Today the Department of Justice announced that they had seized the domain names of the top three US-facing poker sites: Poker Stars, Full Tilt Poker and UB.com/Absolute Poker. The top US-facing site, Poker Stars, has already blocked US players from sitting down at real money tables. Due to the uncertainty of the current situation, Poker Affiliate Solutions has removed Full Tilt Poker, UB.com and Absolute Poker from the network, pending additional developments.


It’s easy to panic in situations such as this, but history has proved that to be counter-productive. Many affiliates have lived through the game-changing events of UIGEA and the Neteller arrests. Many affiliates thrived and reaped massive benefits when the dust finally settled. We believe there to be a similar opportunity today. Perhaps the events of today are what we needed before our industry can garner the benefits of full legitimacy and regulation. For affiliates with strong US-facing membership, while others are panicking, take this time to think about the best action that you can take to maximize revenues in 2011 and beyond. That is what we are doing here at PAS.

Stay tuned to PAS for the latest news and analysis of this developing situation.

PAS is in the process of resolving several issues with Victory Poker. In the meantime, Victory Poker has been temporarily removed from the PAS network. This action is not uncommon at PAS and we fully expect the issues to be resolved soon. While this is not a mandatory action, we do feel that it is a prudent one, based on the best interests of our players and affiliates. As our communications with Victory Poker continue, we will provide updates and more details as they become available.

We recommend that you update your website content accordingly. If you have any questions in this regard, please don’t hesitate to contact us!

Regards,
PAS Team

Continuing where we left off on Monday with Atil Singh from Carbon Poker as he shares his insights into the future of the poker industry, and the new Carbon Poker 5.0 software!

PAS: Do you have any thoughts on where the industry will be 2 years from now?

Atil:Towards the end of 2012 we will start seeing some major change in the US market, but not anytime soon. Payment solutions for US facing customers are only going to get tougher; however, companies are continuously finding solutions to overcome this issue and provide their customers with different options.

US facing brands are going to have a difficult time creating the correct structure needed to operate within the US. They will need to create the equivalent of a mutli-state lottery and lobby within each state individually, with the key states being CA, NJ, FL and NV.

From an affiliate standpoint, at times I feel affiliates will simply dry up and will not be able to compete with the larger affiliates. There are already too many affiliates in each level of the affiliate pyramid and without another poker boom, it simply cannot grow and is extremely competitive for many to survive. On the other hand, if there is another poker boom, then we may see a surge in new affiliates and bumping affiliates up a level in the pyramid.

As the new innovative variations of poker are being released online, they will all reach their peak quite early in their lifetime than expected. These will only be looked at as novelty ways to entertain us with elements of poker, but in the end will just take up space on operators servers. Other features, such as anonymous tables, will most likely not catch on.

PAS:If USA players are ring-fenced, how do you see that affecting your site and/or the international market?

Atil:For this reason alone, it is vital to capture as many players from each region and build a base to support each country if ring-fencing occurred. At the end of the day if players become ring-fenced from other countries, then players will have no option but to play against each other. We can take a look at what is currently happening in Italy and France right now as an example.

With technology continuously changing, methods will become available for players to bypass these restrictions and play against players from different countries.

PAS:Tell us about Merge Network 5.0 and how affiliates can use it to market to their player base.

Atil:CarbonPoker 5.0 is still in the beta phase and has corrected a lot of errors that were occurring in pervious version. Version 5.0 is using a new platform that will be more stable. We added a Mac client, which existing users can access through their player admin if they have version 4.7.

There aren’t any visual improvements in 5.0, but more behind the scenes features/fixes such as the client becoming more stable, running with less memory and so forth.

There are some new features that are available such as:

* Moving the play money games and tournaments to a tab of their own.
* Opening tournament lobbies in a new window.
* Improvements to the full screen mode for games.
* Changes to improve the software when used on a notebook.
* Changes to the display of news items.

Affiliate can use the new release to help bring back old players that may have left due to our software taking up a lot of memory, crashing or experienced trap errors. All of these issues have now been corrected and out software runs smoother than ever before.

Another way affiliate can use 5.0 to market to old, existing and new customers is notifying their base that CarbonPoker now supports Mac. More and more players are using Mac computer and we had an overwhelming request from our players to support Mac. The feedback we have received from affiliates and players has been great so far.

PAS:At the release of software 5.0, you hinted at additional improvements over the next year. Can you share any of them? Any other exciting things on the horizon at Carbon Poker?

Atil:Early next year CarbonPoker will be getting a complete overhaul. We will be releasing a new website, which is heavily focused on converting players from all points of focus. In additional to the new website, we are adding a new sign up process that is aiming to increase the click to sign up rate by 10-20% and sign up to download/deposit by 10%; meaning higher conversions for affiliates.

One of our biggest improvements coming next year is a new client. We are currently in the process of redesigning our client to get to the next level in terms of usability and features.

There are a lot of great things happening at CarbonPoker, so now has never been a better time to start promoting us!

