You need to be logged in to your Sky Poker account above to post discussions and comments.
You might need to refresh your page afterwards.
Sky Poker forums will be temporarily unavailable from 11pm Wednesday July 25th.
Sky Poker Forums is upgrading its look! Stay tuned for the big reveal!
SKY's micro rake-time for a rethink?
as most of you will know im a long time player here and was generally found playing micro cash. ive been here since the start and most my poker over the years has been played here.
the issue I want to discuss never bothered me much before. I just got on with it and never gave it a second thought. I was aware of the sites policy towards rake and stakes but outside of SKY I was blinkered really.
for those that are not aware here at sky NL4 NL8 NL10 are charged 7.5% rake with it flattening out to 5% for the above levels.
I always knew micro players were getting a raw deal on here compared to the other levels.
nowadays discussions are cropping up about how to sustain the poker economy and how you have got to keep the bottom of the food chain going so the money keeps on filtering its way to the top. some sites seem to be proactive on this matter and some don't.
recently I opened an account elsewhere, wont name but some of you might know from another thread,it is full of different ideas to some of the sites I looked at, and certainly a lot different to SKY.
the major thing about this other site is the rake levels for players at the bottom of the ladder. NL4 is charged 2% and NL10 is 3%. as you can see that's a huge difference compared to SKY. players are keeping more of their money initially and in theory can progress quicker up the levels where the rake % is more industry standard.
just a couple of quick sums show you the difference.
at NL10 on SKY if you get 100bb in the pot and matched by another, you pay 75p each for a combined total of £1.50
at NL10 on other site you would pay 30p each for a combined total of 60p making a 90p difference in total rake between the 2.
us poker players hate the word rake but surely looking after the bottom rung of the ladder like this makes better sense than the current model. its all very well having rake race promo's etc but I don't think that's gonna be sustainable.
the rake levels were a huge selling point to me, as i said we all hate paying it. this may be a gimmick that dies away or it may lead to other sites adopting similar strategy. if its the latter then i feel SKY could be left behind with the current model.
i like SKY or i wouoldnt have been playing here as long as i have. surely its time to have a rethink about the micro rake and give back to the bottom that way instead of squeezing those extra %points out them. i would like to see SKY be more proactive than reactive in what is a changing market.
surely now is time for a major rethink before the completion steal what could be a huge march on you
thoughts?
the issue I want to discuss never bothered me much before. I just got on with it and never gave it a second thought. I was aware of the sites policy towards rake and stakes but outside of SKY I was blinkered really.
for those that are not aware here at sky NL4 NL8 NL10 are charged 7.5% rake with it flattening out to 5% for the above levels.
I always knew micro players were getting a raw deal on here compared to the other levels.
nowadays discussions are cropping up about how to sustain the poker economy and how you have got to keep the bottom of the food chain going so the money keeps on filtering its way to the top. some sites seem to be proactive on this matter and some don't.
recently I opened an account elsewhere, wont name but some of you might know from another thread,it is full of different ideas to some of the sites I looked at, and certainly a lot different to SKY.
the major thing about this other site is the rake levels for players at the bottom of the ladder. NL4 is charged 2% and NL10 is 3%. as you can see that's a huge difference compared to SKY. players are keeping more of their money initially and in theory can progress quicker up the levels where the rake % is more industry standard.
just a couple of quick sums show you the difference.
at NL10 on SKY if you get 100bb in the pot and matched by another, you pay 75p each for a combined total of £1.50
at NL10 on other site you would pay 30p each for a combined total of 60p making a 90p difference in total rake between the 2.
us poker players hate the word rake but surely looking after the bottom rung of the ladder like this makes better sense than the current model. its all very well having rake race promo's etc but I don't think that's gonna be sustainable.
the rake levels were a huge selling point to me, as i said we all hate paying it. this may be a gimmick that dies away or it may lead to other sites adopting similar strategy. if its the latter then i feel SKY could be left behind with the current model.
i like SKY or i wouoldnt have been playing here as long as i have. surely its time to have a rethink about the micro rake and give back to the bottom that way instead of squeezing those extra %points out them. i would like to see SKY be more proactive than reactive in what is a changing market.
surely now is time for a major rethink before the completion steal what could be a huge march on you
thoughts?
Comments
the micro stakes rake is aggressively high for cash and dyms. they even slap a premium on all the low-stakes bounty hunters.
the worst of it is it makes some games unbeatable for anyone who doesn't CRUSH. and anyone who can beat the rake at that level has probably moved up anyway. the micro playerpool's liquidity must be hoovered up by the site. think it is short-sighted really.
One of the highest out of all poker sites.
Something Sky could defo look at
It's a good post, and one that every single player will agree with as what you're suggesting is a reduction in charges, so who wouldn't?
Hopefully Sky give it the consideration it deserves, as it's clearly not as 'black and white' as that.
----------------
20% rake on a 30p dym. Does that extra 2p per player per game really make much of a difference to Sky?
It makes all the difference to the players, no way can anybody beat that, or even break even. Give them a chance.
Charge the £10+ games @ £11.02/£22.02 instead.
At least the cash games are still beatable.
Great post Tintin.
Maybe I'm naive, but I've never really understood the reason for different tiers of rake - I always thought the cost to run games would be fairly flat (ie one more table of NL4 has a marginal cost no more than one more table of NL1000)... therefore there seems little sense in charging more to play.
It's a bit different to live, where a dealer's wages would make up a greater proportion of a low limit table cost and justifiably mean a more onerous rake.
This sort of ties in with SkyPoker's post before the weekend which intimated that it was considering giving a higher rakeback reward to losing players, on the basis that if they feed the fish, everyone wins. Alternative - just even out the rake in the first place and let the fish feel like they are getting more poker for their money.
Agree everything in the orginal post rake at nl4 is horrific. I think it is done because most players at this level are recs that have no concept of what rake is and what is a reasonable deal so why not punish them for their ignorance, seems very harsh.