Microgaming Cut Rake on Fish Party Sit and Go's
Lottery style sit n gos (think PokerStars Spin & Go, iPoker's Twister Sit & Go, Party Poker's Sit & Go Hero), have, by and large, been a hit for poker sites, aimed as they are the 'recreational players'. However, the more serious poker players have long argued that the rake is unbeatable. In fact, when bosses at MPN (Microgaming) took a long, hard, look at the figures - they found that they had to agree and have subsequently slashed the rake for their "Fish Party" Lottery sit & gos.
The Fish Party games are slightly different to other lottery sit & gos in that when they launched earlier this year they added a progressive jackpot element with an additional rake contribution per game which would help build some pretty impressive jackpots. The problem has been that although the operator rake contribution of just 5% was very reasonable, the additional rake for the jackpot worked out at another 5.17%, making an effective rake of more than 10% - too high, as it turns out for even the best players to turn a long term profit. The only way a player was likely to come out ahead in the long run was to win a jackpot - and with odds of 200,000-1 that isn't very likely!
Head of Poker at MPN, Alex Scott wrote in a recent blog post: 'My immediate reaction to the complaints was simply ‘we designed the games with recreational players in mind’, but after a little more reflection I thought ‘what if these guys are right and it’s not possible to win?'
Scott continued; 'I believe that for a poker game to be successful, there needs to be a proper balance of luck and skill. Poker is not like roulette or slots, and players who play poker do so with different motivation... in poker the game must be beatable by some in the long term, or it’s not poker and a significant number of poker fans won’t play."
As a result, fans of Fish Party games will be much happier with MPN's decision to reduce the jackpot contribution from 5.17% to just 0.85%.
Alex Scott and his team had to rework their model to allow for the lesser rake, which means that when the changes are put into place on Wednesday 14th December the payouts will be more bottom-heavy and players will hit the lowest (2x) multiplier less often, but hit a 4x or 6x multiplier more often (the 4x multiplier actually replaces the 3x multiplier of the current maths model) which should result in a much improved ROI for skilled players.
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