The Rake :(

New OP Thread Update

I have so far noticed that there are very few people willing to get organized or involved in a fight for lower rake because they feel that no matter what we do as players there will be no impetus for the major sites to change. Most have reflected that until a new site comes into the market and changes the competitive environment none of these sites will take any action. I suggest therefore that we throw our support behind Gen and others who wish to create a rake free poker site. I believe that such a site could be run entirely through donations and eventually advertising revenue. If we build it and all make a conscious effort to spread the word once it is built, both the fish and the regulars will come.

Gen has already showed quite plainly that it's not all that difficult to build this. Starting a large open source project and bringing in people from the poker community who want to work on it is the first thing we need to do. The second thing we need to do is a little fund raising from the major poker communities. On a rake free poker site the players win. I'd rather play at a table with all regulars and no rake than a table with one or two fish and a bunch of regulars + insane rake. I would much prefer to watch a 30 second ad over top of my table every 30 hands than be charged rake. This new site would charge for deposits, withdrawals, and peer-to-peer transfers. Not to make a profit but simply to keep costs down. All of which would be a massive amount cheaper than paying for rake as any regular can tell you.

This is a very achievable project. As a poker community if you want to see less rake in the games and more than 3-5% of people being winners and thus softer games higher up then support this movement to build a rake free site. If we build it they will come. We need the help of everyone in the poker community to help build it though. Computer science students, donations, and people who simply want to help advertise the site once it gets launched. There is absolutely no reason why the community can't organize and build such a project. There are hundreds if not thousands of online Poker Sites. It's really not that hard to do. Competing with large already branded sites will be difficult - but it gets a lot easier when your tag line is that nobody has to pay rake at our site. Lets work to build this into a reality.

this is very true.

people like us need to feed the costs of people playing play money and all the insignificant buy in games. Although 50nl-200nl is raked way too heavily... 50$ a month is a losing proposition. The site has teams of people doing a lot of stuff in the background. I'm not saying it's not mega profitable for them but all the transactions between accounts... all the requests and responses to even play money players... et cetera et cetera... that shit definitely adds up. The monthly charge would definitely be a LOT more... but yea, even if it was something ridiculous like 3,000$ that would have a huge impact positively on the profitability of poker.

i never really wanted to know how much i rake. im sure its gonna disgust me

Its still cheaper than the casinos

the tourney fee for the WCOOP High Roller event was $500 lol

I don't play World of Warcraft. I do however know that millions of people do. These people do so for $20.00 per month or less. Imagine if 310 hours of access to something like WoW cost you $13,687.00. That's $44.00 per hour for your video game. Does that sound like something that makes any sense to you? Fast secure service for a reliable video game doesn't cost that much. Poker is an exceptionally simple game.

Please don't compare the two. In poker there are a lot more costs associated with processing deposits, cashouts, chargebacks, investigations, and what not.

2. Someone will create a poker site similar to 100's of start-ups out there with one key difference. Rake will have two options. Option one will be the system and rates that currently exist everywhere. Option two will be a $50.00 payment up front for 30 days of access to the software. The person who creates this software will become a multi-millionaire and probably be credited with starting the 2nd "Poker Boom" after Moneymaker. Pokerstars, FTP, and others will quickly add the change to their software as well. The other site will probably die as regulars migrate back to the main sites but not without having collected a couple million dollars worth of up front fees for its original backers. The dust will settle and the major sites will now have an option to pay $50.00 up front for 30 days access and receive 100% Rakeback.

Actually I can see this discouraging the fish in a way. They could think, "Wtf? I have to PAY to PLAY poker?" Also, the idea kind of existed in SpadeClub where you paid a monthly fee and got access to more tournaments. It hasn't been done for cash games as far as I know. Also no real point in having two options cause it would just confuse the fish or have them realize how much is getting raked out of their pockets and maybe scare them.

Also I don't like to look at poker as a video game. Just view the rake as expenses towards making money. Rakeback and the PS VIP program help effectively to reduce rake anyway, so sites compete on effective rake instead of lowering their overall standard percents.

So you think all those people who answer your email instantly, the TV ads that bring fishes to the sites, the programmers who code the software, etc. etc. etc., that's just free?

All that you should have learned from the fact that you net about $1 profit for every $10 you pay in rake is that you are a very very marginal winner and you should study more if you care about winning at poker.

