what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t recover\"
 

I was reading Gary Wise's site about collusion at UB and it said Paradise Poker had some scandal?

http://www.wisehandpoker.com/blog/

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t recover\"
 

I wonder if he could have meant Planet Poker.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t recover\"
 

I think Paradise's only crime was their arrogance. To go from #1 to nowhere like they did is astonishing.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

planet poker was the first spot to offer real money games and a bunch of math experts set out to break there card randomizer and did and then made some monies, after that planet was a small cardroom till now they only have play money that they sell

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t recover\"
 

Party Poker's marketing flatten them..

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t recover\"
 

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I think Paradise's only crime was their arrogance. To go from #1 to nowhere like they did is astonishing.

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So true.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t recover\"
 

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I think Paradise's only crime was their arrogance. To go from #1 to nowhere like they did is astonishing.

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So true.

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almost beyond belief how true this is

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t recover\"
 

OP you have the best avatar ever.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t recover\"
 

I kind of enjoyed ordering a drink feature at paradise. I remember going to my office back in 2000 very tired from late night sessions on paradise. People thought I was crazy for depositing money into a poker site lol.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

i belive banning US is what crushed paradise poker.

They where doing fairly decent banned us and never recovered.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

yeah, that was a bad move

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

'i belive banning US is what crushed paradise poker.'

It was going well downhill before Frist..

Banning US players didn't crush Party or iPoker etc

Dise were always just behind the other rooms (esp Party) in terms of marketing/bonuses.

Party overtook them on the basis of decent monthly bonuses and huge advertising.

When Frist hit they were already down to medium sized - what might have saved them then was aggressive marketing and some great bonuses or RB - instead they just carried on as before and faded further then got sold out and no-one even notices if they are still going or not..

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

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i belive banning US is what crushed paradise poker.

They where doing fairly decent banned us and never recovered.

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God no. By the time the US ban came in Paradise was already a fraction of what it use to be 5-6 years ago.

If I had to say one thing killed Paradise it was that they were to cheap to scale up their hardware to support the peek play hours. There was a period where the whole site would crash almost every night.

As far as scandals go the only thing I ever heard was rumours about hackers trying to blackmail the site. That was never anything more then rumours and hardly makes for much of a scandal.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

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God no. By the time the US ban came in Paradise was already a fraction of what it use to be 5-6 years ago.

If I had to say one thing killed Paradise it was that they were to cheap to scale up their hardware to support the peek play hours. There was a period where the whole site would crash almost every night.

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That and their excellent suport was abolished and they offered their players nothing - no rakeback, no vip program, nada.

They didn't bother to compete and didn't have a good product or good support anymore. No scandal or fristing was required.

I played ~200,000 hands there and when I stopped playing very suddenly they didn't even ask why, pathetic.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

They went downhill because they thought they would be #1 forever. They capped the games first at 10/20 then 15/30 then 20/40 when people wanted to play bigger. They wouldn't have tournaments despite demand. Every "innovation" they implemented was a response to some other site doing it first. They thought they were gonna be the 800-lb grind joint forever, which is pretty foolish given how easy it is for another site to spring up.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

Not becoming a founding member or advertising on the WPT was their biggest mistake. Also not advertising on ESPN's WSOP was also a mistake. About 6-12 months later they made a big ad by with Travel Channel and their advertising funds were seized by the DOJ.

Also I think they were complacent. Their multi player tournament implementation was horrible. Instead of just vigging the initial buy in, they took 9% out of the total prize pool.

Oh well, will make a good business case in a college textbook.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

Their numbers didn't really go down before they banned US players, they just didn't grow like the other big sites did.

They didn't cater to the regular players like most other sites did, kind of like the way Pacific works. This makes for alot less regulars and alot better games.

When they banned US players it was over since 80% of their base was US, I sure do miss their games they were really, really good.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

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I kind of enjoyed ordering a drink feature at paradise. I remember going to my office back in 2000 very tired from late night sessions on paradise. People thought I was crazy for depositing money into a poker site lol.

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Yeah that was awesome. I usually enjoyed a slice of cake at the table.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

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Their numbers didn't really go down before they banned US players, they just didn't grow like the other big sites did.

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It's been a while, but I was under the impression that they were growing pretty rapidly under the new ownership before the UIGEA came along. Prior to that, of course, they were stagnating, but the influx of sports bettors really seemed to have turned things around.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

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Their numbers didn't really go down before they banned US players, they just didn't grow like the other big sites did.

