William Hill Seeks End To Rakeback

The chief operating officer at William Hill, Peter Marcus, recently called for poker sites to get together and be strict on stopping affiliates from offering rakeback deals to their customers.
The rake is a valuable source of profit for the online operators and is a percentage they take on each pot played. Rakeback, then, is an incentive offered by poker related sites, whereby a percentage of the rake is returned back to the player, usually at the end of each month.This figure typically ranges from 25 to 100% and represents a valuable means for poker players to increase their overall profitability.
Absolute Poker is believed to be the first site to offer the new rakeback incentive after the site poker-strategy.org suggested returning part of their affiliate rake commission back to the players, back in 2004. Soon after many sites too were promoting similar offers.
Marcus has been accused of hypocrisy as William Hill has been using rakeback incentives to acquire new players but he countered the claims by suggesting this was but a short term offer. He said, “This was only available to selected existing players and for a very limited period of time. This is a clear and targeted retention bonus and was not aimed at, and nor did it, move players from other affiliates or operators”.
He said that by ending affiliate rakeback offers, the online poker sites would then be able to refocus more on customer satisfaction through loyalty schemes designed to retain their customer base. “I, like many others who have been in the industry for some time, truly value the contribution that affiliates make and will continue to make for many years to come.The role or retention and player life value is the responsibility of the operators, whilst the role of the affiliate is acquisition of players.”