Poker site with monthly fee

There needs to be a poker site that has the option to just pay a monthly fee of 200$ or something, rake is fucking ridiculous. And it would be an option, so new fish singing up would just pay rake normally unless they choose otherwise.

We need to make our own site.

world poker exchange...

Uh...... Only winning players would really be interested in playing at such a place. Think about it.

def needs more competition to bring down rake.. trouble is cheap sites (eg high rakeback sites) are seemingly not very competent or trustworthy at the moment

$200? I think you need to look at how much you get raked per month and consider how unrealistic that is for anybody who plays above even 50nl.

ahahaha

ps.

We need to make our own site.[

hilarity. I can see it now, Full Twat Poker.

who cares, just get rakeback, or be a winning player =/

i paid 2k in rake 2 days ago ...and broke even

supernova elite is like 60% rakeback

but u gotta grind with the other nit regs

i quit my sne chase already

I've paid 8.8k individual rake on micro-stakes/low-stakes PLO in the 180k hands I've played so far. A nice system would be something like this. Individual rake or your share of the rake is paid up until a certain point and then you receive 100% rake-back. Receiving this benefit could even be given only to players who maintain something like Platinum status on PS. That way the company only has to give this benefit to the most loyal players and frankly its the least they could do.

Example System:
A) Platinum Star PS Players and up who play only hands on limits of .5/1 and below will pay up to $500 of individual rake and all subsequent rake paid will be given back to the player in a lump sum at the end of the month.
B) Platinum Star PS Players and up who play any hands on limits of 1/2 and above will pay up to $1500 of individual rake and all subsequent rake paid will be given back to the player in a lump sum at the end of the month.

Honestly when you think about it guys, doesn't it piss you off how much money you pay? I mean what other product would you pay thousands of dollars a month simply to have access too. The rake in a live casino is pretty sick but when you think about the sheer mass of hands we are capable of putting in online those numbers become insane. A good number of us are literally making PS 20k a month in individual paid rake and what exactly are they doing for you? It doesn't take that many people to start a revolution. All it takes is enough people who won't take this shit laying down, and then those people convince more people to follow them and support the movement.

rofl

where is this absurd self-entitlement coming from?

Pokerstars are providing you with a service. That's what they're doing for you, can you explain why they should provide it to you for free? If you want rakeback, play on a site that provides it. You know Pokerstars doesn't provide rakeback, so why are you still there?

On June 15 2008 10:51 Feiticeira wrote: rofl where is this absurd self-entitlement coming from? Pokerstars are providing you with a service. That's what they're doing for you, can you explain why they should provide it to you for free? If you want rakeback, play on a site that provides it. You know Pokerstars doesn't provide rakeback, so why are you still there?

PS actually provides rake-back in terms of VIP levels. There are some detailed threads that list what each VIP level is equivalent too in terms of RB. My point is not entitlement at all and it is simply a statement of the obvious. Yes PS is a business and they offer us a service for a fee. I'm saying the fee they charge is pretty insane when you think about what they are actually providing you with and if you don't agree with that try comparing it to World of Warcraft. I mean that is what $20.00 a month for those who play and it can't be any less complex to run and maintain for Blizzard than PS is.

Why shouldn't you pay less? Can you give me any good reason? We should just pay whatever it costs because thats how we do? You are the fucking reason we pay so much rake. You just don't care you just accept the situation for what it is. Straight up PS and other major poker skins are a huge gravy train and the players aren't getting their cut. Instead you grind your ass off to make way less than you should be because PS and other big companies scoop from your bottom line as the rake piles up.

On June 15 2008 11:06 Bejamin1 wrote: Why shouldn't you pay less? Can you give me any good reason? We should just pay whatever it costs because thats how we do? You are the fucking reason we pay so much rake. You just don't care you just accept the situation for what it is. Straight up PS and other major poker skins are a huge gravy train and the players aren't getting their cut. Instead you grind your ass off to make way less than you should be because PS and other big companies scoop from your bottom line as the rake piles up.

I don't play on Stars, I play on a site that gives rakeback because I like getting rakeback. Oops, dickhead.

lol @ 'players getting their cut' though, more with the sense of entitlement. Online poker is a lucrative business and I play online poker and pay to do so, so poker networks should give me back 100% of the money I give them!