High flat rates for access would cause the games to become deserted overnight. Losing players would suddenly be charged much extra. You have to realize that rake is paid by winners. (If you lose a pot, you have paid no rake. If you lose your roll, you have paid no rake.)

i dont think the idea won't work, there was a sports betting site which offered rake free games and software was not atrocious at all, did this thing for free even, as a lure for prospective sports bettors, they stopped the whole thing since there were not too many who played poker and went to sports betting there. its definitely feasible if you dont aim to become a multi-billion company. other good ideas i heard before were:

a poker site run owned by its own poker player pool, like some sort of "cooperative" which will charge very little rake

ptr to have the option to put up
betting on players to run good or go on a downswing, much like how the stock market works ( but that would eventually be rigged by the players themselves and go on fake heaters or downswings ) but its a cool concept nonetheless

does anyone remember that thread where Floofy played a guy HU LHE like .5/1 or 1/2

I think both had $100 stacks and by the time Floofy bust the guy he had made $35 lol

yeah rake is pretty huge

On October 14 2010 03:36 vltava wrote: High flat rates for access would cause the games to become deserted overnight. Losing players would suddenly be charged much extra. You have to realize that rake is paid by winners. (If you lose a pot, you have paid no rake. If you lose your roll, you have paid no rake.)

this

On October 14 2010 03:27 vlseph wrote: Show nested quote + I don't play World of Warcraft. I do however know that millions of people do. These people do so for $20.00 per month or less. Imagine if 310 hours of access to something like WoW cost you $13,687.00. That's $44.00 per hour for your video game. Does that sound like something that makes any sense to you? Fast secure service for a reliable video game doesn't cost that much. Poker is an exceptionally simple game. Please don't compare the two. In poker there are a lot more costs associated with processing deposits, cashouts, chargebacks, investigations, and what not.   2. Someone will create a poker site similar to 100's of start-ups out there with one key difference. Rake will have two options. Option one will be the system and rates that currently exist everywhere. Option two will be a $50.00 payment up front for 30 days of access to the software. The person who creates this software will become a multi-millionaire and probably be credited with starting the 2nd "Poker Boom" after Moneymaker. Pokerstars, FTP, and others will quickly add the change to their software as well. The other site will probably die as regulars migrate back to the main sites but not without having collected a couple million dollars worth of up front fees for its original backers. The dust will settle and the major sites will now have an option to pay $50.00 up front for 30 days access and receive 100% Rakeback. Actually I can see this discouraging the fish in a way. They could think, "Wtf? I have to PAY to PLAY poker?" Also, the idea kind of existed in SpadeClub where you paid a monthly fee and got access to more tournaments. It hasn't been done for cash games as far as I know. Also no real point in having two options cause it would just confuse the fish or have them realize how much is getting raked out of their pockets and maybe scare them. Also I don't like to look at poker as a video game. Just view the rake as expenses towards making money. Rakeback and the PS VIP program help effectively to reduce rake anyway, so sites compete on effective rake instead of lowering their overall standard percents.

You've got the concept wrong. I did not suggest that this change would be for everyone. I'm well aware a $50.00 fee per 30 days access would not be appealing to fish. That's why I said it's a simple opt-in built into the software. Regulars can choose to pay $50.00 per month and recieve 100% rakeback.

I'd be happy to pay a small fee on my cash-outs, peer to peer transfers, and have a slightly longer response time for non-supernova+ VIP's on support e-mails. There is absolutely no reason that reliable Poker software cannot be created which allows for the regulars to pay $50.00 per month for up front access which at the same time allows fish to play the same rake system. You just add an option in the options menu to pay for monthly access and receive 100% rakeback. All the fish still donate tons of rake for advertising money and the regulars who are smart enough to pay up front stop paying insane amounts of money to stuff Pokerstars coffers.

I realize that this is not in the interest of Pokerstars or any other poker company. It's in the interest of the players. If you really think that people should be paying 9pt/bb in rake that's pretty insane. That means the only winners in the game have to be beating it at 10pt/bb just to have an exceptionally marginal win-rate. The more winners there are at the lower levels, the more newbs move up, and the easier the games are at the higher up levels.

It is common sense for absolutely everyone to want lower rake.

Let me ask you a few things:
1. Does it make any sense that the player at 5/10 is raked at the same cap of $3.00 as the guy at NL25?
2. Why are micro/low stakes players so disproportionately raked making it difficult for them to move up the stakes?

