The Poker Affiliate Blog

Sorry for a lack of post lateley. I’ve got my 1st exam on Friday but, haven’t been revising as much as I should have been – hopefully get cracking soon (using this post for procrastination).

The ads are up, along with the thread and its good to see things going fairly smoothly. I’m going to put Winner Poker & maybe a few other more competitive offers up tommorow and change the text on the home page a little (my bounce rate is alarmingly high) and hopefully that should kick things up a bit.

iPokerVIP was based on 2 premises;
1. Under the table deals are harder to come by – the market is moving.
2. iPokerVIP showcases the best legal deals.

I’d say I’ve got 2 bang on but, for all the time people have speant scrutinising my site 90% of the under the table affiliates could have been cleared out. Its pretty ridiculous and demonstrates that the iPoker network probably don’t care much for the rules themselves – just that people aren’t seen breaking them and the status quo remains intact, at least superficially.

The irony is that there are people in Birmingham who work for playtech whose job it is to catch these affiliates. If 90% of players can find these deals how can’t these spies who work on it everyday ?

I think the main problem is that iPoker doesn’t have a clear vision of what kind of network it wants to be. Its like one week they want uber-aggro deals so they can compete for Euro players on Stars and Tilt and the next week they’re banishing these deals wanting a fishy network and claiming that’s the way forward.

Tough spot. For a company worth over $1bn you’d think they might at least come close to getting it right.

Tags: affiliate, ecoop, ipoker deals, iPoker News, ipoker vip, iPokerVIP.net, online, poker, Rakeback, software

So its 5am and I’m still awake. Had one late night mid week and that’s thrown me completley off sync. I’ve been going to sleep at 1 in the afternoon and getting up at 6pm and don’t feel to great about it. So hopefully a bit of writing will help me nod off and get up around 10 tommorow (5 hours pfft).

I deposited some money onto PKR to check it out and overall I don’t feel the softness of games outweigh the lack of volume / rakeback which you can find elsewhere. I just can’t multi table. So I just have withdrawn $1.2k now which is not bad for a days work. Bit of a hit and run on the site. Although because the money has been transferred in and out of my account in $ I’m sure it will earn HSBC a nice £20. Always good to do my bit for them. I guess on PKR there are too many distractions for the fish / donks to spew their money off optimally. They’re getting distracted by all the little gizmos. It just hasn’t really done it for me. I prefer SkyPoker when it comes to uber soft sites.

I’ve been doing some research into some new shares to buy. Well more like thinking not much research. There just seem to be some certain undeniable truths in the west at the moment. Consumerism overall will grow, people are becoming more money oriented, lazier and our world is becoming more driven by technology. I don’t mean I’m going to go out buy HP or Sony shares because they’re too widely spread and just because tech is on the grow in the longterm doesn’t mean Sony will be. I was thinking a company involved in nano-technology.

The other company in general I quite like is Mcdonalds. Are their sales going to go down anytime soon ? Who is realisitically going to challenge them ? They just seem to have it nailed down, although maybe their price reflects this. Another company would be Nike. I just find it hard to see how their actual business isn’t going to grow. There aren’t many legitimate competitors and the market for trainers, sports clothing, fashion etc is on the up and up. The population of the world isn’t going to buy less trainers in 2010 than it did in ’09. I mean I don’t have any facts whatsoever its just hard to see. Obviously, the company can have a fundamental flaw and regardless of what market its in it just won’t enjoy the same growth.

Onto something I know more about…
I guess a few readers will have followed the ipokervip legality debate on 2+2. My guess is playtech haven’t made a firm decision and now Titan are at it.

It was suggested to me that my thread was removed from affiiates/rb forum because of the word rakeback in the forum name. My site has no mention of RB anywhere and I categorically don’t offer it. Whereas RTR and friends seem to get off with it. I guess I can live with that but, now Titan are using the word Rake and Rakeback consistently in their ad campaign. I guess it might be good for the network and at the end of the day what they’re offerring doesn’t compare to me so it has its positives but, it just goes to show how having it in with the owner of the network can do wonders for you ! Or just being the same person altogether.

As you can see on the right I’ve got players on Titan and don’t have anything against them. If you have an advantage, I guess push it as far as you can. The fact remains a lot of other skins would be afraid of doing something as bold.