Yeah, that's not absurd.

Feiticeira is the voice of reason in this thread. None of you are entitled to anything.

1.) Online Rake is less then Live Rake
2.) You don't have to play poker online
3.) There is no reason these companies owe you any of their profits for providing a extremely desired services.
4.) There is no way we could pull off some Strike to get them to lower rake.
5.) The amount of money they have to spend on security is HUGE.
6.) "Straight up PS and other major poker skins are a huge gravy train and the players aren't getting their cut" This is the the dumbest quote I've ever heard. Try going to Exxon, filling up your tank, then asking them for a cut of their profits.

That being established. It would be nice if there was a site where they raked less or charged a small fee but it wouldn't fly as well for the fish who don't realize how it's cheaper or don't play often. But it's more of a fairy tale.

On June 15 2008 08:12 Fayth wrote: who cares, just get rakeback, or be a winning player =/

balla

I def think such a website would work and would attract a very very good amount of player. Problem is that rake makes sens because it takes some money based on stakes, so we'd have to work out something slightly more elaborate. IMO there would be even more traffic than on those micro sites, I'm not really sure what would be the players view on this tho.

First off there is a huge difference between what we are entitled to, whats fair, and whats just greedy as fuck. The sites make over 100$ an hour from me alone. What else charges a 100$ an hour for something thats so simple and extremely easy to run compared to other business's.

It wouldn't be a fee for everyone, it would be an option. Fish sign up and if they don't select the fee, they just pay rake like normal. Obviously its never going to happen, because all these companies are focusing on how they can make more, not less. But whatever I'm just thinking out loud.



It's just something I think about every time I look at PT and see that I've paid like 10-20k in rake for the month. Makes me want to vomit.

That can't work at all period

No uninformed player (aka fish) would ever prefer to deposit at such a site

In his mind, why would he deposit 100 and have 50 of them cover the first monthly fee leaving him with just 50 to play 30 days when he can deposit his 100 at another site without fee and go ahead and play whenever he wants without any bullshit fees. Keep in mind he doesn't understand the concept ans severity of rake very well if at all

Edit: obv didn't see the post above, but even if that could work the other question remains, why would a poker site do that

fish would rather pay rake than a flat fee like a bill even if it were to save them money

It's a nice dream though... a monthly rake cap also sounds nice, obviously anything limiting rake is yummy but not to the sites

that is true. Fish don't understand what huge huge deal rake is. And honestly for fish it isn't such a big deal because they 1 table a few hours a week, it's the regs who pay a lot by multitabling long hours. Fish play for fun and what they see is it isn't big of a difference whether they win a $100 pot or $97.
Facing them with a "bill" every month will scare them away instead of secretly taking away a larger amount of money from their pots.

brag: That made me think about how much rake I already payed in my life, probably more than I won, meaning 20k+ :´-(

Have some of you thought what it costs exactly to run a poker business? Here are some examples on top of my head.



Security

Staff, from A computer programmer, all the way to a representative. This also includes network manager, money management and etc.

Fees, don't think because you don't get a fee, doesn't mean they don't get a fee.

Here is something that I emailed awhile back about changing rake.

Running the Poker Room, think of the bandwidth required

There are just so many things that add up. Yes they are a business, they are going to make a good profit, but people way over estimate how much they make.

Hello Robert,

I appreciate what you're saying; when you play poker, you not only have to
beat your opponents, but you have to beat the rake. The same thing is
true no matter where you play poker, online or in any casino. I assure
you that if you compare our fees/rake with other poker sites (taking into
account FPPs), you will find that our rake is the lowest of any site. And
it's *way* lower than what you pay in a live casino (and no dealer tips!).

I hope you can appreciate that we *are* running a business here. It may
seem that we have a lower overhead than a live casino, but that's not
necessarily true. There are many hundreds of employees working to keep
our site running smoothly (including answering your emails). There are
large teams of expert (and extensive) programmers, there are marketing
people, security people, fraud prevention people, collusion experts. They
pay me for doing my job, too.

We also do many things that you never see, like pay large fees on every
deposit and withdrawal to and from the site. Just like you need to
overcome the rake, we need to overcome a fee in the 4%-15% range that is
assessed on every transaction to/from the site. There are also a *huge*
number of servers that are needed to keep as many as 20,000 tables running
at once. And a *lot* of bandwidth, stretching out in many, many
directions. It's a huge, immensely complex operation.

