GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 10 - Sept 2009

14 GPWA Times :: Togetthefullstory onrakeback,we talkedtooneofthe biggestrakeback affiliatesaround! For those of us who don’t know the history of rakeback in the online gaming industry,walk us throughwhat it is and how you eventually started RakeTheRake.com. Sure. Players at an online table pay a fee to the house to use their software, etc. This is called the rake. Revenue share affiliates are paid a lifetime commission to bring players to the poker room and this commission is based on a fixed percentage of the rake generatedby thoseplayers. A rakebackaffiliategives aproportionof that rake commissionback to theplayer, hence the term “rakeback.” Rakeback sites started popping up in the second half of 2004and I learnedabout itwhen some guy used the poker chat to getme to signupwith another Cryptologic skin sohe couldgiveme rakeback. He wasn’t asking me for any money so I e-mailed him and asked for his Web site address. He didn’t have one, so it didn’t instillmuchconfidence. I thought, “I could do that,” so I did. Here we are fiveyears laterwith thebiggest rakeback affiliate in town. Whenyoufirst startedout,howdifficult was it to secure rakebackdeals for your customers with poker rooms? Not too hard at all. The industry is still young and five years ago it wasmuch younger. Peoplewantedplayersand rakebackwas the new retention tool on the block. In rakeback businesses, customer service takesonawholenewdimensionbecause not onlyareyou inconstant contactwith players, but you’re also responsible for payouts to themaswell. You also run exclusive tournaments at all the top online poker sites. Are these something you offer in an effort to convertplayers?Orare they moreofaperkformembers? They are a perk and a conversion tool. We were thefirst rakebackaffiliate to ever do this. We first did it withAbsoluteback in2005. Weapproached themasking fora freeroll forourplayers. To them it was just another affiliate wanting a freeroll. But theywereshockedwhen we offered to meet half the cost. We never looked back, and now we give back over $450,000 amonth in actual cash/live event packages to our players on top of their rakeback. The players love it! You also actively solicit affiliates for RakeTheRake. When did you start do- ing that?Why did you start doing that? Well, we havemore or less always had a refer-a-friendprogram, but inJuly2009 we launched our new white-label sys- tem, www.rakebackpartners.com , which enablesanybody tosetuparakebacksite withinminutesregardlessofhow techni- cally skilled theyare. How long did it take for you to start earning money? Not long at all. We were lucky in that our first player was a big raker! What traitsdoyou look for inanaffiliate program and an affiliate program? I think there are several things thatmake an affiliate manager great. For instance an affiliatemanagerwho knows no time zone and answers emails whenwe send them. Thoseaffiliatemanagerswhocan see the bigger picture are fewand far between. I am talkingabout theoneswhowill agree topromotionswithout a second thought even if they won’t generate a profit for four months. We have a few of these affiliate managers. They realize that we knowwhat we are doing and that in the long run the roomwill benefit hugely. Great affiliate managers make great affiliate programs. We will often work with a room just because an affiliate manager that we know turns up there. Another thing that makes a program good is one that looks after its affiliates on a hospitality level. For example, Chipleader isalways spendingmoneyon theiraffiliatesbut therearesomebigboys out therewhodon’t send you somuchas a card for Christmas. It’s a small thing, but it’s important. If you could have one “super power,” whatwould it be?Andwhy? Invisibility – so I couldget close toand takeout the verynastypeople in thisworld. What is your favoritemovie? Andwhy? I have several, “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”; “Return of the Jedi”; “Highlander”; “TheUsual Suspects.” There’s no real reason– I have a library of over 1,000...they’reall good. Assuming you could pick anyone in the world (alive or dead), who would be sitting at your dream poker table? Andwhy? Now you haven’t limited my number here so...in addition to myself there would be nine others: First, my maternal grandfather – he loved a game of cards and had he ever played poker professionally I am confident he would have kicked serious butt at the tables! And here are the rest: Winston Churchill,MuhammadAli,TheProphet Muhammad,Martin Luther King, Jesus (not Fergusson), Shakespeare, Darwin andDickens. Wow, that’sa lotofdeadpeople.Oh, and Elviswoulddeal. P O KER KarimWilkins | RakeTheRake The Full Story on Rakeback Due to spaceconstraints,wecouldnotprint the interviews in itsentirety.Thecomplete text ispostedatgpwa.org.