In an interview with the publication Pokerlistings this week Full Tilt managing director Dominic Mansour confirmed he has big plans to make the network more attractive to recreational players, and that the funding needed to do this would have to come from increased rake on some games.
“Whilst in the last six months we’ve taken baby steps towards a recreational direction, these will be giant leaps to much more significant changes,” he said.
Mansour will be releasing details of the changes in the coming weeks, but he hinted that the rake hikes will be at the lowest and highest stakes, leaving the middle ground untouched.
“There’s absolutely no question about that, recreational is our focus,” said Mansour. “We’re definitely moving into that niche.” But he added that the company will not be shutting the door on the higher-volume players.
The changes will involve loyalty programs devised to better reward recreational players – the focus of the company’s efforts.
“The way the industry rewards players for their loyalty is on volume of play and that doesn’t necessarily reflect the benefit they’re giving to the site,” Mansour said.
“Therefore the players that fall into the category of recreational, something like 95 percent of your total database of players, are not experiencing that reward program. And if they are, they’re getting so little out of it that it’s not really changing their behavior or making them play more and have more fun.”
http://www.pokerlistings.com/full-tilt-upping-rake-to-fund-new-features-for-rec-players-36625