Cynics will come along and say I effectivley did the same thing with iPokerVIP and I guess the difference is a) In my honest opinion I didn’t think the methodology of my offers were different b) As a business I represent myself. Playtech are a PLC and the owner owns Titan. Whereas I just want to showcase the best offers I can find and don’t want to do anything apart from give players the best. Anyway, its nothing against Titan I’d do the same in their shoes. Its going to be an interesting next few months because I’d be suprised if their was no reaction to this.

New offers should be up this week along with the support thread. May is going to be a really big month on iPoker so its defo a better time to kick off compared to August or something.

Tags: iPoker News, iPokerVIP.net, online, Playtech, titan, VC, VIP Deals

I feel a lot more positive about things. I kept on saying how the negative press from competitors just meant that ipokervip was such a threat but, didn’t really appreciate.

I got a bit too emotional at the weekend about the whole thing and kinda regret some of my posts and their bad spelling ! I was doing this on no sleep just trying to give almost instant rebuttle so that a pile of neg stuff didn’t come up.

I’m feeling a ton more positive mainly thanks to VC being behind me 100% which is really awesome. Although this issue is much bigger than ipokervip for them its really refreshing and certainly not something that they need to do.

A ton of new offers are coming on tommorow and I’ll be getting together some statements for 2+2. From there its up to them whether they will get behind the support thread and at least confirm they have emails from the right people that confirm the legality of the offers.

Hopefully, the new support thread should be up soon with the banners – I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve said this.

* VC Poker Olympics *

Here is some great news for all my VC players. The next events in the Poker Olympics will be based to a higher degree on rake meaning that the limit players cant take advantage anymore. I don’t have the full details yet but, this actually means some of my players might take the next events seriously !

So its all positive ! Feel like I’m still growing up at the moment getting huge mood swings… I’m a weirdo.

Jamie

Tags: Bet365, Deals, iPoker News, iPokerVIP.net, Rakeback, titan, vcpoker, vip

I kinda believe you get paid for your work 3 months ago when being an affiliate. In that case in July I should be Bill Gates !

Its actually completley ridiculous. Kinda realise how crazy it is when I could sit at my computer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and be work intensivley for every minute.

So iPokerVIP has had any glitches ironed out, Noble went down, Paid 2+2, Banners got made, New players, new players , new players, new sub affiliates, new super affiliates and tons of other stuff. Been incredibly busy. Oh yeh and then paying all my subs which I’ve gta look forward to tonight !

On a more relaxed note I just got season 5 of the American Office through the post and had to get an American import (probably a step too far for the American office) because season 4 isn’t even out on DVD in the UK although season 6 is wrapping up on the TV in America. It works on my PS3 so pretty chuffed with that.

With the presence on 2+2 things aren’t going to get particuarly quieter so I’ll draft in a few of my mates to do some of the stuff and hopefully they don’t fuck it up too badly.

Tags: Deals, iPoker News, iPokerVIP.net, online, poker, vip

The wait has been worthwhile. VC is running the first Poker Olympics which kicks off on April 4th. For an itinary click here.

This full promotion is exclusive to VCPoker and is honestly amazing value. If you keep in mind grinders from huge skins like Will Hill, Expekt, Titan, Mansion and PaddyPower will not be able to take part the value begins to look a lot better than your average race or chase.

Either click here or contact me to take full advantage of the promotion, enjoy an amazing VIP deal and a first deposit bonus !

Tags: iPoker VCPoker, Poker Olympics, victor chandler

iPokerVIP.Net is finally live and kicking. After countless updates and redrafts its now in a state I’m happy with although I’ll always find a little something wrong with it. Probably because in a perverse way I don’t want it to go live and fail – I’d much rather keep building and perfecting.

Anyway – its just a question of putting the ads on 2+2 (should be next week) and keeping my fingers crossed. I’m completley convinced the gap in the market is there and I’m equally certain nobody has filled it. The size of the niche and whether I’m the one to fill it remains to be seen. Besides I’m sure there are lots of failed businesses that were in the right niche but, just couldn’t capitlize. Although being in a growth area makes failing a shitload harder I’m sure.

As for my current player base things should turn around from Febuary (and it looks like March’s) horrible low. I’ve been busy with iPokerVIP and a ton of other things and its just harder to get players on these deals nowadays.
VC is running a $375k promotion called Poker Olympics which is going to kill. Its by far the best place to go on iPoker now and the dormant player’s under me (who all have a legitimate chance of doing very well with the promo) would be stupid to not come flooding back.
So I hope they’re not stupid !

April is going to be really busy – which is a good thing. No uni and I’m not really intending to revise for exams then either. 1st one is May 7th so 7 days (if I put my head down is defo all that is needed to pass which is 40%).

