WSEX offering rake-free poker

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

http://www.wsex.com/index-test.html?http&&&www.wsex.com/poker.html

Rake is a much bigger issue than most casual poker players understand. Sure, they don’t think it’s a big deal that $3 gets taken out of a $75 pot they just won. But what they don’t get is that they might trade back and forth 20 $75 pots that night, and suddenly that $3 has become $60 when the money has just been passed back and forth.

A sizable percentage of would-be winning players are net losing players because of the rake - and even winners usually pay more in rake than they win.

When I was playing full time, I’d take in $2500-$4000 a month, and I’d often be paying $2500 a month in rake. No exaggeration. I’ve easily paid over $20,000 in rake which would otherwise be in my pocket. For what little service an online poker site provides, it’s absolutely absurd - an exorbitant practice. As a comparison, say, playing a MMORPG costs the company much more in terms of bandwidth, support, and design than anything any online poker site does, yet my costs at playing an MMORPG, using more resources at higher cost, is ~$12 compared to that $2400. In other word, the online companies are just swimming in mountains of cash with an insanely high service fee compared to cost. It costs next to nothing to run these things, but they pull in millions a day.

Most people simply don’t ever think about how much it adds up though, and that, combined with price fixing (there’s clearly a friendly agreement between all major sites not to compete on rake prices) lets them continue to get away with this.

In any case, in what’s long overdue, wsex, from what I gather a fairly longstanding and popular british sports book, is offering their poker room rake free as an incentive to draw more customers into their sports book and online casino. They actually take rake out of pots, track how much you’ve paid, and then credit it back into your account on a weekly basis. This is a great strategy, I think, because it’s almost like giving your players a bonus every week. Casual players might not notice $3 being taken out of every pot, but they certainly will notice when you credit their account with an extra $300. Plus, since the money is being held, they can make interest on it while it’s floating.

This might get me back into playing online poker, and I figured I’d share it with you guys. They don’t have a big advertising budget, so this is going to get around by word of mouth. I hope this is wildly successful… it might be able to break the price fixing of all the major sites.

2

Thank you sir.

I may check this site out.

I only have a pokerstars account at this time.

Good luck to ya.
.

3

The quality of the games may be on the low end - free rake is more likely to attract good players who understand rake rather than bad players who don’t care - however, they way they do it, giving you a lump sum at the end of the week, may attract bad players.

In any case, you’ll probaby be amazed at how much the rake adds up. I’ve had weeks where I’ve spent 60 hours playing, and broke even, very frustratingly, where if I was playing on a rake free site, I’d have been up $700. Difference between nothing and very solid weekly pay.

4

Sorry if it’s illegal to bump this thread, I’m not sure. Wanted to give an update to it.

I’m not in any way affiliated with this site - it’s just such a huge deal that I pimp it. I’m tired of seeing sites like partypoker provide minimal service and yet take hundreds or thousands of dollars out of each player every month, draining the poker economy, making 95% of people losers, and making winners into small winners.

I’ve been playing on and off for a few months now, and this site may be the greatest thing ever to happen to poker. That sounds hyperbolic - but if you really think through the math of how drastically rake affects the games and makes it a losing proposition for everyone, you’d understand the viewpoint.

Unfortunately, no one realizes that, and its growth has been fairly slow. It’s about doubled in population since my last post.

The games aren’t as tough as they once were, as some bad players are coming in. This site is great for bad players too - even losing players lose much more slowly, and get more value for their losses in terms of entertainment. Some games are full of nits, but you can find the good ones if you look around.

They take the rake, and then give it back to you every monday, so you can really see how much you’re paying. It makes me ill to think about how much money I’ve payed to play poker in my lifetime. When I was playing full time - just at a single table, most online pros play several - I was paying over $25,000 a year to poker sites, which is the sickest ripoff. People let it happen because they were ignorant of the rake and its effects. And I had no real choice because of that.

I’ve been playing fairly casually, and even at a limit like $3-$6, you can make $15+ an hour just in the rakeback alone. That is - if you would break even on another site, you’d be making $15+ an hour here. Or, if you’d be losing $10/hr on another site, you’re still gaining $5 here.

It’s such a drastic change that the thought of going back makes me ill.

Anyway, since they don’t make much money, they don’t run TV ads and stuff, and word of mouth is the main way to get the news out. I’m not just doing this for my benefit, although it does have a benefit for me for them to get bigger, but because I really want everyone to stop being gouged by raked online sites for ridiculous profits.

5

Senor Beef

How many tend to be online at once? What stakes games are available?

6

In total, 800-1500 throughout the day. Usually though when it hits 1500 it’s due to a freeroll being offered. In terms of actual cash game players, more like 300-600. Not that many, but plenty enough to find a game.

They have pretty much every limit available. They have O8 (no omaha high), stud, and stud split, but those games are fairly rare. You’ll usually find 2-3 O8 games going, but rarely a good stud game.

7

To clarify, I meant 800-1500 players online at once depending on which time of day you look, not that only 800-1500 individual people logged on in a day. My wording was ambiguous.

8

Thanks for updating this. I missed it the first time.

If my pokertracker data is accurate, then I’ve paid several hundred in rake. And I don’t play very often.

I remember playing at a casino that had a $3 max rake and a $1 jackpot drop. There were several big stacksof $1 chips ($3/$6 game) when I sat down. About an hour or so later they were gone, even though no one left the table. That was an eye opener.

9

Easily. I’ve generated $560 since monday. Looking at the stats, that’s for 22.5 hours. That’s $25 per hour in rakeback. I’d either be paying another site $25 an hour for the privilege of playing there, or to look at it another way, they’re paying me $25 an hour in bonus (relative to other sites) to play there.

Well, if you think about it - take, for example, a game in which 10 people sit down with $1000. Let’s say they’re a bunch of regulars who know each other, so they come to play at a certain time, bringing the money they had left. (Or they’re trapped in a box, forced to play poker. Whichever) For our purposes, no one adds any money.

Let’s say you average $4 a hand in rake and tips (if a live game), 40 hands per hour. And they played every night for 6 hours over a 5 day week, for 30 hours. 30404 = $4800. There was $10,000 on the table when they started, and now there’s $5200 left. It’s very unlikely anyone here is a winner - and if there is, then several people are huge losers.

Now, that example is just for a week - for 60 hours. Think a month. A year. The money just gets sucked right out of the poker economy until only very few people are winners.

10

Thanks Senor Beef.

I just downloaded it. I’ve been keeping a close eye on rakefree.com which is being developed by Dutch Boyd and some partners, but it isn’t open yet.

11

I wouldn’t get excited about that. Boyd has a pretty strongly negative reputation - google pokerspot and his name.

12

Yeah I’ aware of the Pokerspot fiasco, but it looked like the only hope for a rakefre cardroom.

That said, if he does get it going, I’ll sign up there too.

13

Well, WSEX/WPEX is legit - they’ve said that it’s not a gimmick or short promotion, but that they plan to stay that way.

They still make money - party and stars would still make gobs of cash even if they had no rake, because they can earn interest on the millions and millions of dollars that they’re holding, and the cost of running those sites is pretty low compared to that. People will accept gouging, so that’s what they do.

Anyway, I hope and expect wsex to stay this way indefinitely for that reason - they can still turn a profit without rake, and perhaps players will give them action in their sports book. I plan to - with a fraction of my rakeback, as a thanks to them.