blonde poker forum

hi blondes,

Myself and a few like-minder buddies have come up with an interesting idea. I would love to get your feedback, either here or on 2+2.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/new-poker-site-critics-welcome-1354408/#post39447098 (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/56/medium-stakes-pl-nl/new-poker-site-critics-welcome-1354408/#post39447098)

The basic premise is that we, as poker players, have been paying through the teeth for far too long to play a game we all love, enjoy and (some of you lucky gits) make money from.

I would really like your participation in giving any feedback on the concept of rake-free poker; any concerns and possible thoughts on what might be attractive to you as a poker site user.

thanks a lot! alex

I'm not sure what your idea is? Where is the profitability going to come from?

Are we really paying through our teeth? Are you going to guarantee tournaments like stars? I don't think so.

Aside from getting a big enough group of players to support it to make all the games worth playing, I guess the main issue would be the security of the game and the safety of player funds.  I would be worried that a rake-free site wouldnt be making enough money to invest in this as well as develop good software.

There are a number of key issues with launching a sites like this. Traffic acquisition being one. Many of the larger sites struggle to attract enough numbers to generate profit from poker and they have the benefit of being household names with large marketing budgets.

Then there's the software. Unless you were to run on an existing network such as ipoker you have the setup, development and maintenance costs that aren't insubstantial. Obviously running on ipoker or similar would involve a rake being taken from players for ipoker's cut before you look at your share. 

You haven't mentioned how your revenue will be generated, and a lot of existing operators rely extensively on cross-selling their other services such as sports-book and casino to generate enough revenue to cover the costs of acquisition of poker players - and these are sites that take rake.

Of course, just because an idea is novel doesn't make it wrong. There are plenty of poker sites out there getting it very wrong, and so doing it differently to them could well be a good thing. Taking on Stars is another level above that though I reckon.

How many have you had ?

Rake is pretty unreasonable everywhere imo.

It might be an issue for pros, but I'm not sure it's a massive factor for recs, and also without the rake how do the poker sites make their revenue?  Is there an alternative model for generating revenue for poker sites?

Advertising has always been talked about in regards to rake free poker. Ie. having the Pepsi logo on the felt or whatever.

Would it affect traffic as there would be no "rake back pros"?  - or am I missing the point that a breakeven player instantly becomes a 5% ROI player?

Advertising would 'help', but not sure it'd generate the level of revenue that rake does - but definitely something that could supplement rake, or help reduce it for those who 'opt in' to advertising.

Coincidently, saw this today: http://pokerfuse.com/news/media-and-software/ultimate-poker-vip-program-to-use-winner-takes-all-for-rake-attribution-22-07/

I'm not sure how many (or if any) recs know exactly how the rake works on the poker sites they play on.  I'd assume a lot of the pros do though, but do they consider rake attribution as a key factor for the site(s) they play on?  Do the poker sites care that much about the pros (removing Stars from the equation)?

As the pros are a small part of the market, the answer is more than likely is:             NO.

Trustworthiness is the biggest issue right off the bat. Savvy poker players will want to know the business model, so you can't keep that under wraps forever. You can't hide it, because people will want to know what is in it for you to trust you. I don't think you are going to get anything valuable in terms of community response or market research by asking if people don't want to pay rake, of course they don't. Tell people your business model, it's rare people steal ideas and few people want to put the work in anyway, you stand a much better chance of gaining interest and momentum by planting your flag in the ground early.

Then the biggy long term is how much financial clout you have and how good is the software. If you want to compete with Stars you need brilliant software and the players need to be confident that you are liquid enough to withstand a big financial hit.

Also while I am sure that a genuinely good solution to overpriced rake will be well received by all, I don't think it is of any real concern to recreational players. Everyone wants to know what you are doing to get more new players to the table and it's likely you would have to first explain what rake is to them to sell the benefits of this. Really as tomsom87 just said, rake is only of primary concern to a small, but vocal, minority.

Rake-free poker has been done before - WSEX - it was [  ] very successful.

Pro players see rake as some terrible tax which is stealing money from their pockets - but that's what funds advertising and marketing campaigns to bring in new players.

Recs mostly don't care about rake, many of them don't even notice it.

The challenge of getting this off the ground would be significant Alex. 

The average rec player that visits a site 3 or 4 times a month will have no awareness of your product (and you'll need thousands of them), while you'll have little to offer (liquidity or guarantee wise) the players that rake $300 to $30k+ per month.

To stand a fighting chance, you'd need a pretty large marketing budget to start.  To secure that you'll need investors who will want to see a profit on their money and many will view a non traditional revenue model as risky. 

I'd be the last to say anything is impossible, but I don't think rake free on its own is a strong enough USP to get you 12 months down the road.

awesome feedback, yeah i understand the enormity of it; but i feel with the right people behind it there might be a shot at success. Does anyone have any idea what the development costs were for any of the major poker sites software? Iv tried to find some info but its all v well hidden. The best i could find was this thread on 2p2 http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/191/programming/cost-time-develop-poker-software-1046679/ (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/191/programming/cost-time-develop-poker-software-1046679/)

Im guessing if you got something along the Tribeca software your on a winner.

lol, showing ur age to the kids right there

loved the trumpet at the start of a comp, like ringing the dinner bell

It's really how long is a piece of string.

