Wednesday, October 26, 2005

To rakeback or not to rakeback

This is the subject that high volume players are considering these days. There have been countless numbers of posts on this subject at 2+2 and poker blogs (including this great one by suckout).

My Party account was originally signed up with no affilate (how little I knew about the online poker business back then......), and I had been only using it strictly for bonus whoring. All of my other play at Party was through a skin where I was receiving rakeback.

When the skins were broken off, I looked for a few offers from affliates that would quietly give rakeback. The offers I received were tiered between 20-25% rakeback depending on MGR.

I finally got around to emailing Party's VIP group to get an offer directly from them. Their initial offer was $200 for 7000k raked hands, and I "negotiated" to $350 for 10k (about a 22.5%/raked hand improvement). If I play above this threshold, my bonus will be increased on a pro-rata basis. This seems to be a fairly standard offer given the stakes and # hands I play when compared to what others were listing in this 2+2 thread.

I asked and was told that the offer is only for November, and that some different, but better (yeah right...), promotion scheme will be coming for their VIP club.

The question I ponder is if I should try to get a combination of rakeback plus bonus $. I think for now I will take the conservative approach to stick with my existing Party account for just the bonus $ and see how others fare.

3 comments:

CC said...

Just found your blog, and I plan to add it to mine and follow it a good bit. A couple of questions: where do you live play (couldn't find where you're located), just the location is fine (I don't put too much personal info on my blog). I don't play live very much as we are in an area with no casino within 200 miles or so. I play when I travel, mainly Bellagio $15/30 when I'm in Vegas.

Also, I don't know much about rakeback, so if you wouldn't mind a simple tutorial, that would be great.

d said...

CC,
I play somewhere on the west coast where poker has been legal for many many years. The limits that are available at this poker room for limit hold'em are: $20/$40, $40/$80, $80/$160; so there is a fairly substantial jump between each level. Unfortunately for me, there are no nearby poker rooms that offer $30/$60. The $20 game is very beatable, but I'm still not ready to play $40/$80.

There should be a ton of articles out there on rakeback. However, the basic premise is something like this: Rakeback is money returned (typically indirectly) to a player from a poker site as a reward for playing in real money games at that site. I use the word "returned", because essentially it is a portion of the fees, or rake, that is charged by the poker site.
See: http://www.rakerebatereview.com/faq.asp

Dave

abc said...

At RakeBackCelebPoker.com We Will You Give you a 100% Match Bonus Up To €100 Plus 30% Rakeback for Life! Sign Up Now. http://www.RakeBackCelebPoker.com