At the risk of sounding like disgusted from Tunbridge Wells for the second day running when it comes to online poker, can someone please tell me what the blazes iPoker think they are playing at when it comes to their latest hair-brained scheme.
In their infinite wisdom the poker network has decided that the only way to improve their profits is by fining skins who white-label their product, such as VC Poker, for bringing in winning players.
I can only assume that this is a way of countering the rakeback deals that has seen their sites increasingly populated by winning players who are earning them less money. By improving the ratio of fish to sharks the networks believe that they will be more profitable as it is the deposits from the fish that generates the liquidity – and crucially their rake.
What they fail to understand, though, is that poker is about the survival of the fittest. A fish that remains a fish soon tires of losing money and buggers off, while the fish who start winning remain and turn into sharks.
Now clearly something needs to be done to keep encouraging new players to poker sites – a bit of advertising spend would be a start – as well as putting a cap on rakeback deals across the board, but fining skins for hosting too many winning players can only be counter-productive. When the skins start banning sharks there will be a large-scale exodus, bad press – like this article – and the blacklisting of said sites – not to mention the networks that are egging them on.
Ipoker for starters should be ashamed of themselves for terminating their contract with Blonde Poker last month – and players should start voting with their feet – or rather their hands. Online poker sites can’t function without liquidity so a sustained campaign against these fascist networks is in order. By leaving them high and dry they’ll soon change their tune.
The point is there are always going to be winners and losers regardless of the radical action the networks or the skins take. If you remove the top 10% the next 10% of players become winners. What do the networks think, that this policy will eventually lead to all players becoming losers?
The irony is that, in the end, iPoker’s obsession with losers will only make them blind them to the biggest loser of all – the one staring back at them in the mirror.