April is going to be interesting. I’ve kinda written off March though.

If iPokerVIP goes well I’ve got another affiliate concept ready to go which I’ll write more about later. Hopefully, it doesn’t take me as long to get my head around.

Tags: iPoker News, iPokerVIP.net, poker promotion, race, rake, vcpoker, victor chandler, vip

I don’t know too much about the legislation and I’m not particuarly interested when poker is made ‘legal’ or tolerated in the USA or what method its done by. I’m interested in the effects of easy access to online poker in America.

Obviously we’ll see more fish, higher traffic and poker given a much better profile in general.

I used understand that Party paid a large fine, respected the US governments wishes while Stars and FTP basically stuck two fingers up and kept marketing to the American market. I drew the conclusion that when online poker came back for good Party and iPoker (hopefully) would get the nod and operate legally wilst Stars and FTP would pretty much die as a result – the fish wouldn’t play there and this would basically kill them which is fine by me as an affiliate.

However, after discussing this with someone from the PPA (who incidentally made me realise how uneducated I was on the topic) I began to realise that exactly the opposite would happen. Stars & FTP have the largest American player bases and the govt will just pounce on this easy opportunity to mae money and tax them for it (the exact logistics of the tax I don’t know).

It still doesn’t quite make sense – why are payment processors being shutdown ? why did Party pay these fines ? Why are other sites respecting the govts wishes and others aren’t ?

I’m going to investigate it more and post back but, I’m not so pro-legislation as I was 30 mins ago !

I see threads like this in the forums constantly and people concoting their own explanations which usually involve them ‘crushing’ too hard for the skin to put up with them. The same people have usually gone on a nice little heater at 100nl and banked $600 and been kicked off for some other reason entirely.

Rough iPoker Network Policies
Obviously the skins don’t dislike winning players as they’re the ones who generate the most rake however, having these policies keeps the skins playing fair and does genuinley ensure the longevity of the ipoker network (which I will touch on later).

1. Skins (taking all their players as a single entity) cannot win more than they lose.
2. 97% of the players on the skin must be fish or classified as fish. A fish is a player who rakes less than $500 a month or is a losing player.
3. Individual skins will be accountable for their own win/loss and shark/fish ratio – before these were housed in the cages as a whole. Not every ipoker skin has a gaming licence or its own payment processor so cages create what are known as white labels and take a % for the service and then pass on the rest to the skin.

The Effect Of These Rules
Skins have known about these new guidelines (there were previously guidelines in place but, only rule 1) since late ’09 and they’re already in partial implementation.

Firstly, the small skins are sufferring in a big way because they’re now accounted for individually. Propaganda and Blonde went in ’09 and in the future small skins are going to become unsustainable.

Small skins don’t have the money or marketing capability (such as an inbuilt sportsbooks) to maintain these ratios and if they decide to adhear to the new policies it pretty much won’t be worthwhile to run the skin anymore.

As for staking businesses like Black Belt Poker (which I’m sure I’ll post more about – imo its a scam, pretty much a rake farm masquerading as something its not) and BadBeat I personally cannot see how they will last although I’m not well versed on their specific situation.

What the guys at playtech envisage (hopefully) is a network with fewer, bigger skins. As a consequence players can enjoy looser games and better rewards.

The VC Poker Scandal

I can’t go on 2+2 now without seeing a ‘zomg winning players kicked off VC thread’. In reality VC have kicked a miniscule number of players and its not because of their win/loss ratio. Its actually a business decision that has been taken because these players are not profitable for the skin becuase their cut is pretty small. This is essentially due to a backdated affiliate agreement.

Why would a skin take a small % in a winning player who effects the win/loss ratio, therefore taking up space for future high raking, winning players who they can yield a higher % in ?

The problem isn’t that VC is going down or anything like that – its just a smart business decision and they have space for any players they choose. I’m personally responsible for a player base nearing on 1k players there and have never experienced a single problem of this nature simply becuase their cut is ample.

Other Skins

Most other skins have felt the brunt of this new policy for the obvious reasons and instead of mentioning those who have kicked players its probably going to be easiest to mention those who have not; PaddyPower, Will Hill & Titan (the latter two are affiliated heavily with Playtech which may not necessarilly allow them leeway with these rules but, definatley means they’re not getting slapped on the wrist for the same things other skins are).

I’m sure I add more to this post in the future and it actually touches on 100 different things I’ll rattle my keyboard about another time.