I'd prefer this:
NL2 - 10 cent per pot cap
NL5- 15 cent per pot cap
NL10 - 20 cent per pot cap
NL25 - 25 cent per pot cap
NL50 - 50 cent per pot cap
NL100 - 75 cent per pot cap
NL200 - 1.00 per pot cap
NL400 & NL600 - 2.00 per pot cap
NL1000+ - 3.00 per pot cap

Something like that would be a massive improvement. It's not unheard of either. The rake cap at HUNL is 50 cents for a reason. It's because nobody was able to win when it was set considerably higher when the tables first came out.

It's really simple. Your either willing to fight for lower rake or your too lazy to care. There is absolutely why rake can't be a fraction of what it is right now. If your arguing otherwise you seriously just have no clue how much money they're generating on a daily basis.

A lot of start up sites offer extremely high rakeback and some even 100% to try to bring players in. Creating the software isn't that much of an issue, I think the largest concerns are with handling the money and attracting players. A monthly fee alternative to rake is really only going to attract those who understand it's beneficial to them (grinders). The idea is certainly nothing new and there are enough existing poker sites out there to generate different tactics through competition. Success has been shown with marketing rakeback and VIP programs rather than not having to pay the money to begin with.

On October 14 2010 08:20 Bejamin1 wrote: Show nested quote + On October 14 2010 03:27 vlseph wrote:   I don't play World of Warcraft. I do however know that millions of people do. These people do so for $20.00 per month or less. Imagine if 310 hours of access to something like WoW cost you $13,687.00. That's $44.00 per hour for your video game. Does that sound like something that makes any sense to you? Fast secure service for a reliable video game doesn't cost that much. Poker is an exceptionally simple game. Please don't compare the two. In poker there are a lot more costs associated with processing deposits, cashouts, chargebacks, investigations, and what not.   2. Someone will create a poker site similar to 100's of start-ups out there with one key difference. Rake will have two options. Option one will be the system and rates that currently exist everywhere. Option two will be a $50.00 payment up front for 30 days of access to the software. The person who creates this software will become a multi-millionaire and probably be credited with starting the 2nd "Poker Boom" after Moneymaker. Pokerstars, FTP, and others will quickly add the change to their software as well. The other site will probably die as regulars migrate back to the main sites but not without having collected a couple million dollars worth of up front fees for its original backers. The dust will settle and the major sites will now have an option to pay $50.00 up front for 30 days access and receive 100% Rakeback. Actually I can see this discouraging the fish in a way. They could think, "Wtf? I have to PAY to PLAY poker?" Also, the idea kind of existed in SpadeClub where you paid a monthly fee and got access to more tournaments. It hasn't been done for cash games as far as I know. Also no real point in having two options cause it would just confuse the fish or have them realize how much is getting raked out of their pockets and maybe scare them. Also I don't like to look at poker as a video game. Just view the rake as expenses towards making money. Rakeback and the PS VIP program help effectively to reduce rake anyway, so sites compete on effective rake instead of lowering their overall standard percents. You've got the concept wrong. I did not suggest that this change would be for everyone. I'm well aware a $50.00 fee per 30 days access would not be appealing to fish. That's why I said it's a simple opt-in built into the software. Regulars can choose to pay $50.00 per month and recieve 100% rakeback. I'd be happy to pay a small fee on my cash-outs, peer to peer transfers, and have a slightly longer response time for non-supernova+ VIP's on support e-mails. There is absolutely no reason that reliable Poker software cannot be created which allows for the regulars to pay $50.00 per month for up front access which at the same time allows fish to play the same rake system. You just add an option in the options menu to pay for monthly access and receive 100% rakeback. All the fish still donate tons of rake for advertising money and the regulars who are smart enough to pay up front stop paying insane amounts of money to stuff Pokerstars coffers. I realize that this is not in the interest of Pokerstars or any other poker company. It's in the interest of the players. If you really think that people should be paying 9pt/bb in rake that's pretty insane. That means the only winners in the game have to be beating it at 10pt/bb just to have an exceptionally marginal win-rate. The more winners there are at the lower levels, the more newbs move up, and the easier the games are at the higher up levels. It is common sense for absolutely everyone to want lower rake. Let me ask you a few things: 1. Does it make any sense that the player at 5/10 is raked at the same cap of $3.00 as the guy at NL25? 2. Why are micro/low stakes players so disproportionately raked making it difficult for them to move up the stakes? I'd prefer this: NL2 - 10 cent per pot cap NL5- 15 cent per pot cap NL10 - 20 cent per pot cap NL25 - 25 cent per pot cap NL50 - 50 cent per pot cap NL100 - 75 cent per pot cap NL200 - 1.00 per pot cap NL400 & NL600 - 2.00 per pot cap NL1000+ - 3.00 per pot cap Something like that would be a massive improvement. It's not unheard of either. The rake cap at HUNL is 50 cents for a reason. It's because nobody was able to win when it was set considerably higher when the tables first came out. It's really simple. Your either willing to fight for lower rake or your too lazy to care. There is absolutely why rake can't be a fraction of what it is right now. If your arguing otherwise you seriously just have no clue how much money they're generating on a daily basis.