Please understand we're not crying poverty here. We're doing fine. But
we're providing a service, and that does have a cost.


Yes, it's harder to beat the rake in micro-limits than it is in higher
limit games. That's a phenomenon throughout poker; since the rake is
capped at $3.00 in most games, at a certain pot size, no more rake is
taken. But that phenomenon is even more pronounced in live casinos, which
mostly take 10% of the pot, whereas we take 5%. On a percentage basis,
it's much easier to beat a 5% rake. And we cap the rake at $3.00 or less,
whereas live casinos rake as much as $4.00 or $5.00 per hand in the US.
(Foxwoods, near you, raked 10% to $4.00 the last time I was there.) And
it's a LOT higher elsewhere; I visited a casino in England recently that
raked 10% up to GBP 8.00 -- that's $16.00 US. Online poker is a genuine
bargain compared to live casinos.


I hope I've been able to clarify some things for you, and ease your
concerns somewhat. I wish you continued success.

Regards,

Scott
PokerStars Support Team

On June 15 2008 08:12 Fayth wrote: who cares, just get rakeback, or be a winning player =/

thanks for including that email subaru, that pretty much sums it up and i agree with it fully. some people are just being idiots

ps just cant provide such good service for free
just think about the bandwith needed to provide a gaming experience to 170k ppl
is just sick

lol, their costs are far lesser then any production company or even sites like amazon.com.

plus, who do you think owns the neteller, ewalletexpress type sites. The poker sites, obviously.

On June 15 2008 16:20 Ket wrote: thanks for including that email subaru, that pretty much sums it up and i agree with it fully. some people are just being idiots

On June 15 2008 17:57 ggplz wrote: Show nested quote + On June 15 2008 16:20 Ket wrote: thanks for including that email subaru, that pretty much sums it up and i agree with it fully. some people are just being idiots

This argument isn't about whether large poker sites can afford to give their regular players some sort of a cap system on the amount of rake they pay. If any of you actually think you are getting a good deal in terms of the rake you pay for what you get in return at online poker sites you are just plain wrong. The reason this system doesn't exist is because there is no market pressure from the customers to make sure it does. Therefore if we want our dream of a far fairer price to play poker then the only way to get it is to create a large enough demand for it.

A short and sweet reply to anyone saying we are stupid for wanting this is below.

Imagine a poker site with 80k averaged traffic over every 24 hour period similar to PS. Imagine software that is equal to PS and has good support staff. Imagine this poker site has the exact same VIP system as PS and players who are Platinum Star and higher have capped rake. The rake cap is variable depending on what limit you play but nobody is paying more than 2k per month in rake and any player playing .5/1 and below is capped at $500.

Now I don't give a fuck who you are or what limits you play everyone in their right mind would play on this site and with this system. You know the only reason we don't is because it doesn't exist and the reason it doesn't exist is not because the company running it wouldn't still be making a tremendous amount of money. The reason it doesn't exist is because there is no pressure from the market to make it exist.

The fact that we are all willing to pay an extremely high fee that provides these poker companies with insane profits that end up in the hands of a very few top executives doesn't mean its how it should be. It just means your willing to put up with it. Stop being so damn willing to put up with it and maybe we can see some changes.

Obviously any kind of site that did this would be unlikely to use a pay to play system. That wouldn't fly with fish or with anyone really. A far superior system would be to simply cap the amount of rake individual players can pay once they achieve a certain VIP status. If you are of that status then you get 100% rake-back after the maximum amount of individual rake paid is reached. Obviously no poker site within the circle of them would ever create this system because it would only reduce profits. Thats why if you want something like this to ever exist there has to be enough market pressure demanding it to exist.

That support e-mail basically just says that poker is a business and they have costs. Well no shit? I mean if some of you out there want to to swallow that garbage then thats fine but it really isn't particularly wise to do so. That e-mail doesn't mean they are not making money that far exceeds those costs, which I guarantee you without even seeing the numbers that they are. It doesn't mean that they can't provide the small percentage of players on say PS who achieve Platinum level VIP status every month with far superior benefits than the average Joe who doesn't know better.