The PokerStars software has evolved over time, and during that time been redeveloped over and over again.  They will have spent tens of millions of pounds on it over the years.  You hear poker players moaning time and time again about inadequacies in the poker software that certain sites use - and yet it takes ages to look at and resolve these issues.  It's because it takes a fair bit of developer time and any down-time due to changes that haven't been properly checked and rechecked before launch will literally cost the business thousands and thousands of pounds.

I've worked on websites that have cost between half a million and a million pounds to design and develop to launch - only for them to require lots of post-launch development work that has cost tens of thousands of pounds.  It's pretty normal really as even with the best planning you're going to have unexpected things crop up, or the brief or scope of the project can change over time.

A smallish website can cost £10K, but then you have to get traffic to it.  Good SEO will cost significant money (and time, and effort) and if you go down the Pay-Per-Click route you're talking paying tens of pounds per click on poker-related terms.  If you have 100 people click on your Google Adwords ad @ £20/click, that's £2,000 you've spent, and how many of these are you going to convert into sign-ups?  Then how many of these sign-ups are going to deposit, and deliver a lifetime value that means your PPC-activity gives a positive ROI?  Lots of money to be spent on analysis of traffic data, UX-experts, email marketing to drive repeat visits and deposits, etc.  That's before you consider the other costs of site-maintenance, the thousands you'll have to spend every month on hosting, etc.

The easiest way to launch a new poker site would be to use an existing network and just be a skin on that.  But they work on a rake-basis and the costs of being on a network aren't small and probably wouldn't match your business model either?

How are you going to get businesses to advertise with you, when it has not been done before? I first thought this might have gone through a membership scheme

trawling forums to get info on the costs to run pokerstars is a bit futile and pointless tbf.

Fish don't especially care about rake as long as is market rates, far happier to pay for a higher quality product. Your costs will eat you alive very quickly if even make it to launch with the high startup costs.

 :D Yes I remember that  :D

Love that you've come up with the next big thing over a boozy BBQ or something Alex :)

Happy to discuss at some point if you want - we're overdue a catchup...

for sure jamie, idk i just think that it was very unusual for a market to transition from tangible to online as basically a mirror. Im not sure if its possible, but iv spoken to a few close pals (and will be speaking to a LOT more) and i think its got a shot.

Ill be harassing a lot of blondes and poker players worldwide in the next couple of months, i dont think raising investment would be that much of a problem, but there are a tonne of other hidden issues. As kin said, the piece of string analogy is apt. Still gonna think about giving it a v serious shot though.

I got your message....at some point a discussion with some of the commercial guys at perform may be worthwhile; there bread and butter is advertsing revenue and marketing from monetising content - the issue is a poker site is not comparable from a traffic perpective to premium soccer content, editorial, football data.  I think the only way this could work is as part of a broader traffic driver which can sustain higher marketing revenue - havent really given it much though, but your going down the Zinga route to an extent. 

Its good to dream - i think looking inside the current parameters of how internet poker has evolved, the stock answer will alway be "it can't work", because if you mirror vurrent models it won't.  You need to think one or two steps ahead in the evolution of the market and try and get a USP thats one step ahead....afraid I ain't got that far.

Happy for you to buy me lunch as per PM :)

Loved Tribeca, bring back Tribeca now (esp rake free lol)

Tribeca paid for a couple of £7-8k safaris back in the day when I wasn't a fish  ;D

Looking at 100m? Surely? Not sure how that investment can be found without some serious private investment.

The fact it has been done before and failed shouldn't put you back.  WSEX had a lot of very good ideas but ultimately were very bad at the business aspects of it.  If anything the fact that they were one of the pioneers of in running betting, betting exchanges in the US market should persuade you that it isn't an awful idea but you do have to find a way to monetise it and operate it and these are the challenges that many very clever entrepreneurs miss and is, ultimately, the reason they fail or don't make as much money as they should.  Good ideas don't make as much money as good businesses ultimately despite the romantic notions of the opposite.

I think there was a site which was rake free but charged a small amount each month to be a member? Maybe $20 per month.

Was that WSEX or someone else?

Don't think WSEX charged membership....they intended to utilise it to drive traffic to their sports and casino businesses I think

Even if this works and you get going, are you not worried stars and maybe some other sites just undercut you and offer players way more than you ever can?  Theyre so powerful Id imagine its pretty hard to compete

Not wanting to ruin your idea but the bolded part is key! How are you going to get

1. Good enough software
2. Appropriate advertising

to name just 2 key areas when you seem to think appropriate investment wouldn't be that much of a problem!

Readers of blonde/2+2 etc isn't appropriate advertising, you need to appeal to the masses as any poker site needs rec players as well as the readers of poker sites.

Best of luck with it, but make sure you fully understand how much £ is involved before you start as you can burn money pretty quickly

Pretty hard to undercut zero rake surely?

Not just with lowered rake I mean, but with promotions/bonus's etc