You're right in the fact that there are people who would prefer it. If pokerstars offered $1000/mo 100% rakeback I would be all for it. The sites do generate a ridiculous amount of revenue and profits. You could probably run a free poker room profitably on ads alone. The thing is a site like what you're describing needs to be created, backed financially, promoted, and keep players. People who 16+ tables games on a popular site isn't going to switch to a small site with no rake. Anyone who plays high stakes isn't going to switch as there is rarely as volume. I doubt very few new players will even be aware of any sites beyond the advertised names. What you really want is someone who is already really rich to make a sick investment into a project like this along with some really good marketing.

Why is this so hard for people to understand?

STEP 1: You allow the regulars to "opt-in" to a $50.00 up front fee for rake.
STEP 2: Anyone who doesn't "opt-in" goes about their business paying rake exactly the same way they do currently.

Nobody is suggesting a fee for everyone. That obviously would not work. I'm suggesting a hybrid model. Everyone who enjoys the current system aka clueless fish will choose to play for free and pay the rake as it exists under the current system. Those who chose to "opt-in" to the $50.00 monthly fee will receive 100% rakeback.

This isn't something the poker sites are going to want. This is something we're going to have to fight for as players. It's our job to work on making the rake lower to increase the quality of the games. The same way unions fight for higher wages. What possible reason do you have as a poker player to be on the other side of this argument?

look at switchpoker, they just went with it, im sure they already have a million dollars in deposits circulating by now from all the fishy iphone users in europe


and yeah its a very bright idea. i dont really think this thing needs a ton of marketing and you could do exchange deals. everything in the internet now is viral. i think the term "promote" the site doesnt cost 5million dollars over the damn internet. like i said, this can also work as a form of a poker site owned by poker players' cooperative of some sort.

