The Rake :( - Page 7

ok I will attempt to take a first stab at playing devil's advocate if u like?

all breakeven players and below should be happy as can be there is such a large % of rake being paid since they are not winning the pots/sessions they should be yet they are in the end still getting a % of money back based off the volume of hands they play with other players (which in itself can amount to a decent+ sum of money)

so if the percentage of rake taken was lowered it would severely hurt the breakeven and below player pool which is most of the people that play on the sites

this means the perspective behind any major poker site that is confronted with this 'strike' will envision that if they adhere to this, not only will their business take a huge cut on the amount of money they make, but their player pool and volume of dealt hands per hour could be greatly lessened - hurting them two-fold - which in conclusion for those current powers that be, this is not a profitable longterm move at all

instead it would certainly be more profitable for them to 'risk it'/stonewall/ignore this and continue providing their current service & marketing that is fluid in attracting a new player pool knowing full well there will be plenty of people not knowing what is going on that will still continue to want play there on their site

On October 18 2010 15:15 tloapc wrote: so if the percentage of rake taken was lowered it would severely hurt the breakeven and below player pool which is most of the people that play on the sites

either u r trolling or failling at math

u also can't forget the option that u didn't make the connection it would hurt those who survive on rakeback and not actual winnings

pls spend some time doing math

nice to see the one u picked =]

On October 18 2010 15:33 tloapc wrote: u also can't forget the option that u didn't make the connection it would hurt those who survive on rakeback and not actual winnings

if youre a breakeven player and rake is lowered you would be a winner...

yes breakeven this is true

thats why I said breakeven and below

edit:

because would that breakeven player be a bigger winner than they were with rakeback?

well obviously if we're talking about lowering rake we're talking about lowering it to a point where its better than with standard rakeback or still having some sort of rakeback that makes it better than the previous system. otherwise its pointless.

can u elaborate?

Bejamin,

With all due respect, you are being extremely idealistic and naive here. There is no question that PS/FTP make absurd amounts of money and we would all love for the rake to be lower. But there are plenty of examples in the real world of corporations that make ridiculous amount of profit and have very high profit margins and that is part of capitalism. That is just the reality of life and this is coming from a Chomsky loving, leftist which is saying a lot. There are cases of monopolies or corporations that don't play by the rules where government intervention is called for. However, if government refuses to intervene and companies can get away with very high profit margins, there is no way they would voluntarily relinquish that position. Your efforts to organize some movement is absolutely futile because the only thing PS/FTP will respond to is if their profits are affected. You can write as many emails as you want, attempt as much grass roots PR as you want, it won't matter. For reasons others have mentioned, it will have absolutely zero impact on their profits. Fish are unconcerned about rake, regs will follow the fish and everyone who plays poker is primarily concerned with fair play and the safety of their roll and PS/FTP has a huge advantage there.

PS/FTP is an oligopoly that dominates the market and due to the extremely high barriers to entry and the huge first mover advantage that PS/FTP enjoys, it is virtually impossible under the current legal conditions to dismantle their dominance. Maybe sometime in the future, an open source poker network can be developed. If US legislation is changed, major gaming corporate interests will have the necessary ammo to break the PS/FTP oligopoly. Competition from other companies will eventually bring the rake down and not some boycott or movement. Trying to organize some sort of boycott to protest their high prices is comparable to businesses in the 90's or 00's trying to organize a boycott of windows or office. The prices microsoft charged for those products was and is highway robbery. Forcing almost every single company in the entire world to shell out several hundred dollars every year or two for the latest version of windows/office was essentially extortion to the degree of Rockefeller and Carnegie. It's a little different now because there are actually legitimate alternatives to microsoft products but back in the 90's if you were a company, you had no choice but to use windows and office. Any attempts at a boycott would have been futile because those companies that did not use windows or office would have been at a competitive disadvantage in their respective businesses.