The only way to achieve this is basically to create some site of website petition and forum where every player who regularly achieves Platinum Star status and higher joins. This band of poker players could then decide to tell PS, FTP, and PP to decide who wants their business. They will boycott the other sites entirely if in return they receive a rake cap of 2k per month and after that receive 100% rake back on subsequent fees. Yeah tough to pull off and maybe it'd be almost impossible to make it work, but what if it did? What if the pressure of losing every single regular that PS is making 20K+ per month off of?

On June 15 2008 19:05 Bejamin1 wrote: It doesn't mean that they can't provide the small percentage of players on say PS who achieve Platinum level VIP status every month with far superior benefits than the average Joe who doesn't know better. The only way to achieve this is basically to create some site of website petition and forum where every player who regularly achieves Platinum Star status and higher joins. This band of poker players could then decide to tell PS, FTP, and PP to decide who wants their business. They will boycott the other sites entirely if in return they receive a rake cap of 2k per month and after that receive 100% rake back on subsequent fees. Yeah tough to pull off and maybe it'd be almost impossible to make it work, but what if it did? What if the pressure of losing every single regular that PS is making 20K+ per month off of?

1st paragraph: They do. Its called Supernova.

2nd paragraph: lol, I wish I worked for PS. I'd so make something like 100% rakeback after cap for SN's. Then make it like 4mil fpps and only offer it to lowstakes grinders through email, obviously offering it for _____fpp's/rake cap that equated out to less then what you'd get just using it for cash bonuses for the rest of the year. So many people would take it and play even more then normal hands/month to make it +ev, I could make like another 5% total profit (read: millions) off something like that, and me and lee jones could fuck bitches all day on corporate dime.

I think its a win win... it'd just make the grinders play 15 hour days instead of 12. Though it'd probably get shot down, because the big whigs would now be wanting 100% of the new hands/month figgure that I came up with for the regs. Thats ok, i'd probably just vent about it to customers in response to support emails, hitting on the <25 female ones... and send random play money fish cookie baskets.

ps: PS, hire me?

Why not have a poker site supported by advertisements instead of rakeback? I think I heard of something like that existing at one time.

the reason rake at a live casino doesnt seem as bad, is because online people play anywhere from 4 to 16 tables at once, now imagine if you were superhuman and played 16 live games at once it would be sickmode rake !!
Running a poker site is obviously very expensive and rake 'is a bitch' but theres nothing that can be done about it (apart from grind SNE on ps or get rakeback etC )

Oh just realized this is almost a year old. My bad!

wtf, I pay -1k$ rake a month (I get more than 100% rakeback thanks to rakeraces) ship !!

On June 15 2008 11:06 Bejamin1 wrote: Show nested quote + On June 15 2008 10:51 Feiticeira wrote: rofl where is this absurd self-entitlement coming from? Pokerstars are providing you with a service. That's what they're doing for you, can you explain why they should provide it to you for free? If you want rakeback, play on a site that provides it. You know Pokerstars doesn't provide rakeback, so why are you still there? I'm saying the fee they charge is pretty insane when you think about what they are actually providing you with and if you don't agree with that try comparing it to World of Warcraft. I mean that is what $20.00 a month for those who play and it can't be any less complex to run and maintain for Blizzard than PS is.

I didnt know you could cash out gold on WoW (=there are alot of things wow dont provide that cost a ton of money for pokersites)

On June 15 2008 08:12 Fayth wrote: who cares, just get rakeback, or be a winning player =/

fayth keeps it real

made 44k this year and paid 4400 in rake...cant complain at all


<3 headsup

On June 15 2008 04:47 DaEm0niCuS wrote: There needs to be a poker site that has the option to just pay a monthly fee of 200$ or something, rake is fucking ridiculous. And it would be an option, so new fish singing up would just pay rake normally unless they choose otherwise. We need to make our own site.

Ironically I've already made posts about this before. I suggested a monthly rake cap of $1000-2000 for those who have Supernova status. So that only a few regulars get it but it is a huge benefit once you get there and after that 2k you get 100% rakeback and FPP generation is set to zero for the time period of the month. I think it would motivate a lot more regulars to play more but the problem is unless a huge massive group of players band together and spam Pokerstars support begging for this change it will never happen. We have to lobby for our own cause and thus far I've found that most poker players are just too fucking lazy to do that.

