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Some backstory for those not all that familar w/ online poker: Full Tilt, along w/ PokerStars, has long been regarded as a premier destination for online poker

Some backstory for those not all that familar w/ online poker: Full Tilt, along w/ PokerStars, has long been regarded as a premier destination for online poker. A lot of marketing presence, a lot of players, a large range of games. They rolled out an innovative way to play cash-game poker where you never had to wait for a hand. Several thousand people would join a, say, $1/2 game of NL Holdem, and as soon as 9 people were ready to play, they sat and formed a table and were dealt a hand. You fold? As soon as 8 other people fold, bam, you're in another hand. In practice, you never had to wait more than 1 second. They certainly did make millions in profit on a "rake." However they have an aggressive and lucrative affiliate program that would see them paying out as much as 1/3 of a players lifetime rake to the entity that referred them to the site. (aka "Rake Back") As an American player, until the crackdown earlier this year, I had no problems playing. When I cashed out, they mailed me a check drawn on a US bank. If I had to deposit more, I could do so from my credit card. This is a big blow for the credibility of the industry IMO.

TheCowboy 15y ago
The 'rush poker' innovation was relatively recent and likely inconsequential. It definitely was only a tiny amount of their revenue stream (It also seemed rare to not have your credit card blocked for making deposits. So I wouldn't express it as a commonality.) The industry has been lacking credibility for some time. Players have been pushing to get it regulated to avoid something like this from happening.
- dustingetz 15y ago
  if your average player is 1-tabling, he's getting (maybe) 80 hands/hour. that same player at a rush table is getting 250 hands per hour. rush poker probably tripled their revenue. who knows how many times it multiplies their profits.
  - markmccraw 15y ago
    just to clarify, that would mean triple their revenue compared to if those players played normal poker, not an overall measure. also, for the pros who would normally be 16 tabling, there is only a small uptick in hands per hour in NL rush compared to standard 6 max tables.
    - dustingetz 15y ago
      Fair, but from houses perspective they just don't care what happens above 1/2nlrake wise, high stakes is just marketing. I speculate. Kinda like how trump males his money from penny slots. Sent from mobile
  - ssharp 15y ago
    You lose some competitive advantage with the rush style, mainly in reading your opponents tendencies in betting patterns, hands played, etc., so win-rates don't scale entirely with hands/hour.
    - dustingetz 15y ago
      House revenue and rake, not player winrates. Edit as an ex midstakes amateur, frankly I speculate rush is unbeaatable after rake bc the nash equilibrium style is ez and widely known, good players have no edge, bot wet dream. Sent from mobile
      - ssharp 15y ago
        That makes sense then - I completely misread what you were saying. I only tried rush poker in passing once. By the time it came around, I had already been out of the online poker game (I pretty much gave it up after PartyPoker withdrew from the market), but if the tracking programs w/ heads-up displays still worked and you could get enough data on the people you were paired with, you could figure out people's pre-flop tendencies enough to probably squeak out an edge. Losing post-flop data hurts though, unless that data was still tracked even though you moved on after folding.
  - rograndom 15y ago
    The rake per hand in some Rush games was higher than the normal tables as well
heyitsnick 15y ago
- As already pointed out, only FTP had a 'rush poker', it although popular it was still a very insignificant part of the poker market. - 'Rakeback' refers to the amount of money returned to the players, not to affiliates. FTP had fixed RB at 27%. An affiliate may make a % point or two. Stars returns from 10-60% of rake to the player through their VIP system
- encoderer 15y ago
  Rakeback is just an affiliate program -- it's exactly the same as the concept of FatWallet CashBack or Bing Cashback when it existed. In affiliate marketing this is all just called "incent" traffic. (incentivized). Stars didn't pay a dime in rakeback unless you hit one of their VIP tiers via their point system. Vast majority of players, I'd guess, didn't qualify.
  - heyitsnick 15y ago
    - I was correcting grandparents comment, that said up to 1/3 of rake generated goes back to the affiliate that signed up the player, and that is called "rake back". This is not correct. Only 1-3% goes back to the affiliate. Rakeback refers to the money that goes back to the player, either via the affiliate or directly. I'm not sure what part you are correcting me on? - The lowest tier VIP level at pokerstars (that you can achieve from a few hands of poker play) amounts to 8.8% rakeback and more with stellar rewards, freerolls etc. It would be very hard to be a real money player and not achieve bronze star. - You say stars "didn't pay dime" like pokerstars no longer exists. I can assure you they are still alive and well, and they are actually larger than 1 year ago despite the events of Black Friday.
    - encoderer 15y ago
      I think you're unfamiliar with the online poker affiliate marketing industry. Full Tilt is paying affiliates 20-30% life time commission on net earnings less fees, in addition to allowing for a small (2-3%) cut from sub-affiliates you refer. As an affiliate, you can incentivze the sign-ups however you'd like. The way most affiliates incentivize you to use their affiliate link is by giving you a cut of the revenue. How did you think it worked? Full Tilt giving rake back direct to players just because they signed-up thru some 3rd party link? Why would they do that? The reason why some people who sign-up can't get rakeback and are told that "their affiliate doesn't support rakeback" is that some affiliates chose to get paid a flat CPA fee of $75-100 rather than a lifetime percentage. This is also how PokerStars, etc, runs their programs.

