The myth of PS rakeback

[primetime32]

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This forum however is full of Stars supporters who only see through rose tinted glasses. If you question anything you just get dumb replies about how good the service is. And that is never the question at hand.

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You must be reading a different forum than the rest of us.

What I see are people like myself and microbob who are willing to sit down and do the actual math.

What I see are regular posts about people's accounts getting locked at FTP, software problems (ie: lag) at FTP, and it then being impossible to get any responce from FTP support.

And you've obviously missed seeing all the times people like myself have been whining at Stars for improvements. Like an auto-reload function that doesn't just min-reload, a reload button, making it easier to join and leave tables without having to make 37 clicks. etc.

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This forum is filled with stars supporters. That is a fact. Personally, i think that is because this forum has tons of multi-tabling supernova players so for them Stars is awesome. For the rest of us moderate players FT is far better. Even if that means a lag in support. I rather wait an extra day for a response than sacrifice RB.

[Rek]

To MicroBob and Cry Me a River - please don't get me wrong. I like your posts and you make good arguments and so do many others. But there are a huge number of posts about how good the service is on PokerStars in many threads when that is not even the issue.

Now again, for some of the SN and SNE's it may be marginal. But don't forget there are mega numbers of bronze, silver and golds out there and if they get RB on FTP finacially it is not even close. Thats not to say they should go to FTP because other criteria comes into play (e.g. superior service & software).

Now, there is a myth out there that FPP's equate to RB. All I am saying is that doing big calculations on a real heavy user and saying "look its very similar" is very mis-leading for the thousands of smaller users.

Stars know this to be true and they will not offer RB because if they did they would be paying back much more than they are now under the VIP/FPP system. To me that is case proved.

[SirFelixCat]

The problem with PStars that I have is that if I don't play STRICTLY on PStars, it's essentially a waste of time for me to play on there.

Where as any other site that offers RB, I can bounce between sites and still earn my RB...


Simple as that for me....

[Rek]

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The problem with PStars that I have is that if I don't play STRICTLY on PStars, it's essentially a waste of time for me to play on there.

Where as any other site that offers RB, I can bounce between sites and still earn my RB...


Simple as that for me....

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Yes, and Stars know it. The stange thing is if they did offer RB why would anyone play anywhere else?

[Josem]

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But there are a huge number of posts about how good the service is on PokerStars in many threads when that is not even the issue.

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But it is often the issue. At the end of the day, if you have RB at FTP and are high volume players, it is probably a fairly marginal decision - the value of a few dollars here and there in rakeback etc. is far less, I think, than the value of the other attributes I listed earlier in the thread.

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But don't forget there are mega numbers of bronze, silver and golds out there and if they get RB on FTP finacially it is not even close.

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...so do the calculations and do whatever you prefer.

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Now, there is a myth out there that FPP's equate to RB.

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At the end of the day, they are functionally very similar. Both end up putting money in your account.

Semantically arguing that "FPPs are not rakeback" is useless - but we've moved beyond this.

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All I am saying is that doing big calculations on a real heavy user and saying "look its very similar" is very mis-leading for the thousands of smaller users.

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But the calculations are relevant to many posters here.

If you want to have conversations with people who only play every now and then, you may find www.pocket5s.com to be more suitable for you.

If you want to communicate with high volume players, stick here.

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Stars know this to be true and they will not offer RB because if they did they would be paying back much more than they are now under the VIP/FPP system.

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There are many other factors that play into their decision. As an outsider, here are some that are obvious:
a) FPPs allow for more targetted bonuses
b) FPPs allow Stars to change their benefits from time to time
c) Rakeback creates issues of equity
d) In most models, rakeback is used for affiliate systems, which will interpose more people into the PokerStars revenue model
e) Some players will be worse off under a rakeback model

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To me that is case proved.

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Well, you're just wrong to claim you have proved anything. You are trying to claim that one is better than the other. That is not a provable issue - it is not a case of 2 + 2 = 4.

It is a case of comparing apples and oranges - both are fruit, both offer something to eat, both have important nutrients and are broadly healthy, but some people prefer apples and other people prefer oranges.

There's nothing wrong with someone liking apples and someone liking oranges. That's why we have a free market - so that each individual can choose what they like most and act accordingly.

[Josem]

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The stange thing is if they did offer RB why would anyone play anywhere else?

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...because there are a huge number of factors that people use to decide where to play.

While you may value a particular rakeback/reward/etc. model, not everyone else does.


Apart from anything else, if what you say about the importance of rake is true, sites should just lower their rake in the first place - instant rakeback!

[Rek]

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The stange thing is if they did offer RB why would anyone play anywhere else?

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...because there are a huge number of factors that people use to decide where to play.

While you may value a particular rakeback/reward/etc. model, not everyone else does.


Apart from anything else, if what you say about the importance of rake is true, sites should just lower their rake in the first place - instant rakeback!

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Ok lets put it another way. If Stars decided tomorrow to abandon VIP/FPP and award RB at the same level as FTP instead, how many people do you think would leave Stars. I'll take a guess at precisely zero. However, they would gain a huge amount of FTP customers.

Can I prove this, No. But you know this is true as well.

As for telling me to go to Pocket 5's, why? Because I had the audacity to suggest the award system on Stars doesn't match RB for thousands of players? There you go MicroBob that is the kind of comments you get.

[Josem]

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Ok lets put it another way. If Stars decided tomorrow to abandon VIP/FPP and award RB at the same level as FTP instead, how many people do you think would leave Stars. I'll take a guess at precisely zero. However, they would gain a huge amount of FTP customers.

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I'm not convinced this is accurate. I believe that most FTP customers, and most online poker players, have no rakeback. I believe that most online poker players don't even know about rakeback.

It's obviously important to you - so do whatever suits you.

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As for telling me to go to Pocket 5's, why?

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Because you complained about the discussion focusing on high volume players! This site is full of high volume players - and unsurprisingly, the discussion will focus on things that are relevant to them.

If you want lots of discussion of low volume players, Pocket5s is a better option for you.

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Because I had the audacity to suggest the award system on Stars doesn't match RB for thousands of players?

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No, that is not the reason.

[luckychancer]

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This forum however is full of Stars supporters who only see through rose tinted glasses. If you question anything you just get dumb replies about how good the service is. And that is never the question at hand.

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QFT and is exactly my point. For the person who does not play a gazillion hands a month FTP is clearly a superior choice as you get 27% RB no matter what AND that RB only impacts points spent not accululated. Plus you get medals which are not entirely useless and as demonstrated have some value.
Yet I see a lot of long convoluted posts about how PS FPP can be stretched into this figure and that figure while they totally ignore some glaring issues like you have to actually spend points to get bonus's wheras you do not at FTP

[Josem]

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For the person who does not play a gazillion hands a month FTP is clearly a superior choice as you get 27% RB no matter what AND that RB only impacts points spent not accululated. Plus you get medals which are not entirely useless and as demonstrated have some value.

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Which is what MicroBob's first calculation showed.

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Yet I see a lot of long convoluted posts about how PS FPP can be stretched into this figure and that figure while they totally ignore some glaring issues like you have to actually spend points to get bonus's wheras you do not at FTP

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this is just plainly untrue - microbob's calculation does include this.