On June 15 2008 08:12 Fayth wrote: who cares, just get rakeback, or be a winning player =/

This attitude is the biggest fucking problem. Seriously you make a lot of money and you're great at poker, but I guarantee you would have more people who are inferior to your ability level making it up to your stakes so that you could take their money if this kind of a system was in place. Every regular poker player should be fully on side with getting 100% rakeback after a rake cap of 1-2k per month for those with Supernova status or the appropriate similar status on other sites.

The problem is the regular poker player community on the whole seems to be quite lazy in terms of making an effort to lobby on their own behalf. Making a website would be a start. Making daily e-mails to stars support from EVERY regular who has Gold Star and higher status asking for this to become a reality would be an even better start. They aren't likely to do it but with enough pressure and enough people who knows maybe they will? As long as the rake cap is reasonably high they still make a lot of money, maybe even more money because people will put in more hands.

The system I suggest would not use a monthly fee. It would use a rake cap. All the fish would still play. Only supernovas would get 100% rakeback after they reach the cap for each month. It's simple and it's completely worth fighting for. Regulars would play more hands. All of us would make more money. The argument that the system right now is decent and provides us a nice service isn't an argument at all. If you don't fight for a better system and lower rake it will never happen. That's why poker players need to stop being so lazy and actually consider lobbying for better. I can't imagine it costs more than $5-10 per month per player to make Pokerstars software, servers, and support function. After 1-2k per month I think players should get 100% rakeback if they have supernova or the equivalent status on other sites. Why the hell not? Businesses respond when their customer base puts pressure on them. If every Goldstar+ player e-mailed stars support once a day demanding this change happen I bet you it just might. They'd do that rather than have their support filters jammed 24-7 lowering the quality of the service they offer. Players ought to stand up for themselves and demand better. The customer is supposed to be the one with the power not the company. They SERVE us. Remember that.

On May 30 2009 13:44 ComeChinaMFer wrote: made 44k this year and paid 4400 in rake...cant complain at all <3 headsup

is that some kind of brag, if so, it's a total fail

while we are at it, why dont we get every company to try to lower there profits. get real kid, this is the real world

Ignorance must be bliss eh? How do you think oil companies get what they want? Lobbying and using their money and influence to peddle things in the right direction. Poker players have some influence too. We are the poker companies source of money. It's time to try using it for a change to ask for a fairly reasonable rake cap system for those with Supernova/equivalent status.

Sure it might not work soon or ever, but there is value in resistance and standing up for what you would like to see happen. Lets all sit on our hands and do nothing because it won't do any good is a pretty defeatist and to be honest retarded attitude to have.

lol what am i ignorant about man? when i started playing nl10 on full tilt, in my first 6 months i was raked 1000 dollars. do you think i liked that man? No but i realized full tilt is a buisness and they want to make monies.

You're ignorant because you clearly don't have the knowledge that there is value in actually doing something to resist against those things which you don't like. I think it's a completely fair and acceptable request to have a rake cap of 1-2k per month for those with Supernova or equivalent status. I think it's a request worth fighting for because of it's own merit. The fact that stars is a business and will most likely reject the request over and over again is fine. Keep putting more pressure on. There is value in struggling for change. Maybe one day with enough people pressuring for a change Stars decides that it's in it's best interest to meet the demands of its client base. Stars gives us a rake cap. Stars even potentially makes more money because all those who were just goldstar on a regular basis see much more motivation to get to supernova and play more. Never say never.

