Showing posts with label poker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poker. Show all posts

06 April 2006

World Poker/Betting Exchange (WSEX) Poker offers 100% rake refund

Sometimes you come across something that is so blatantly silly, you just have to highlight it.

WSEX (World Sports Exchange) has announced that their internet poker room has gone rake free.
Now as far as I know, most businesses and especially most gambling businesses are not generally run as non-profits. In fact, not charging customers a rake for a poker room means that a significant loss will be incurred by the business for poker room operating expenses. Whenever a business (especially a gambling business) makes such an altruistic statement, you can pretty much assume you're being mislead.

There are maybe five possibilities here:
  • They really are a lovable bunch of guys running a business they love for a bunch of customers they love, or
  • WSEX's sports betting overrounds are so big that they have (their customer's) money to throw at a zero rake model in "we do it because we love our customers" activities, or
  • Although WorldPx appears to use proprietary software, perhaps they have found a loophole in their poker software supplier's contract that means if they don't earn any poker revenue, no revenue share goes to the supplier, and they're using zero revenue to pressurize a better deal from the software supplier, or
  • WSEX poker room is doing poorly and they plan to use zero rake as an marketing loss lead to attract customers to save face, OR
  • WSEX poker room is doing poorly and they are using a zero rake model long enough to get to a critical mass customer base and will then re-activate commission
If WSEX was serious about a forever zero rake for their loyal customers, they would:
  • They would only offer zero rake to their long time loyal customers
  • Not heavily advertise the fact they offer zero rake in order to attract new customers
  • They would put a "you get zero rake forever" clause in the T&Cs of the game
  • Not collect the rake in the first place and then redistribute it back to their customers on a weekly basis
Promotional activities are an important part of business. Is this promotion just another thinly veiled and misleading attempt to gain customers? Is it an ego play to address a failing product in any way possible? Or perhaps its a clever publicity play a la Golden Palace. One option I'd guess its not is truth in advertising.