A better example might be Visa/Mastercard. Those two companies dominate their industry much like PS/FTP dominates online poker. Consumers love them due to convenience but businesses absolutely hate Visa/MC because their interchange fees are downright extortion. You have very few rights as a merchant and you have no choice but to submit to their extortion because that is what consumers want to pay with and any business that refuses to take Visa/MC will be at a serious disadvantage. Sure, if all businesses in the entire world decided to boycott Visa/MC at the same time, then we might get somewhere. But realistically speaking, people/businesses are selfish and that kind of boycott will never work. My business pays over $2000 per month in interchange fees and I have no choice but to accept. I can hate it but for me to think that I can do something about it is downright foolish. If I wrote a letter to Visa/MC stating the caps they should put on certain transactions and how its fair if they only charged so and so for singature based transactions and so and so for pin based transactions, they would probably roll over laughing. Even coordinated lobbying from retailers, including the world's largest company in Walmart, has done relatively little to reduce the fees that Visa/MC charge. This is an industry that is much larger than online poker and there are much bigger, well organized parties involved and all their lobbying, boycotting, letters, whatever have you, has done little to reduce the fees. In fact, the only changes that Visa and MC have submitted to are due to the gov't and the Justice Dept forcing them with an antitrust lawsuit.Emails, PR, that is all irrelevant. The only way a boycott works is if a significant percentage of the consumers stay away from the product for an extended period of time and to think that a bunch of selfish regs will be able to organize in that fashion is really naive. Try convincing the big grinders on this site, exilharate, nolan, chicagojoey, etc to voluntarily give up their income stream and to stay away from PS for an extended period of time, even though the games are actually softer since other regs are sitting out. Just like how businesses still bought microsoft office/windows, and businesses still use Visa/MC, regs will still play on PS/FTP and the only losers will be the naive ones that thought their boycott would actually work. It is just the nature of capitalism and when certain businesses come to dominate a market the only hope that consumers have is for competition to kick in and provide an alternative.

rakeback is a function of how much rake you pay..so if you lowered rake itd be like getting a lot more rakeback so of course those players would win more than they did before.

lol tlopac
if i pay 1k in rake, and get 45% rb i make 450.
if i pay 300 in rake (Assuming it would be 1k under the old structure) and get 0% rb i effectively make 700
see what hes trying to say?

also, well put tenbagger

On October 18 2010 16:44 TenBagger wrote: Maybe sometime in the future, an open source poker network can be developed.

spot on - this is the key imo

On October 18 2010 16:44 TenBagger wrote: If US legislation is changed, major gaming corporate interests will have the necessary ammo to break the PS/FTP oligopoly. Competition from other companies will eventually bring the rake down and not some boycott or movement.

I would like to note here that there will be even more chance of competition for everyone worldwide if the U.S. makes online poker a state issue and not a federal issue - so supporting the PPA is incorrect

u underline the effects of usury very well
what kind of business do you run?

lol tlopac sorry i have trouble respecting any of your posts because of your "well, with reduced rake, the breakeven and losing players suffer because they lose precious rakeback!".

tenbagger, awesome post. i was totally ignorant to the visa/mastercard issue other than the fact that they dominate the industry. very eye opening and obviously there are many other businesses out there that manage to sell products at prices over their "actual value" for various reasons

interesting post tenbagger.

On October 18 2010 16:57 Bigbobm wrote: lol tlopac if i pay 1k in rake, and get 45% rb i make 450. if i pay 300 in rake (Assuming it would be 1k under the old structure) and get 0% rb i effectively make 700 see what hes trying to say? also, well put tenbagger

yes completely - but this is not the case to a Stars FPP pro that is breakeven or worse
They would effectively make squat in your second scenario or some less-rake-taken method being implemented and that's who I was attempting to represent (basically the less rake = less rakeback mentality) as there are quite a few FPP pro's minds who might think such things yet would never ever speak up publicly til they saw how they would wither away if less rake was taken so in the end would end up siding with the pokersites conclusion

but regardless of trying to bring that dialogue out in the open for Bejamin to appeal to, there are people here now who actually fit the part of defending the corporates behalf much better than I so I can realign the spending of my energy as I'm not very good at being devil's advocate in something I am for

dogmeats first choice was closest
I even said so in my first sentence

On October 18 2010 17:13 exalted wrote: lol tlopac sorry i have trouble respecting any of your posts

lucky for me this wasn't/isn't my priority eh?

no they would "make" 700 in the 2nd scenario. i know my explanation was a bit confusing but i dont think you can put it anymore clearly than bigbobm put it.

where do you think rakeback comes from lol. it comes from paying a bunch of rake and if you didnt pay that rake in the first place you would still have the money.

Anyone who says "rake is paid by winners only" has a serious misunderstanding of what it means to be a poker player. You win some pots and you lose some, hundreds or thousands of them through out the day. The fish do too. Because rake has a profound effect on anyone's bankroll it does have an effect on net-loss players as well.

The fish that loses all his hands is not coming back and is effectively not a part of the population: the member of the losing population that would benefit from having the option to have 0 rake for $X a month: is the prolific, slightly losing player.

Any casual player would be happy winning 40% of his hands when he has invested in a pot, just for the thrill of chasing that straight, flush, or what have you.

On October 18 2010 18:00 joLin wrote: no they would "make" 700 in the 2nd scenario. i know my explanation was a bit confusing but i dont think you can put it anymore clearly than bigbobm put it. where do you think rakeback comes from lol. it comes from paying a bunch of rake and if you didnt pay that rake in the first place you would still have the money.

/massive face palm

i mean come on