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It's been a while, but I was under the impression that they were growing pretty rapidly under the new ownership before the UIGEA came along. Prior to that, of course, they were stagnating, but the influx of sports bettors really seemed to have turned things around.

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Quite possible that they were growing, I was just going by my memory which definately could be off [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

I miss Paradise.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

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Quite possible that they were growing, I was just going by my memory which definately could be off [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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I think they were growing in terms of raw numbers but not in terms of market share. After the Moneymaker boom, other sites took off while Paradise did not.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t recover\"
 

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I think Paradise's only crime was their arrogance. To go from #1 to nowhere like they did is astonishing.

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So true.

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almost beyond belief how true this is

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It takes MAD skill to drop/plummet like they did. Ap is trying to do it, and they can't even do it as well as paradise did [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] I keed I keed [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

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I kind of enjoyed ordering a drink feature at paradise. I remember going to my office back in 2000 very tired from late night sessions on paradise. People thought I was crazy for depositing money into a poker site lol.

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Yeah that was awesome. I usually enjoyed a slice of cake at the table.

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Oh cmon, always a hotdog

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

The saddest part is, back in the days of bonus-whoring, even though Paradise's software sucked, whoring low limit O8 there was just that - paradise. I miss taking down those flaming pots afrter someone called me down with Ace high.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

Oh yeah. I loved how you could order a coffee, and then stack your opponent and he'll poff into smoke and the cards will lite on fire or glow.

Oh yeah, the good ol days.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

yeah, that was cool

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

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The saddest part is, back in the days of bonus-whoring, even though Paradise's software sucked, whoring low limit O8 there was just that - paradise. I miss taking down those flaming pots afrter someone called me down with Ace high.

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I have never bonus whored but I do remember getting an e-mail from Paradise. They had basically given me a $5k no deposit bonus. Still didn't bother but for someone who bonus whores it seemed like a pretty good deal.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

It was well known that if you ordered STRawberries you would get more STRaights.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

Could someone estimate how much paradise was worth when they were #1

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

Like a lot of people, Paradise was the first site I ever joined. The "order a drink" feature was the coolest, but I always ordered donuts, cake, or a big stinky cigar.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

the games at paradise were better then party imo, but then I never played higher then microstakes

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

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Could someone estimate how much paradise was worth when they were #1

[/ QUOTE ]Sportingbet bought them for $297.5m, and this was after they'd already dropped to 4th or 5th biggest.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

Their player base grew rapidly because they created nano limits. Their player base was very small above those limits. I did notice that around the time that they banned Americans there 2/4 limit games were among the easiest on the net.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

I played there right up until the time they moved to Boss. Their traffic was pretty poor, but they had great bonuses which they were handing out like candy on Hallowe'en, and as you say, play was REALLY soft. Of course, now they're on Boss, which has pretty much the worst bonuses in poker.

What Paradise Poker\'s owners \"recovered\" was $300 million
 

Only in a forum like this can people seriously try and throw dirt at a couple of guys who started a business from scratch and sold it for $300 million.

First, make yourself $300 million, then make some disparaging remarks about failing to protect market share or whatever nice theory you want to crow makes them arrogant or losers or whatever.

Did they tumble from #1, yes. Did they cash out for $300 million anyway ?

Nice pay day.

Re: What Paradise Poker\'s owners \"recovered\" was $300 million
 

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Only in a forum like this can people seriously try and throw dirt at a couple of guys who started a business from scratch and sold it for $300 million.

First, make yourself $300 million, then make some disparaging remarks about failing to protect market share or whatever nice theory you want to crow makes them arrogant or losers or whatever.

Did they tumble from #1, yes. Did they cash out for $300 million anyway ?

Nice pay day.

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the criticism is of the guys who bought it. They bought a fantastic site and ran it into the ground - sportingbet I think?

paradise lost from the day they bought it.

Re: What Paradise Poker\'s owners \"recovered\" was $300 million
 

their 5 handed 2/5 NL was some of the softest poker on the internet. Turning 1 buyin into $20k overnight was the nuts.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

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the games at paradise were better then party imo, but then I never played higher then microstakes

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I thought I was the only one who thought this. I miss the .25/.50 7stud game that had no ante.

Re: what scandal was Paradise Poker involved in \"that they didn\'t reco
 

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I miss Paradise.

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