Casino Talks

Posted by: Nicodemus at July 22, 2005, 8:53 am

Topic: How many bonus whores do you think are out there? And... Forum: Bonus Whores

I've resisted posting to this thread for a number of reasons, but after writing a few posts on the Interpoker thread, I thought I might write here as well because some of what we have been discussing is relevant.

The first problem in this discussion, is to determine *exactly* what a bonus whore or bonus chaser actually is. I consider anyone who collects poker (& casino - although less relevant in this discussion) bonuses as part of a winning strategy (ie. profit making) to fall into this category. One does NOT need to be a $0.50/$1.00 or 1/2 bottom feeder to qualify as someone who grabs free money. As some of you know, I am actually a 10/20 & 15/30 player mostly on the Party network (which usually causes the "what are you doing here at Prima on the 1/2 tables!!!???). I have been playing at this level long before there was internet poker, and I probably hadn't played a level below 5/10 for years until about 3 years ago online - even though I've been playing online for over 6 years. I often multitable between 6 and 12 tables (some of them tournaments). I also have some 'living gnomes' who are learning to play poker by playing freerolls, earning bonuses and other online play that is not worth my time to play, but can sit next to me at another workstation and play games for me with advice.

10/20 & 15/30 to a winning player, should yield at least $50+ profit per 100 hands. But for anyone who thinks about it, and has the ability to play mulitple tables, earning bonuses can still be quite profitable and is often low risk/low variance compared to 10/20 & 15/30. I also generate sizeable profits from rakeback on my regular 10/20+ play, which I suppose I could 'ignore', but it is basically free money - just like bonuses.

Now to the point - there are way more than 1% of the online poker community that take advantage and collect bonuses. How many of them are 'bottom feeding whores' and how many of them are *always* playing towards a bonus, I couldn't say - but people who chase bonuses as part of their poker playing strategy are large in number. The incredible growth of rakeback based play should testify to this alone. Bonuses and rakeback have effectively become the same thing - a way to augment profit for players online. The great majority of players like this are not part of any bonus community like BW, and may even be more or less unaware that such communities exist, but there are many intelligent people out there (even some that will be poor poker players) who will hunt down a certain amount of bonuses in the online poker strategy.

Outside of this community, I personally know of about 400 different people who chase bonuses as a portion of their online poker gaming time. True, most are not as diligent at it as people around here are, but nonetheless they are doing it. Case in point: Last week I encountered a guy playing online who struck up a conversation on an unrelated topic. While chatting later on outside the poker room, he told me that he had accounts at 5 out of the 6 Party Poker skins (Intertops, Party, Multi, Empire and Eurobet) and that he basically rotated his play around to whichever one had a bonus at the time. He also had a (pretty crappy) 20% rakeback deal at one or two of the sites. He played 5/10 almost exclusively. He had never heard of BW and never thought to go to other poker sites. He had discovered the Party network, and just cycled through them all month clearing various bonuses plus his rakeback when bonuses were not available. While there may not be many players *exactly* like him, I think there are thousands upon thousands of players that fall into a similar category, who are not dedicated bonus whores, but include a solid strategy of bonus collection and play while they are playing poker.

My analysis of this situation is that there are large percentages (maybe 35-40%) [obviously, this is an unscientific estimate based mostly on my own anecdotal experiences] of the online poker community that are involved in actively concerning themselves with bonuses to a greater or lesser extent - and that most of these players represent a net profit for the poker sites. A small portion does not, and these whores would tend to be focused on bottom feeding small games and more active on the smaller networks which are fighting against Party, Pokerstars, UB and Paradise for market share. There would also be another percentage (10-20%) of players in the community that are 'casually' concerning themselves with bonuses - that is to say that they are players who will take advantage of a bonus if they happen to know about it and it coincides with making a deposit for them.

What this all means for the future, is that bonuses will more and more be structured towards play at higher limits and longer term. People who play large numbers of hands on Pokerstars or Party or Empire anyway, will gladly add bonuses to increase their profits from playing and will be less concerned with whether it is 7x, 10x or 20x and the long term effect of such bonuses will be to drive away the 'bottom feeding' 1/2 whores. Bonuses will likely always figure into the promotional plans of poker sites, but look for the trend towards more bonuses which are structured in such a way that DISCOURAGES the low-risk, low-stakes strategies employed by many people in this community. In the end, bonuses will be a way for winning poker players at mid to high stakes to increase their profits, in much the same way that rakeback already does for them. Bonuses will also continue to be a draw for poor players who are attracted by the idea of getting $100 or $200 for 'free' and lose money through fishy play (ie. attracting new customers).
_________________
Nicodemus

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