Pokerstars starts offering rev share!

[dirkjan]

Dear Partner,

We are excited to bring you updates and the latest news regarding our
affiliate partner program.

Launch of Revenue Share

We are pleased to announce that we are now opening up the possibility of
changing from CPA to revenue share for existing affiliates. We will be
rolling this out in stages and will start by offering this to all affiliates
who have brought in over 20 qualified players in 2009. If you are
interested in moving to a revenue share deal please contact
affiliates@pokerstarspartners.com and we will be happy to discuss this with
you. We understand that moving from CPA to revenue share is a big step, and
our affiliate team are here on hand to discuss this with you.

Our payout structure is as follows:

Net Revenue Share
20% for $0-$10,000
25% for $10,001 -$30,000
30% for $30,001+

Revenue Share Details

The revenue share that we pay is Gross Revenue minus costs. These costs are:
freerolls, bonuses or promotional amounts given to the player; uncollectible
revenues (including charge-backs, payment reversals etc.); a fixed cost for
each FPP earned by a player (representing the average redeem value of each
FPP); a fixed amount for legal, branding and operational costs; and
reasonable payment processing services for player deposits and cashouts.

What do these costs mean to me?

Recently we have included a fixed amount for legal, branding and operational
costs for affiliates on revenue share. PokerStars is the biggest, most
recognized online poker company in the world. PokerStars invests strongly in
advertising, sponsorship, events, branding, and promotions. Since the launch
of our affiliate program, affiliate partners have benefited from our brand
equity, meaning more signups, better conversion rates, superior retention
and higher affiliate earnings.

In order to maintain the strength of the brand we continue to make these
huge investments to ensure that PokerStars grows from strength to strength.
A small portion of these costs is shared with our affiliates. The legal
climate in the markets where PokerStars is operating is also changing, and
PokerStars are at the forefront of adhering to new regulations and making
our voice heard where it is needed most.

In the short term being on revenue share will impact your commission
figures. However, being on a revenue share deal means that we are working to
make a lasting partnership and ensuring a long-term return.


Soccer Safari

As of April 9th we will be running a World Cup promotion. Since we are not
an official FIFA sponsor the communications must be limited only to existing
customers and not for acquisition purposes. Therefore it is extremely
important that you DO NOT promote this on any sites whatsoever. Due to the
severity of this issue, any affiliate found to be promoting this regardless
of our request, will be deemed to be breaking our Terms & Conditions and
will have their commission withheld. Thank you for your understanding with
this.


SCOOP

The PokerStars.com Spring Championship of Online Poker takes place from May
3-16. This year’s event has a huge guaranteed prize pool of $45,000,000,
with 38 events. The tournament series runs for low, medium and high-stakes
players, so everyone has the chance to win big. Satellites are running now
and banners will be in rotation soon!


Survey

Very soon we will be sending out a survey to find out your thoughts on
PokerStarsPartners – what you like, what you don’t like, and what you think
we can do to improve. We would really appreciate it if you could take the
time to answer the survey and help us to make our affiliate program better.


Thank you again for all of your support, and please feel free to email us at
any time with your thoughts on our program and what we can do to help you
promote PokerStars even more effectively.

Kind Regards,
The PokerStarsPartners Team

Great news!

[TheShortStack]

So let me get this straight, they're going to give us Rev Share but then levy a load of charges on us. Bonuses, promotional stuff and chargebacks I can understand.

But, costs for each FPP that a player earns? That seems a new one ... and just how big is this fixed cost for Stars legal, branding and operational costs?

These are all new ones on me.

It seems that we're being given with one hand and having things taken away with another.

[Ridge]

I've been doing revshare for about 6 months now and all the charges listed are the same as when I came on. so nothing super new. I just wish we could SEE the actual deducts. Or like you said, know the "fixed costs"

[MJ]

You want transparency? From Stars?

Hell man, that would be a proper business partnership - we can't behaving that!

[TheShortStack]

Without going into specifics Ridge, are the deductions what you would expect from any program or is this another case of Stars finding another way to cut affiliate payments?

[Newjabber]

Im glad that they offer REV share. IMO a player on stars is a player for life, so i can live with the fees :-)

[sweatness]

I'm thinking Stars is too late to enter this game. The rakeback guys are loving this, but the US poker market seems to have it's issues lately that need to cleared up. If this was in place in 2005, this would be a huge earner. Five years later, it will take a lot to build. Coin Flip.

[Ridge]

Again though, since we do not get to see player stats or deducts, it's hard to say. You just see income and signups on specific trackers. So I guess they could be 100x worse and we'd never know. Also I have no idea as to the comparison of the clearing rate between the two either. So I guess there is a lot of unknowns with Stars revshare.

I guess I suck at answering your questions lol - But I do know FT and Cake to me have the worst deducts I've ever seen, and Stars has always been good about working with me, and helping me setup some custom stuff. So I'm biased to Stars at this point. For all their major flaws, they still attract players and convert players.

I do like that they justified their fees a little better than most rooms, they do a ton of promos, adverts, special things, etc. If they never made another change to the Stars Affiliate program, I would be happy

Full tilt on the other hand will soon make some more changes harmful to ALL affiliates out of ignorance and arrogance. So for me, I would take a Stars revshare player over a FT revshare player in terms of long term ROI

[Ridge]

I'm thinking Stars is too late to enter this game. The rakeback guys are loving this, but the US poker market seems to have it's issues lately that need to cleared up. If this was in place in 2005, this would be a huge earner. Five years later, it will take a lot to build. Coin Flip.

I don't understand what you mean? As is there is no way, within the Stars backend to figure out rakeback. I mean I guess where there is a will there is a way, but pokerstars had a nice in house system. I think it would be follish to try and do rakeback of any sort there.

Also, now is an awesome time to promote Stars, this time last year I was doing small Stars numbers, now it is one of my biggest earners (which scares me) But I do not agree its too little too late. Of course Stars terms are super competitive and it takes time get there, but it is 100% possible even now.

[Spry]

Interesting.... If I knew stars would be around for at least the next 2 years... rev here looks interesting for sure...


total speculation below -
maybe they have a for sale sign on in the next year or so and figure shorter term they profit up more via mgr in the shorter term. Then, when they sell to the new co then the 'lifetime' rev share is over... U know, major laws happen in the US... damages stars ability to operate, some big poker land based casino gets access to online or some well known poker company comes back in the US, buys out stars, instant market share leaders...

ahh this is a fun industry sometimes.