[Closed] Feedback on the PokerStrategy.com Bonus and Promotions Policy

if you are not inviting real friends then refer them direct to the platform so they become fish!!
If you have real friends then you can let them learn from PS but not too many as we need more fish ♠_biggrin:

Hey joehahaha,

I'll try to answer your questions & comment a little about our business situation as well:

Originally posted by joehahaha
Hi Xantos, I was refered to you from the french community to talk to you directly about my concerns about the "invite friend" program.

Currently, titan poker offers up to 215$ per person refered via their "invite friend" program (granting that the refferer play on titan and can use the pending bonuses in extra of the cash).

I do not want to ask about bonifying the 100$ offered pokerstrategy, as I understand that pokerstrategy gets less rake from reffered players than the room itself.

The big difference between a poker room and us is not only that they earn more per player/rake, but also that your "invited friends" need to deposit there.

At PokerStrategy.com, you have a way higher conversion rate (real money player per traffic sent), as players can get the $50 & generate rake without depositing money, having a credit card, trusting poker rooms etc.pp.

My concerns are about the needed rake to get all the benefits from the "invite friend" program. 5000 strategy points represents 1250$ rake up to 2500$ rake.
On titan poker, the needed rake is "200 titan points", wich is 11.75$ for a sng player.

The problem, is that 1250$~2500$ represent from a hundred up to two hundred times more rake. The vast majority of referred players won't make that much rake but would do easily the 11.75$ rake.

Again, I am not asking for more money from the referred program (even less would do) If the amount of rake needed by referred players could be cut by, say as an exemple, 4. That way the amount of rake needed would drop to "only" 25~50 times more than the other "invite friend" program.

1. Again: You need to compare the money you earn per person/traffic/visit you send to either us or Titan Poker - not the money you earn per person that will ultimately convert to a real money player.

2. Reducing the qualification criteria for the payout tiers would increase the cost of our "Tell-A-Friend" programme significantly - which is not possible with our high cost structure.

Cost Structure

Let's say a player you refer generates 120 StrategyPoints.
We invested:
$25 for you (Tell-A-Friend $10 + $25)
+$50 for the bankroll
---
$75 total

You earned:
$25

We earned:
Not so much, as 120 StrategyPoints are just $30-$60 rake, of which we get a share.

=> With such a player, we would have lost money & you would have earned money - even before counting our server costs, education costs, service costs, staff costs etc.pp.

PokerStrategy.com needs to pay for...
- 200 full time employees
- big server farms to deliver to our 7,000,000 visitors every month
- rakeback & our share in all bonus costs
- website development
- hundreds of videos per month, hundreds of coachings per month to educate our players
- ....

Working on marketing new players is almost a waste of time for refferers granting that referred players would need to rake from 100 up to 200 more rake with the pokerstrategy "invite friend" program.

If you think so, you should stop advertising PokerStrategy.com. Just as I would suggest you to stop playing poker if you were a losing player. You have to do a decision that is good for you.

Even though, I still think that you can earn a lot of money with the Tell-A-Friend programme. We convert very well - and especially if you send people you know / friends, we are just the superior product as we are completely free & no one has to invest money if he joins us.

We think that our affiliate programme is competitive especially because our offers / our product is so good & thus easy to advertise for. I personally can suggest everyone to try that out & make up his own mind.

Best regards,
Lutz

Originally posted by Chopsticks43
if you are not inviting real friends then refer them direct to the platform so they become fish!!
If you have real friends then you can let them learn from PS but not too many as we need more fish ♠_biggrin:

Surprisingly, a vast majority of the players coming through PokerStrategy.com ultimately will be recreational players - also called 'fish'.

The reason is that even though we offer the chance to learn poker for free & become a winning player, most people are too lazy or not ambitious / serious enough to take this chance.

Years back we migth thought of this as bad. But today, we like it as long as they are not gambling addicted - in the end of the day, we all have to agree that the money a winning player earns has to come from a losing player. So it's perfect if big affiliates like us also help strongly that the industry keeps growing in terms of fish numbers.

Originally posted by Xantos
Cost Structure

Let's say a player you refer generates 120 StrategyPoints.
We invested:
$25 for you (Tell-A-Friend $10 + $25)
+$50 for the bankroll
---
$75 total

You earned:
$25

We earned:
Not so much, as 120 StrategyPoints are just $30-$60 rake, of which we get a share.

I don't think you invest 50$, I think it is a shared risk with the room and that you are trying to fool me here.
Why a shared risk?
Because if it wasn't you would offer the starting capital on all of your rooms; and you are not.

With a basic deal of shared rake revenue, you get 30% of net revenue (with titan poker as an exemple, again).
proof:
http://www.europartners.com/en/revenue/index/revenue/poker
With a 3 sp per rake dollar ratio on titan, the referred player need to make a brut rake of 1875$. Removing the operating cost of the room and all the bonus & shop rakeback given to the players, there is at least a 500$ of that revenue becoming net revenue for the room. Pokerstrategy then get 30% of it, wich means 150$. Number of pokerstrategists around the world: 2 millions (The 2 millions number wich made the proud of our admin). Divide the production and operating cost per the number of pokerstrategist who made at least 5000 points (a lot less than 2 millions, but still a great number). And about the starting capital, don't try to fool me, it is a shared risk with the rooms, it is not an investment coming all from pokerstrategy (The 100$ starting pending bonus @28.5% rakeback probably too).

I'd rather have 50$ maximal cap per referred player @1000 strategy point than a 100$ maximal cap @5000 strategy point.

Free money doesn't mean that players are mostly to start playing than if they have to invest too. I'd like to see your spreadsheets including the number of registered players that never passed the quizz or got 1 strategy point.

