PartyPoker m.d. Tom Waters announced over the weekend that PartyPoker is to lower fees in selected real money online poker tourneys, specifically removing rake on the bounty element from all Knockout events starting Sunday, May 6th.
The move represents a 40 percent to 60 percent reduction for bounty MTTs, the company claims.
Poker fans will have noticed that that is the date on which the PartyPoker $40 million guaranteed Powerfest series commences.
In a statement accompanied by a detailed schedule here: Waters explained:
“Since PKO tournaments (MTTs) were launched, there has been much debate in the online poker world as to whether it is fair on players for online poker sites to apply additional rake to the bounty element of buy-ins in PKO MTTs, instead of just applying rake to the portion of the buy-in that goes directly into the main prize pool.
“For example, should the rake for a $22 PKO MTT be $1 or $2?
“After reviewing feedback from the poker community and lobbying from Patrick Leonard, we will remove rake on the bounty element on all our PKO MTTs with effect from Sunday 6th May, in time for our Powerfest PKO events. We will hold this policy for six months with the intention to make this a permanent reduction to our pricing structure. We have over 350 PKO MTTs per week with guarantees of over $4 million, so clearly, we will need players continued support to remain competitive revenue wise with other online poker sites.
“What does this mean for players?
“Players will now be paying less rake and their bounties will be bigger, whilst the total buy-in will remain the same so that players can still use their existing MTT tickets that they have won in satellites for PKO MTTs.
“The table below compares our current buy-ins and rake, alongside the new reduced rake structure. As you can see, this is a 40 percent to 60 percent reduction for bounty MTTs, depending on the buy-in level.
“This also means that the value of bounties will increase by between 4 percent and 12 percent as the old rake amount will be added to bounties won by players.”
The announcement triggered lively exchanges by players on the TwoplusTwo forum here