Poker Perambulation

I just responded to Dave (the dark elf)'s comment -- who wasn't incensed over P* ploy. That's fine. Variety makes the world interesting. Today, I read something related over on Bill Rini's site. The Industry that is online poker is in a state of flux that goes beyond even the UIGEA days.

Bill's article may not seem part of the same offer made by P* but it is. Sites are in a state of flux. Bill referenced the dotcom era and it is an appropriate comparison. Bill discusses the nuts and bolts that few of us bother to see. Haley is another insider that adds to the discussion.  Jordan also understands a bit of what is happening.


The 'cheap' offer of a ticket for a lot of SEO graft and the sites reducing the graft of affiliate marketing are two pages from the same book. I don't know who came up with the concept of affiliate marketing but in today's climate, they'd lynch him. It hearkens back to the time when money came hand over fist for modest effort.

Why is all this happening now? It'd seem the UIGEA days were more fraught with danger to online sites. Well, the idea now is that the UIGEA is history and the sites can go back to getting their IPO's ready. Harrah is on that bandwagon and others will follow. The current US facing sites and those listed on the London exchange are going to clean up their Income Sheets to maximize their IPO.

As players we can look forward to massive changes. All the current stuff is just the tip of the iceberg. Will it work to our advantage? In modest ways, probably. Overall, we're just being set up one more time. That's how it operated in the past and always will. I'm not knocking that. It is the way the world operates.

Now, I've played poker for fun. And that describes most of us. My efforts in maximizing profits happened more on luck that skill. But, that doesn't describe the sites methods. It is all about maximizing their business plan – as they should.

There isn't much you or I have in the way of choices. It is pretty much the same as selecting Target or Walmart. Over the years, businesses come and go. Many of those were substantial business that were eaten by market change. Video rentals is a recent example of what is playing out. I had a buddy that made a very nice chunk of change when it was in its infancy. That has fallen by the wayside. He saw what was coming and got out but the big players can't pull that off.

What all this is called is “consolidation” and that is both good and bad. The banks consolidated a few years ago and you know what that got us. It is looking like the poker boom is in the process of going the way of the dotcom boom. Poker has gotten to the Chinese Curse phase: May you live in interesting times.

ADDENDUM:

I see that one of the “related posts” assigned was a bit of payola for your’s truly.  That wasn’t the original.  That was lost when I moved to WordPress.   Do they notice their link is missing?  Damn right!  I got a note asking why their link had gone away.  If you think they aren’t sophisticated and don’t know just what they’re getting and what it costs, think again.

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