[coachkf]

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That seems rather rotten of the network. How can a poker site control every single one of its affiliates.

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Someone has to be responsible and the poker site has to be responsible for their affiliates. I am sure they are happy with a one week ban in the long run compared to the site that got kicked off.

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This is extremely hard to do. With several 1000 affiliates you can imagine its impossible to keep them all in line. They can only punish the ones they discover and I think ipoker is being way to harsh in this case cause from my intelligence its only about offering VIP deals

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Here's the problem:

Large poker room spends thousands of $$ on marketing campaigns to bring in players, paying several hundred dollars per player. New tiny poker site launches, does zero marketing, and offers rakeback. High volume players that the large poker room spent hundreds to attract, skip over to the rakeback skin. Large poker room ends up having paid hundreds of dollars for .01/.02 limit players.

Party Poker solved it by permanently fencing off Empire Poker(at least until Empire's value had dropped to bottom barrel and they bought them up for pennies compared to their old value) and the other skins. At least in this case you're only looking at a one week ban.

iPoker doesn't expect NoIQ to police every affiliate, but they don't want affiliate managers empowering illegal private offers either, and that's what's happening.

As a rakeback affiliate, I'll give whatever amount it takes to players to stay competitive, to a point. If my affiliate manager says "here's 65% revenue share, give how much ever you want, just keep it private" that's what I'll do. If they say "Here's 40%, and if I catch you giving more than 30%, our relationship ends," then guess what... - I'll give 30%.

NoIQ doesn't have to police every affiliate. They really just have to police their affiliate managers.

Their solution isn't perfect. The only room that can't be loopholed is Poker Stars and that's because they don't have revenue share as an affiliate payment method. However, enforcing the existing rules laid out to new skins will have a trickle down effect.

Here's the only real solution IMO. Do what sites like Cake, Carbon and SunPoker have done and have the rakeback deals administered by the poker sites themselves after the player has signed up through the rakeback affiliate. Special high volume deals could then be made between the player and the poker site.

The affiliate programs might even have to ditch the affiliates ability to see individual player rakes, but that's really no big deal as long as they provide the players their rakeback stats within the poker software.

A few things will remain constant though. We as players will always want another 1%. We as affiliates will always want to have the highest offer. Finally, as long as the poker sites and networks put the rakeback programs in the hands of the affiliates and affiliate managers, this war will continue.