On October 14 2010 08:30 jchysk wrote: Show nested quote + On October 14 2010 08:20 Bejamin1 wrote:   On October 14 2010 03:27 vlseph wrote:   I don't play World of Warcraft. I do however know that millions of people do. These people do so for $20.00 per month or less. Imagine if 310 hours of access to something like WoW cost you $13,687.00. That's $44.00 per hour for your video game. Does that sound like something that makes any sense to you? Fast secure service for a reliable video game doesn't cost that much. Poker is an exceptionally simple game. Please don't compare the two. In poker there are a lot more costs associated with processing deposits, cashouts, chargebacks, investigations, and what not.   2. Someone will create a poker site similar to 100's of start-ups out there with one key difference. Rake will have two options. Option one will be the system and rates that currently exist everywhere. Option two will be a $50.00 payment up front for 30 days of access to the software. The person who creates this software will become a multi-millionaire and probably be credited with starting the 2nd "Poker Boom" after Moneymaker. Pokerstars, FTP, and others will quickly add the change to their software as well. The other site will probably die as regulars migrate back to the main sites but not without having collected a couple million dollars worth of up front fees for its original backers. The dust will settle and the major sites will now have an option to pay $50.00 up front for 30 days access and receive 100% Rakeback. Actually I can see this discouraging the fish in a way. They could think, "Wtf? I have to PAY to PLAY poker?" Also, the idea kind of existed in SpadeClub where you paid a monthly fee and got access to more tournaments. It hasn't been done for cash games as far as I know. Also no real point in having two options cause it would just confuse the fish or have them realize how much is getting raked out of their pockets and maybe scare them. Also I don't like to look at poker as a video game. Just view the rake as expenses towards making money. Rakeback and the PS VIP program help effectively to reduce rake anyway, so sites compete on effective rake instead of lowering their overall standard percents. You've got the concept wrong. I did not suggest that this change would be for everyone. I'm well aware a $50.00 fee per 30 days access would not be appealing to fish. That's why I said it's a simple opt-in built into the software. Regulars can choose to pay $50.00 per month and recieve 100% rakeback. I'd be happy to pay a small fee on my cash-outs, peer to peer transfers, and have a slightly longer response time for non-supernova+ VIP's on support e-mails. There is absolutely no reason that reliable Poker software cannot be created which allows for the regulars to pay $50.00 per month for up front access which at the same time allows fish to play the same rake system. You just add an option in the options menu to pay for monthly access and receive 100% rakeback. All the fish still donate tons of rake for advertising money and the regulars who are smart enough to pay up front stop paying insane amounts of money to stuff Pokerstars coffers. I realize that this is not in the interest of Pokerstars or any other poker company. It's in the interest of the players. If you really think that people should be paying 9pt/bb in rake that's pretty insane. That means the only winners in the game have to be beating it at 10pt/bb just to have an exceptionally marginal win-rate. The more winners there are at the lower levels, the more newbs move up, and the easier the games are at the higher up levels. It is common sense for absolutely everyone to want lower rake. Let me ask you a few things: 1. Does it make any sense that the player at 5/10 is raked at the same cap of $3.00 as the guy at NL25? 2. Why are micro/low stakes players so disproportionately raked making it difficult for them to move up the stakes? I'd prefer this: NL2 - 10 cent per pot cap NL5- 15 cent per pot cap NL10 - 20 cent per pot cap NL25 - 25 cent per pot cap NL50 - 50 cent per pot cap NL100 - 75 cent per pot cap NL200 - 1.00 per pot cap NL400 & NL600 - 2.00 per pot cap NL1000+ - 3.00 per pot cap Something like that would be a massive improvement. It's not unheard of either. The rake cap at HUNL is 50 cents for a reason. It's because nobody was able to win when it was set considerably higher when the tables first came out. It's really simple. Your either willing to fight for lower rake or your too lazy to care. There is absolutely why rake can't be a fraction of what it is right now. If your arguing otherwise you seriously just have no clue how much money they're generating on a daily basis. You're right in the fact that there are people who would prefer it. If pokerstars offered $1000/mo 100% rakeback I would be all for it. The sites do generate a ridiculous amount of revenue and profits. You could probably run a free poker room profitably on ads alone. The thing is a site like what you're describing needs to be created, backed financially, promoted, and keep players. People who 16+ tables games on a popular site isn't going to switch to a small site with no rake. Anyone who plays high stakes isn't going to switch as there is rarely as volume. I doubt very few new players will even be aware of any sites beyond the advertised names. What you really want is someone who is already really rich to make a sick investment into a project like this along with some really good marketing.

That's why you need the players to organize and take meaningful action. You need petitions signed by 10,000+ Regs. You need legitimate threats to short tournaments like The Sunday Million by boycotting them so that they miss their guarantee by hundreds of thousands of dollars, You need people mass sitting out on 24+ tables simultaneously for as often as they have a computer within reach to block tables and disrupt play for everyone including fish. Spread the word publicly by blog and in the chat on Pokerstars.

Pokerstars, FTP, and the other big sites are raking the games dry. This is especially true at the microstakes which are disproportionately effected. It has a trickle up effect at higher stakes because less players advance to donate money higher up. It is in everyone's best interest to fight for lower rake. I want people to start fighting for this issue.

On October 14 2010 03:14 Steal City wrote: people like us need to feed the costs of people playing play money and all the insignificant buy in games. Although 50nl-200nl is raked way too heavily... 50$ a month is a losing proposition. The site has teams of people doing a lot of stuff in the background. I'm not saying it's not mega profitable for them but all the transactions between accounts... all the requests and responses to even play money players... et cetera et cetera... that shit definitely adds up. The monthly charge would definitely be a LOT more... but yea, even if it was something ridiculous like 3,000$ that would have a huge impact positively on the profitability of poker.

What information do you have that says $50.00 per month from regulars is not enough to support a fully functional poker site? Provided that the players pay their own fees for cash outs and peer to peer transfers. Something I'm sure everyone in that situation could live with.

Remember that all fish would still be on the rake system. The $50.00 per month would be something in the software options menu that people could simply opt-in for. No Fish would ever be faced with a forced up front fee to play poker.

you have to pay top dollar for updated desktop icons and lobby themes.