Hourly rakeback – Hot on the heels of Revolution Gaming increasing rakeback from 33% to 36% from June 1st, it has been hinted at by the Lock Poker owned network that hourly rakeback payments could soon be a permanent fixture of the brand new network.
On the face of it, it sounds great, nay, it sounds positively sexy as a poker player – 36% hourly!!! - but will it turn out to be a Thai ladyboy sort of sexy for the leaders of the Revolution? In our opinion, hourly rakeback could well put the mockers on this particular poker Revolution, as the Dear Leaders, Lock Poker, may well find out; and sooner rather than later…
Traitor to the revolution?
From a purely commercial perspective, Revolution Gaming’s decision to pay hourly rakeback could, at best, be described as naive. When they ought to be putting their efforts into building a healthy poker ecology and implementing a sustainable and scalable business model, following years of mismanagement by Cake poker, instead their first big innovation is to drive away what little recreational player base they have with this white elephant.
Think about it, most recreational players will not be high raking players, so their hourly rakeback payment will go largely unnoticed to them in comparison to, say, a Lock Pro. The end result will be that they will get rinsed, rakeback and all, within one marginally longer than normal session. And with no end of the month/week rakeback to look forward to, they’ll have no reason to come back – and many of them may not. Still, at least the rakeback pro’s will be loyal; they’ll be on 36% hourly rakeback after all…
Although an inherently flawed model regardless, weekly, and especially monthly, rakeback payments, does at least encourage loyalty to your site by offering something tangible to look forward to on a certain date. Generally they, the recreational player, or fish if you prefer, will have accumulated enough rakeback for a buy-in to a micro stakes cash game or a small SNG, thus making them more inclined to deposit again, thus earning more rakeback, and so the cycle continues…
As cunning as a fox who’s just been appointed Professor of Cunning at Oxford University?
Cunning poker firms will pay rakeback monthly – in the first week of month to coincide with pay day from the day job when players will be more susceptible to the urge to deposit. Even more cunning firms will pay rakeback fortnightly – first week of the month when you’ve been paid, and third week of the month when you’re skint. Next week is payday, so we’ll see you again then, hurrah! Less cunning, but cunning nevertheless, firms pay rakeback weekly – they think it injects meaningful liquidity into the site once a week, apparently – even in week 4 when you would get change from a 50 euro note for the entire recreational database’s rakeback payment. Soon to be bust firms pay rakeback hourly – words fail me.
The aye, ayes have it
Merge was a great stepping stone for us but we have outgrown them. We really need to forge our own path to continued success. The only way to do this is to stay true to our of core philosophy: partnering with our players.
Jennifer Larson, Lock Poker CEO.
Lock’s CEO there, on how Lock Poker will continue its Revolution in poker Gaming. It makes us wonder whether the whole hourly rakeback meeting went something like this…
In Attendance: CEO and Lock Pro Team
Agenda: Introduction of hourly rakeback scheme
Minutes:
JL: We have had a fantastic suggestion from one of our high raking Elite Pro’s, that we on the board think has real legs and traction, but we just wanted to run it by you guys first.
LP’s: [all] Go ahead Mrs L.
JL: What about if we were to introduce hourly rakeback payments?
[stunned silence from the 35 Lock Pro's around the boardroom table]
JL: Ok, erm, thats not quite was I expecting. Let’s put it to a vote then. All those in favour?
[70 hands are thrust into the air]
pokerQ4 Consultancy Cornucopia
If the proposed Revolution Gaming hourly rakeback idea does go ahead it will do nothing good for the network’s poker ecology in the long run, and for that reason, the model simply makes no commercial sense if the network is to be viable and achieve long term growth.
To their credit at least Lock Poker are trying or thinking of different things, and they should be encouraged in this, but running a poker network is a very different animal to running a poker site.
If they intend to carry on in this vain, then everything that has been wrong with the online poker industry in the last few years will have been packaged up into one unholy poker den of inequity, with an hourly rakeback scheme serving as the ‘come rape our fish’ cherry on top. Well done the people at Lock Poker.
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