I know more about the online poker industry than I wish I did.
This “whale” phenomenon describes exactly why online poker is so profitable for the site operators.
The profits don’t come from the masses of people cautiously playing on micro stakes tables, but the whales, who will give the poker rooms thousands each month in rake.
Do poker site operators not entice whales by offering rakeback deals and special discounts?
Poker is weird because the largest chunks of all monies go from one player to the other. But I assume rakes, at higher stakes, do add up really quickly...
> But I assume rakes, at higher stakes, do add up really quickly...
I used to deal poker in a past life, here's an anecdote.
We started a low limit game and everyone (10 players) bought in for 60$ - 100$. Over the course of the next hour no one rebought and no new players came in. It was a pretty average game, no one was really 'hot'. After an hour one player noticed that everyone had less money than when the game started (even players that only won hands). He got up and left and I never saw him again.
We took a 5 + 1 rake (1 for jackpot) per hand. 40 hands an hour. 240$ removed from the table in that time span. Basically taking ~3 players money off of the table an hour.
They certainly do. They use loyalty clubs, rakeback deals, reward points (essentially a form of rakebak with lock in), comps, tournaments, and everything else you can think of to keep the whales engaged.
This “whale” phenomenon describes exactly why online poker is so profitable for the site operators.
The profits don’t come from the masses of people cautiously playing on micro stakes tables, but the whales, who will give the poker rooms thousands each month in rake.