On June 15 2008 16:06 Subaru wrote: Have some of you thought what it costs exactly to run a poker business? Here are some examples on top of my head. Security Staff, from A computer programmer, all the way to a representative. This also includes network manager, money management and etc. Fees, don't think because you don't get a fee, doesn't mean they don't get a fee. Here is something that I emailed awhile back about changing rake. Running the Poker Room, think of the bandwidth required There are just so many things that add up. Yes they are a business, they are going to make a good profit, but people way over estimate how much they make. Hello Robert, I appreciate what you're saying; when you play poker, you not only have to beat your opponents, but you have to beat the rake. The same thing is true no matter where you play poker, online or in any casino. I assure you that if you compare our fees/rake with other poker sites (taking into account FPPs), you will find that our rake is the lowest of any site. And it's *way* lower than what you pay in a live casino (and no dealer tips!). I hope you can appreciate that we *are* running a business here. It may seem that we have a lower overhead than a live casino, but that's not necessarily true. There are many hundreds of employees working to keep our site running smoothly (including answering your emails). There are large teams of expert (and extensive) programmers, there are marketing people, security people, fraud prevention people, collusion experts. They pay me for doing my job, too. We also do many things that you never see, like pay large fees on every deposit and withdrawal to and from the site. Just like you need to overcome the rake, we need to overcome a fee in the 4%-15% range that is assessed on every transaction to/from the site. There are also a *huge* number of servers that are needed to keep as many as 20,000 tables running at once. And a *lot* of bandwidth, stretching out in many, many directions. It's a huge, immensely complex operation. Please understand we're not crying poverty here. We're doing fine. But we're providing a service, and that does have a cost. Yes, it's harder to beat the rake in micro-limits than it is in higher limit games. That's a phenomenon throughout poker; since the rake is capped at $3.00 in most games, at a certain pot size, no more rake is taken. But that phenomenon is even more pronounced in live casinos, which mostly take 10% of the pot, whereas we take 5%. On a percentage basis, it's much easier to beat a 5% rake. And we cap the rake at $3.00 or less, whereas live casinos rake as much as $4.00 or $5.00 per hand in the US. (Foxwoods, near you, raked 10% to $4.00 the last time I was there.) And it's a LOT higher elsewhere; I visited a casino in England recently that raked 10% up to GBP 8.00 -- that's $16.00 US. Online poker is a genuine bargain compared to live casinos. I hope I've been able to clarify some things for you, and ease your concerns somewhat. I wish you continued success. Regards, Scott PokerStars Support Team

lol we make millions if not billions per year, but I have to write something credible.

I fully agree with bejamin1 on this one.

Not too long ago telecommunication companies were forced to acknowledge and justify how access to information charges (text messages, cellphone web browsing, etc.) can cost so much when your transceiving so little information compared to other communications systems. They couldnt, and as a result, consumer charges were cut and decreased.

Online poker should fall under the same category. Do you really think it's necessary that rake can be as high as 3$ in a pot of virtual cards? All your really doing is 'handshaking' with the PS server; simply transmitting and receiving a simple series of bytes. I don't think that's really justifiable at all.

edit: below, genjix pretty much summed it up in a deeper sense.

I'll chip in here and add a comment about the technology having experiene in similar industries.

My previous line of work involved developing video games as a gameplay programmer. PokerStars software is not a particularly complicated piece of software to write. The amount of updates poker softwares get is simply abysmal. Compare with any online game where units are tuned and new maps added very regularly.

Also online video games are somewhat bandwidth intensive as you have a huge amount of data streamed to synchronise the game world. There is hundreds of optimisations and equations used just to save a couple of packets. Think about seeing just one character move around a map where its movement needs to be in sync. Now think about that your character needs to be updated with the server. Now think that both of these characters needs to be updated with a third character and the amount of server update location requests is enormous.

Online poker is a piece of piss. Send two holecards to everyone on the table. It doesn't even need any optimisations to increase speed really. There can be multiple tables split over multiple servers UNLIKE a video game where it ruins a seamless world since you need concurrency between servers.

The staff costs are a joke. On NL25 it says I've been raked $6952 in 54317 hands of which half were raked according to PT3. That's ~30c per raked hand. I play 347 hands per hour so I'm paying $44 rake per hour or $7.4 per table. Nine players paying $67 in rake per hour? You think there is a member of staff hovering every hour over a table? Bullshit.

Real casinos of course have to pay for property, dealers... staff to player ratio is probably much higher. I don't know the logistics here but obviously it's not cheap.

Poker sites get far too much money for providing minimal service. Look at video game industry where it is so hugely competitive that largely successful companies that release one bad title can kill themselves. Online poker is just a huge cash cow.