- Atil

Click here to begin promoting Carbon Poker

Last week Tim and Tony sat down with Atil Singh, the Head of Poker Acquisition at Carbon Poker.


PAS: How did you get involved in the online gaming industry?

Atil: In 2005 a friend told me that I could make up to $150 per player that I refer to an online poker room. My first thought was this is too good to be true, but after doing a bit of research I found out that it was an extremely lucrative industry to be involved in. I looked into the various offers available at the time and I then started promoting the online poker rooms to friends, college students and through websites. In the beginning I primarily focused on incentivized marketing and later shifted to exclusive bonuses / freerolls and free bankroll offers.

While I was heavily involved in affiliate marketing at the time, I also worked for an online poker room as a Fraud and Security Analyst.

Shortly after that position, I was given the opportunity to work as an Affiliate Manager for one of the worlds largest affiliate company. A few years later, our company at the time was relocating back to its’ sister company. At the same time, Ian Williams, Carbon Poker’s Marketing Director, decided to move the company’s marketing team to Vancouver, BC. I had worked with Ian in my previous position and timing couldn’t have been better to closely work together again. I was brought on board as an Affiliate Manager for PDC Affiliate and have since transitioned into the Head of Poker Acquisition for the ChipSplit Affiliate Program.


PAS: Right now Carbon is primarily a US facing brand. What are your marketing plans to increase your brand presence in Europe, South America, and Asia?

Atil: With the growth of online poker breaking into these countries each year, it opens a new door for operators to enter and market to hundreds of thousands or even millions of potential players.

We are continuously creating strategic partnerships within these new emerging markets in order to be the first brand that the new prospective players are exposed too. We are aligning ourselves with certain affiliates that have a handle on these marketing strategies through their community and by offering exclusive deals that can only be found within those countries.

In addition to the current languages our software handles, we are in the process of adding several languages to our client and converting our websites into multilingual to help convert players that don’t have English as their native language.


PAS: There is a lot of debate right now concerning the value of a player. What sorts of things can an affiliate do to improve the value of the players they send? News? Training? Rakeback? Something else entirely?

Atil: Most operators are going to focus on the value of players an affiliate sends. Surprisingly, not all operators care about the value but are more focused solely on volume. That being said, at the end of the day the majority of operators strongly care about value; especially on specific deals.

I have heard many affiliate say that they cannot control the quality of players they send to a room whether it being good or bad. Although this may be true, I think the bigger picture doesn’t lie solely on the affiliate but also the Affiliate Manager.

Affiliates and Affiliate Mangers need to work closely together to determine the answer to this question. If an affiliate sends enough traffic that the operator can quantify, then the answer lies within. Obviously I cannot go into great depth on this part, but most Affiliate Manager should be able to figure this out. When both parties reach an agreement and the affiliate starts to send higher valued players, and then in return the affiliate can negotiate better deals based on the increased value the operator receives.

This example is on solely based on traffic in conjunction with assistance from the Affiliate Manager but what can affiliate do to improve the player value they send?

Many believe the answer would be rakeback but the majority of players, perhaps 8 out of 10, don’t even know rakeback exists or don’t bother with it. Training sites do improve the quality of player; however, it takes longer for the player to develop the skills to become a “high valued player”. The main factor that comes to mind that all affiliates can do is focus on targeted keywords. If the affiliate targets the correct keywords, it can simply be the right recipe for higher value players. It’s that simple.


PAS: Besides increasing traffic, how else has the Sportsbook entrance to the Merge network added value?

Atil: No one can disagree that the player liquidity Sportsbook has brought to the network has been amazing. We have tripled our network player volume overnight, which was something we needed in order get to the next level and compete with other networks.

Each month we have been increasing our bottom line and continuously seeing an increase in sign ups and overall traffic from all operators on the entire network. With the influx of players brought to the network, it has allowed us to really focus on the core aspects of running an online gaming business. Primarily in the areas of processing funds in and out of player account as fast as possible and increased our customer service experience.

By personally speaking with players and affiliates, we have received positive feedback in the increased level of overall customer service, processing methods and withdrawal timeframes.


PAS: Can you explain why players should play (or publishers promote) your site over a major brand like Poker Stars or Full Tilt? In what ways can you coexist with such a large site?

Atil: Players decide to play with us for specific reasons especially when they have the option to play at any online poker room. We offer unique and interactive promotions that engage the player better than most promotions offered by other rooms.

Our software offers features such as deal it twice, rabbit hunt, expose 1 card, emoticons, accolades and are home to some of the largest bad beat jackpots.

We are known to have the softest players in online poker and the win rates of the majority of players are much higher with us than at other online poker rooms.

From a publisher’s standpoint the reasons are obvious in conjunction with the above; we offer the highest revenue share plan for poker and casino, have extremely fast affiliate payments and communication with our team is superior to others. We offer three great poker brands and a sportsbook; all under one roof – one account – four brands – one fast and easy payment. The choice is simple.