1250-2500$ brut rake is just too much to accomplish with 97% of the referred people.
Also, someone on the french forum brung an interesting question. Why do we can't we be paid on moneybookers instead of having the cash handed on titan/mansion/party? Again, a part of that cash is financed by those room as an acquisition cost of new players.

You have access to the real numbers but it is sad to see you exagerating your operating cost(investment on new players, and the payback of the "invite friend program" while I can only fight back with mere approximations.

To the different things:

1. Because it his indeed not easy to reach the 5,000 SP, we already give out $10 for 15 SP & $25 for 100 SP.

2. I think you're a little optimist about our business model. By far the most players do not come even close to the 100 SP. Many go broke within their first 10-20 SP. We just lose money with them. So we need to offset that with money earned by the few players who move upwards.

3. You are completely ignoring our total operational costs.

4. Moneybookers is currently being implemented as a cashout option for Tell-A-Friend & Promotion money. But it can still take some time as the financial regulations are not too easy to comply with, here.

5. It's a free world: if sending your traffic / referring your friends directly to Titan Poker: you should do it!

If you believe it or not - we are already close to break even on our Tell-A-Friend traffic & thus cannot increase our expenditures there.

And I think it is just not fair that on the one hand you say you can just make assumptions, but on the other hand you accuse me of lying about our operational costs.

Ask any player who referred more than 200 friends - they can tell you how many of those who get the $50 even fail before reaching 15 SP.

1) Yes I know, but 25$ for 115 sp vs 75$ for 4885 sp seems silly (3 times the money, but 42.5 times more sp

2) I know a lot won't come close to 100 sp, that is why I am asking for what I am asking >.<' From those who won't do 100 sp some are going to cash-in 100$ or more and then lose it in 10 hands, raking peanuts but bringing liquidity for your active pokerstrategist

3) Not exactly, but once you divide the production/operation byt the huge number of active pokerstrategist (2 millions registered members, lets say at least 5%, 100k active ones?) let's say I am confident about the rentability of pokerstrategy

4) That is awesome.

5) >.> I know, was just tryin to get more from pokerstrategy cuz more pokerstrategist can come to be ev+ (the french-FL community is SO small you can't imagine!) :/

I am sorry about making assumptions, but that is not really a choice of mine since I don't have access to your financial information, but you telling me that the 50$ starting capital is 100% invested by pokerstrategy is just, lets call it, a big bluff.

Ask any player who referred more than 200 friends - they can tell you how many of those who get the $50 even fail before reaching 15 SP.

That is why I ask for what I am asking again >.< But I don't want a miracle, just reducing the amount of SP to 1000 from 5000 but giving a total of 50$ instead of 100$ would be awesome.

Anyway, thank you for your time for answering and I wish long live to pokerstrategy even if I dislike much the balance of the "invite friend program"

Feedback on Bonus and Promotions Policy

Hey, just my feedback:

I am a new player to PokerStrategy, Pokerstars, Fulltilt, and Poker in general.

I have been playing poker for about 2 weeks (lol) after having the 'dream' of playing for a living, earning a small wage and leaving my job (oh the naivety).

I came across PokerStrategy from google I think, and was interested in learning about the 'poker strategy'. I saw the opportunity to get a free $50 and was a bit 'hmm.. is it worth my time and effort for the 10% chance of this being genuine?'. I had $50 of my own, but of course wanted free money like everyone!

I made an account with PokerStrategy and was amazed and impressed by it's content. It seems like a network of friendly helpful advice, it had an obvious business strategy but it seemed so focused on it's players and made up of players. I eventually tried to claim the $50 and did so with relative ease! I emailed pokerstrategy support and got several professional, helpful replies. I was instantly impressed, I had paid nothing or gained PS anything, but I was being treated like a paying customer. Obviously I thought "PokerStrategy may eventually get a payment as the affiliate, no wonder they're sweetening me up".

After a short, but exciting introduction to the poker world almost full time, I am more than satisfied with PokerStrategy and feel the help and advice I have received here has been worth the ‘cost’ many hundreds of times! (compared to using an affiliate that offers an additional 1-2% rakeback instead of this kind of support network, rakerace, etc – not that I knew that an affiliate was back then, like MOST players who start, I imagine)

The amazing thing about Poker Strategy is how it guides you, impartially (imo!) through every part of the process, offers free advice and help, offers top notch support and reward systems, all for free. Yes, I am aware Poker Strategy receive recompense through the Poker sites, but so do many other less deserving, unscrupulous affiliates (try googling PokerStars for examples…). I’d rather have the support of PokerStrategy who seem to genuinally care about their precious customers, than be affiliateless(?) and let FullTilt pocket the difference! I am getting the best value I personally can (to me, the PokerStrategy experience is worth more than a few cents somewhere else).

Not only do Poker Strategy offer a huge amount, but they are completely upfront and show you their business strategy from the outset. You have nothing to lose by joining through Poker Strategy, and you have everything to gain (coaching, videos, rankings, forums, hand analysis, rakerace rewards, chance to belong ‘to something special’ (okay, maybe I am a bit too attached to PS :-P).

This evening I read the thread, https://www.pokerstrategy.com/forum/thread.php?threadid=67479, and I love the honest, logical and successful business strategy PokerStrategy offer. I think PokerStrategy is a great place to live, and to share my success as I claim the ranks of failure, mediocracy, success and eventually world fame! (I am optimistic :-))

Anyway, my post has probably descended into chaotic ramblings and nonsensicalness, so I will opt to go to bed :-P But I just wanted to put forward my opinion, which is PokerStrategy rules :-)

Also I just won $10 in bonus thanks to following PS SSS to the letter for the last couple of hours (and that’s after 10 days of playing :-P).

lol justin999, it seems you've had the opposite experience to me. Nice to see your constructive comments, however :-)