- Online poker software is not difficult or costly to produce.
- Poker rooms are not expensive to run.
- Poker is nowhere near bandwidth intensive. More akin to repeatedly checking email.
- Rake paid is huge in relation to maintenance costs.
- Poker site industry is largely uncompetitive and there's little drive/motivation to develop better software/features.

obviously we all want to pay less rake, and obviously the poker sites make bank. But i cant really see anything to do. i would always think about trying to send an email to full tilt threatening to switch to poker stars if they didnt give me a higher percentage rake back. but i was always too lazy/ thought theyd tell me to fuck off in other words. plz come up with solution, dont need to convince us that paying less rake would be a good thing lol

well, my humble opinion:

yes I think Stars is making a ridiculous amount of money.
Is this wrong? No, that's what companies target in a capitalism world.
It's only wrong if Stars has a dominant monopoly position. Does Stars have this? No

For the people who are complaining about this, play for others sites with good rakeback, you're not obliged to play on Stars.

It's like complaining in a Burberry shop that the clothing is too expensive and telling them that Burberry is making too much profit on its clothing and then still buying a burberry shirt.

one of the worst ideas i've heard

Benjamin1 isn't saying that it's "wrong" that Stars makes a boatload off of its players.

What he is (correctly) saying, is that the users have a certain amount of leverage over the company if they chose to band together and express their displeasure over the current situation. It's exactly how labor unions work...

Wait, so why should supernovas get 100% rakeback after a certain cap? They also pay the lowest percent of rake since it is capped for them, and they get the largest rewards. If you look at rakeback already from the VIP system you will see supernovas get a MUCH larger percent since they get 4 FPP for every 1 FPP a bronze star gets. How about you lobby for no rake on games under $100 buy in instead.

I mean really, are you asking the entire poker community to come together to lobby for the elite?

On May 30 2009 22:20 Uptown wrote: Benjamin1 isn't saying that it's "wrong" that Stars makes a boatload off of its players. What he is (correctly) saying, is that the users have a certain amount of leverage over the company if they chose to band together and express their displeasure over the current situation. It's exactly how labor unions work...

we are customers, no employees so you cannot compare it with a labor union. Moreover, we don't have leverage because poker players have no possibility and no chance to unite.

Problem is that there is essentially a monopoly, a group of small trusted sites which already have most the fish. While a site with a rake cap could be commercially viable because it would be the best of both worlds and if everyone knew about it and trusted it then it'd get all the customers that's simply not how it is. Only the regs would hear of its existence because fish play on whatever server television tells them to play on so it'd just be a nitfest. And the sites which already have all the customers have no incentive to adapt because there isn't a rival in the market undercutting them.

Standard monopoly. Established companies exploiting the customers to charge unfair fees because access to the market for companies wishing to undercut them is very limited.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't complain, as has already been mentioned, all the big mobile phone companies used to charge insane roaming costs until consumers started pointing out what bs it is. It does mean there's not much we can do though.

thanks to stars im pretty rich for a student. Quit whining, get better move up, problem solved

On May 30 2009 22:29 blackjacki2 wrote: Wait, so why should supernovas get 100% rakeback after a certain cap? They also pay the lowest percent of rake since it is capped for them, and they get the largest rewards. If you look at rakeback already from the VIP system you will see supernovas get a MUCH larger percent since they get 4 FPP for every 1 FPP a bronze star gets. How about you lobby for no rake on games under $100 buy in instead. I mean really, are you asking the entire poker community to come together to lobby for the elite?

Because they also play the most hands on average and contribute the most rake, is that not obvious? How do you think they get to supernova?

On May 31 2009 07:41 gororokgororok wrote: thanks to stars im pretty rich for a student. Quit whining, het better move up, problem solved

thanks to poker you are rich for a student, not thanks to stars

On May 31 2009 08:55 Funktion wrote: Show nested quote + On May 30 2009 22:29 blackjacki2 wrote: Wait, so why should supernovas get 100% rakeback after a certain cap? They also pay the lowest percent of rake since it is capped for them, and they get the largest rewards. If you look at rakeback already from the VIP system you will see supernovas get a MUCH larger percent since they get 4 FPP for every 1 FPP a bronze star gets. How about you lobby for no rake on games under $100 buy in instead. I mean really, are you asking the entire poker community to come together to lobby for the elite? Because they also play the most hands on average and contribute the most rake, is that not obvious? How do you think they get to supernova?

Billionaires pay the most taxes, maybe they should have their taxes capped at 1% of their income while everyone earning below $40k can get taxed 30% of their income.

wtf - I should be playing with my dog.