Marcela Jarquin of Doyles Room was kind enough to guest blog for us this week. Enjoy!



Loyalty Program 101
Obviously we are extremely excited about this loyalty program. One of the major points that we want to make about this program is that we're removing the heavy reliance on tournament entries and tournament tickets that currently exist in most loyalty programs. We're going hard with the cash here, which is ultimately what people want.
How does it work?
As soon as you start playing for real money, you become part of the Doyles Rewards loyalty program. The more you play, the faster your level will rise and the more rewards you will earn! When you play for real money, you will earn FPP and Brunson Bucks. You can use your Brunson Bucks to redeem items in the store, purchase pending bonus or trade them for real money! You can track your progress in the client by going clicking on the Rewards button, and then clicking on the Doyles Rewards tab. The more FPP you earn the higher you will move up in the Loyalty Program and the more Brunson Bucks you will earn!
Points Explained
Earning points to increase your status in DoylesRewards could not be simpler. Any time you play in a ring game, tournament or sit-n-go, you are going to earn points. There are two types of points that make up DoylesRewards:
<ul>
<li>Frequent Play Points (FPP)</li>
<li>Brunson Bucks (BB)</li>
</ul>
Frequent Player Points are what we use to measure your success in the DoylesRewards loyalty program. FPP's cannot be redeemed for DoylesRoom gear or Cash and they reset at the beginning of each month.<br />
Brunson Bucks are your spendable loyalty currency that you keep for life. As you move up to higher tiers in DoylesRewards, the amount of BB's you will earn will be multiplied. At Doyles Legend you will earn six times the amount of BB's as you would at Bronze. So play more to earn more!
How are points earned?<br />
Every time a player plays in a raked hand or enter a tournament that has a fee, you will earn FPP and BB.
In Ring Games FPP is earned based on the amount of rake contributed to the pot. For every dollar in rake you will earn 1 FPP. Example: If $1.50 is contributed in rake, you will earn 1.5 FPP. To earn FPP faster play more tables!*
In Tournaments FPP is earned based on the Tournament Fee. For every $1 in Tournament Fee you will earn 7 FPP. Example: If you enter into a $20+$2 tournament, you will earn 14 FPP.*
Brunson Bucks are earned at the same rate as FPP, but are multiplied based on your DoylesRewards loyalty level. So if you earn 14 FPP and you are a Doyles Legend you will get 84 BB!*
FPPs for Rakeback players are earned at half the rate of non-rakeback players.
What are the multipliers on the Brunson Bucks?<br />
As you increase your level in the DoylesRewards loyalty program, your Brunson Bucks will be multiplied. Here is the multiplier chart:



Redeeming Brunson Bucks
Once players start playing away in the loyalty program, they're going to start wondering what they can do with the Brunson Bucks. Players can redeem them in the following areas:
<ul>
<li>Bucks to Cash page in the Doyles Rewards section of the client</li>
<li>DoylesRoom Store</li>
</ul>

The Bucks to Cash page in the Rewards section of the client is where the user can really see the rebate for their hard work. Players can exchange their Brunson Bucks for as little as $25 or as high as $2500 in a single transaction. Players are limited in the amount of Brunson Bucks that they can exchange per month. This limit is defined by the tier and is outlined in the Level Overview page.
The DoylesRoomStore has everything a poker player could ever want to purchase. Players can purchase Bonus from the store that is credited to their account and awarded in $5 increments at the highest rate in the industry. And of course what store would be complete without branded gear, televisions, books and so much more!
Moving Levels
As players earn FPP, they will reach certain thresholds. When they reach the threshold they will move up to the next level* in the loyalty program. Players will maintain their highest level that they achieve in one calendar month for the next calendar month.
Example: If a player reaches Gold Level in the month of October, they will maintain this level for the entire month of November.
If a player fails to maintain their level in a calendar month or stops playing entirely, they will be moved down to the corresponding level the next calendar month.
Example: A player reaches Gold Level in the month of October. In the month of November they don't play at all, they will be dropped to Bronze Level.
Example2: A player reaches Gold Level in the month of October. In the month of November, they only earn enough FPP to achieve Silver Level, their status will be lowered to Silver Level for the start of the month in December.
Level Benefits
Here is a list of the non-rakeback benefits for players:



* This item is only redeemable once per player lifetime. This item is only redeemable when player reaches the status, not if the player has been granted status by site.<br />
<br />
** This item is only redeemable once per calendar year. This item is only redeemable when the player reaches the status, not if the player has been granted status by site.
Gold Cards
DoylesRoom will still continue to offer Gold Cards the same as it ever did! Keep using your Gold Cards to enter into tournaments and spend in the Match n Win.
Gold Stacks
All players were grandfathered into the program on October 1st, based on their achievements in Gold Stacks. Gold Stacks however is gone.
Gold Chips
Gold Chips still exist and players will continue to earn them. Higher tiers will be able to convert them to cash. We will also use the Gold Chips in limited time promotions for the players.