TheCowboy 15y ago

The 'rush poker' innovation was relatively recent and likely inconsequential. It definitely was only a tiny amount of their revenue stream (It also seemed rare to not have your credit card blocked for making deposits. So I wouldn't express it as a commonality.) The industry has been lacking credibility for some time. Players have been pushing to get it regulated to avoid something like this from happening.

dustingetz 15y ago
if your average player is 1-tabling, he's getting (maybe) 80 hands/hour. that same player at a rush table is getting 250 hands per hour. rush poker probably tripled their revenue. who knows how many times it multiplies their profits.
- markmccraw 15y ago
  just to clarify, that would mean triple their revenue compared to if those players played normal poker, not an overall measure. also, for the pros who would normally be 16 tabling, there is only a small uptick in hands per hour in NL rush compared to standard 6 max tables.
  - dustingetz 15y ago
    Fair, but from houses perspective they just don't care what happens above 1/2nlrake wise, high stakes is just marketing. I speculate. Kinda like how trump males his money from penny slots. Sent from mobile
- ssharp 15y ago
  You lose some competitive advantage with the rush style, mainly in reading your opponents tendencies in betting patterns, hands played, etc., so win-rates don't scale entirely with hands/hour.
  - dustingetz 15y ago
    House revenue and rake, not player winrates. Edit as an ex midstakes amateur, frankly I speculate rush is unbeaatable after rake bc the nash equilibrium style is ez and widely known, good players have no edge, bot wet dream. Sent from mobile
    - ssharp 15y ago
      That makes sense then - I completely misread what you were saying. I only tried rush poker in passing once. By the time it came around, I had already been out of the online poker game (I pretty much gave it up after PartyPoker withdrew from the market), but if the tracking programs w/ heads-up displays still worked and you could get enough data on the people you were paired with, you could figure out people's pre-flop tendencies enough to probably squeak out an edge. Losing post-flop data hurts though, unless that data was still tracked even though you moved on after folding.
- rograndom 15y ago
  The rake per hand in some Rush games was higher than the normal tables as well

heyitsnick 15y ago

- As already pointed out, only FTP had a 'rush poker', it although popular it was still a very insignificant part of the poker market. - 'Rakeback' refers to the amount of money returned to the players, not to affiliates. FTP had fixed RB at 27%. An affiliate may make a % point or two. Stars returns from 10-60% of rake to the player through their VIP system

encoderer 15y ago
Rakeback is just an affiliate program -- it's exactly the same as the concept of FatWallet CashBack or Bing Cashback when it existed. In affiliate marketing this is all just called "incent" traffic. (incentivized). Stars didn't pay a dime in rakeback unless you hit one of their VIP tiers via their point system. Vast majority of players, I'd guess, didn't qualify.
- heyitsnick 15y ago
  - I was correcting grandparents comment, that said up to 1/3 of rake generated goes back to the affiliate that signed up the player, and that is called "rake back". This is not correct. Only 1-3% goes back to the affiliate. Rakeback refers to the money that goes back to the player, either via the affiliate or directly. I'm not sure what part you are correcting me on? - The lowest tier VIP level at pokerstars (that you can achieve from a few hands of poker play) amounts to 8.8% rakeback and more with stellar rewards, freerolls etc. It would be very hard to be a real money player and not achieve bronze star. - You say stars "didn't pay dime" like pokerstars no longer exists. I can assure you they are still alive and well, and they are actually larger than 1 year ago despite the events of Black Friday.
  - encoderer 15y ago
    I think you're unfamiliar with the online poker affiliate marketing industry. Full Tilt is paying affiliates 20-30% life time commission on net earnings less fees, in addition to allowing for a small (2-3%) cut from sub-affiliates you refer. As an affiliate, you can incentivze the sign-ups however you'd like. The way most affiliates incentivize you to use their affiliate link is by giving you a cut of the revenue. How did you think it worked? Full Tilt giving rake back direct to players just because they signed-up thru some 3rd party link? Why would they do that? The reason why some people who sign-up can't get rakeback and are told that "their affiliate doesn't support rakeback" is that some affiliates chose to get paid a flat CPA fee of $75-100 rather than a lifetime percentage. This is also how PokerStars, etc, runs their programs.