William Hill Online COO Marcus issues rakeback rallying call
William Hill Online chief operating officer Peter Marcus has issed a rallying call to poker operators on rakeback, telling them to "get together and be strict" on preventing affiliates and poker skins offering it.
William Hill Online (WHO) chief operating officer Peter Marcus has issed a rallying call to poker operators on rakeback, telling them to “get together and be strict” on preventing affiliates and poker skins offering it.
Speaking to eGaming Review, Marcus (pictured) criticised the controversial rewards model, in which operators allow affiliates and skins to attract players on their behalf by returning a share of the rake to players, for cannibalising online poker traffic and failing to bring in the new players needed to develop the online poker market.
Marcus said: “networks and licensees have to find ways of rewarding loyalty which don’t encourage people to keep switching rooms or which involve stealing each other’s customers. It’s going to take time and be tough to get there, but the whole industry has to get together and be strict on this.”
Interviewed for a special feature on rakeback in eGaming Review‘s August edition, Marcus continued that rakeback in its present form “has a limited shelf life” and that “licensees who just want to give rakeback and not spend money on marketing will find it’s not going to work, because someone coming up behind working on smaller margins will just steal their customers.”
“It’s the wrong way of building a sustainable industry “ you do this by brand marketing, giving great customer service and rewarding customer loyalty,” he added.
Peter Marcus’ views will be published in full in the eGaming Review August edition’s special rakeback feature, which also includes views from Rake the Rake chief executive Karim Wilkins, Entraction chief executive Peter Astrom, poker affiliate Bill Rini and Keith Freeman, founder of Poker-Strategy.org, the industry’s first affiliate to offer a ‘rake rebate’.
To have your say in the rakeback debate, click ‘add a comment’ below.
For more on WHO, see our interview with William Hill Online CEO Henry Birch. In other William Hill news this week, group chief executive Ralph Topping hinted that William Hill may move WHO offshore along with the business’ telephone operation.
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