

Boycott the sites - or is that mutiny?

Damn it - New Years resolution - have a mutiny.

[Roscopiko]

blah blah......It is killing the industry by taking money from developing better platforms and promotion," he said.

Was laughing too hard to read anymore  

[kinboshi]

[Roscopiko]

Looks like they"ve been working on resizeable tables...

I know, just shows how bad i run that does.  I make that comment any day for the last 5 years it gets through, then today they release them fml  :"(

[kinboshi]

Looks like they"ve been working on resizeable tables...

I know, just shows how bad i run that does.  I make that comment any day for the last 5 years it gets through, then today they release them fml  :"(

LOL so true!!!

[mousebob]

IPOKER aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh

Won a GUKPT token a week ago....still waiting despite emails.....


Fresh updates....have they given less time to act ? my imagination??
Can"t get rid if stupid avatars from screen......
Still no chat if not at table........
Players stacks look like they"ve bet (top 3 on screen) or am I just daft ?
There"s also somebody with a torch so we can see who"s next!!

But we can resize the tables !!!