888 Poker Has Always Been One Of My Favorites
I started playing at 888 Poker back in the early days of the operation, and this has been one of the better poker rooms out there, both then and now. Up until recently, it was known as Pacific Poker. I’ve no idea where they got the name Pacific from, but it was kind of catchy I guess, although the catch of the day was much more important, and I’m talking about all of the big fish that got caught up in their nets.
For the first few years, their poker room didn’t allow for the no limit format, and more accurately, they were afraid to offer it. Now if you were around in those days, there was a time when limit poker was by far the most popular form that was offered online.
This was a carryover from the experiences that live poker rooms had traditionally with no limit, and rooms that offered it very often ended up seeing the action die, since it more efficiently moved the money from the bad players to the good ones. So the fish would all die off and that would be the end of it.
Online poker though doesn’t just draw from a local pool of players like live card rooms do, and back then I felt that no limit poker was the future, and I remember writing Pacific several times encouraging them to offer it. They felt that their player base was so bad that no limit would put things in jeopardy too much, and believe me, they were right as far as how bad their players were then.
They finally did spread it, and things did work out well, and this of course made their poker room even more profitable for their good players. I remember a quote though from one of their senior managers that stood out in my mind, which was that their players, many of whom come over from the casino, have an “expectation of losing.” So I thought, this is a great line to use in promoting them, and did really differentiate them from the more poker oriented rooms of the day like Party and Stars.
A Poker Coach’s Dream
I used to do some coaching back then and I remember how easy it was to turn struggling players into winning ones, and at the time Pacific was definitely among the fishiest sites out there. Their players would get their money in bad so often that all I had to do was to get my students to play tight aggressive poker and that pretty much guaranteed their success over time.
I did work with some other soft sites as well but Pacific was my favorite one to promote back then and I certainly helped a lot of people out by referring them there. Aside from getting paid, it also can be very satisfying to help people along by sending them to some high quality sites. Back then, in addition to the coaching, I had a membership site and therefore interacted with my players a fair bit, so these things came through a lot more.
I have not had the time to become personally involved with referrals like this for a few years, but I never forgot all of the great feedback I got back then, and while relying on automated strategies to convert people is definitely more efficient, I think that we can get pretty disassociated with the process doing that. However I never forgot all of the positive feedback I received back then and we need to realize that while conversions of course help us, the players also often are helped as well when you introduce them to good poker rooms like 888.
Now you don’t find the amount of super bad players that they had at Pacific back then anywhere these days, but compared to the other poker rooms this is definitely still one of the fishiest around, and we owe it to our players to make this nice option available to them.
This Program Is More Oriented Toward Revenue Share
While I see that 888 does still offer CPA, my experience with that has been that if you are doing significantly better at CPA, they will take you off it. Since I personally don‘t promote on the basis of revenue share, this unfortunately had the effect of ending our relationship several years ago, as all of my deals got nixed. Even PAW’s deal got tossed, and I expect that was due to a lot of people who were taken off CPA congregating there to try to get back into the game and that bringing down the numbers.
So that’s fine, I don’t hold this against them, however it’s probably true that this has caused them to be less fishy and therefore less desirable overall as a poker site. New blood doesn’t convert well on revenue share, as some of them make it but of course a lot don’t, so by driving away sites who supply these types of players, the poker room tends to gravitate towards a tighter knit group of regulars.
888 Can Be A Very Good Option Though
If your site does tend to attract the regulars more, then I can’t imagine not wanting to have 888 in your stable of the poker rooms you promote. This is still one of the better poker rooms out there, and while there are definitely some revenue share deals that pay more, you don’t just want to look at that.
What’s more important is how a poker room converts, and while the proof is always in the pudding so to speak, you want to have all of the good players on your team and also put them in the game and see what they can do. Even the second string has its place on the team, perhaps not on the heaviest trafficked pages, but providing options to people is a good thing, and 888 definitely will attract some flies if you stick their fly paper up on your site, and then let them show you what they can do.
The Future Looks Bright For 888
They are definitely one of the premiere poker rooms on the world, and have made some significant additions to their player base lately as well. They are currently ranked #4 in terms of player traffic, which is a significant recent climb.
With their fairly recent software upgrade, where they went from one of the most tired and outdated packages to definitely the most modern, their software is now much more attractive to players and has definitely driven some of their recent success.
888 has also looked to become involved in the upcoming regulated poker market in the U.S., and is very well positioned to get in on the ground floor. This will provide some nice additional opportunities for both them and us, and will no doubt add further to the value of their brand.
So if you’re not promoting 888 Poker right now, you should at the very least consider it. You ca check out everything that they have to offer at http://www.pokeraffiliateprograms.com/directory/888affiliates.html
