A while ago a Pokeriot journalist managed to get hold of information about a large number of affiliates offering Betsson Rakeback even though Ongame obviously prohibit Rakeback. Betsson was allowed to answer the article and claimed that they were actively working to remove all rakeback offers on their affiliates sites.
It might seem like the kind of answer that any poker room would give on an article showing such obvious flaws but now a few months later most of the Rakeback offers have actually disappeared. There are still a few of the listed offers available but in most cases they are gone and in some the whole sites. We at Pokeriot can only applaud Betsson for taking care of the problem in a fast and professional way.
The question wether Ongames Policy is fair still stands though, even though Betsson are out of trouble this time. Is the Ongame Enviroment really Rakeback Free? Well, as long as poker rooms offer Revenue Share there will always be Rakeback in kind, it’s way to simple to start out as an affiliate and have your friends sign up through you, paying them a percent. If Ongame truly whishes to fight Rakeback, slapping fines on the rooms is not the answer, the answer is disabling Revenue share possibilites.
The truth is probably somewhere in between, rakeback is bad for the network in a lot of ways but not so bad that it would be worth it to remove rev-share. Like in most online games they just want to do enough to be able to say that there isn’t any cheating. They settle for saying we have a no-rakeback-policy so that they can attract bigger poker rooms that would lose money from smaller rakeback offering rooms.
