[Beanie]

They do offer it. Hosts are paid crazy money to leave one casino and go to another. Affiliate systems have worked in Vegas for many years. There are many people benefiting from hunting out the big whales.

The dirty little secret involving rakeback is this-the smaller card rooms need it and would not like to admit that they know it is used to take players from their competitors. Guess what, that is basic market economics coming into play.

Someone asked me if I could buy a companies database would I? Certainly I would, this happens in every form of business. The key difference on how I differentiate myself in the market is that I work to get know my customers in a personal way.

The reality is that the rooms themselves need to enforce their rules. Or hell, here is a novel concept, make clear what your rules are. I have never said this before but I will say it now, I absolutely do not believe that rakeback should be advertised anywhere (no qualifiers) I feel it is disrespectful to our partners. All of that said, the rooms themselves don't seem to hold this opinion so most affiliates need to do it to compete.

The reason I made the bet about Party Poker ending their affiliate program is because that is essentially the only way to end rakeback. As long as they have Hand Histories affiliates will have access to those stats and Party Poker knows this. You can say what you want about Empire but Party Poker has certainly shown that they are willing to blow up the ship to what they think is the best course of action.

One affiliate manager told me that the reason they will never do that is because they are loyal to the people that built them. My question to the people that actually built them is do you feel that is the case? I think the overwhelming answer will be no, though I could be wrong (according to my wife I am wrong a lot).

Lastly, cardrooms are being built to cater to rakeback. Bonuses are rakeback. I hate the damn word rakeback. My web designer puts it on my site occasionally and I always ask him to take it down. Comps are good, making the players focus on rake is bad.