Will the Revolution Gaming poker network be that revolutionary? Will its player led ideas work? Most importantly will poker players be able to say Viva la Revolution Gaming in a few years time?
The basic poker news is that Lock Poker are leaving Merge and buying the Cake Poker Network. The new Cake + Lock Poker network will be called Revolution Gaming with promises of it being for the players.
In this and other posts we will analyse a few aspects of the deal and the future of the new Revolution Gaming poker network.
For the players, buy the players
If the deal does go ahead then Lock Poker have bought a database of poker players but a very specific database. Revolution Gaming network will consist of a lot of rakeback grinders, rakeback sites and US players. This is a dangerous mixture, especially with the DOJ Ban Hammer yet to hit the Cake Network.
Casual players and the fish? They do have them but as shown by the PokerListings and Cake Poker deal it is not so easy to attract or keep casual players on a site where the rakeback grinders kill the fish and you have low player liquidity.
On a side note how funny is it that Cake Poker believed PokerListings in that deal? Any one with the experience of the promises and quality of players that PokerListings send to a site, would have wondered what drugs Cake Network were on when doing the deal. We guess that desperate times called for desperate measures and they got the desperate result.
Much is made by Lock Poker of the players leading their own poker Revolution but will that work? Having players advise you on what they want and features that should be developed will always help. But long term it is only the financial success and profits of your network that counts.
Players want more rakeback, higher tournament guarantees … but these have to be implemented correctly or not implemented at all. What happens if the players all want just one single simple thing yet Revolution Gaming can not financially implement it?
You’re in the army now
How much are Lock Poker willing to spend on buying poker players loyalty or attracting new players through player led ideas? Will they find out that long term the reason other poker networks do not run certain promotions or implement player ideas is because they can not benefit the network.
Running a poker site, let alone a poker network is massively different to playing on a site. As mentioned by pokerQ4 in our article on PokerStrategy, one of the reasons PokerStrategy do not run their own poker site, when they have more than 5 million members, is because of reasons like that.
Will Lock Pokers revolution gradually grinder to a halt due to their rakeback ideas and network? Will the Revolution Gaming experience be only in name? We hope for the sake of poker that it does work, does revolutionise the Cake Network and poker industry, and does not become the watered down revolution that seems to happen to most revolutions.
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