Poker site with monthly fee

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?