|
On December 17th, 2006, hundreds of poker players competed online for a piece of a $10,000 prize pool and a shot at $1,000,000 in a multi-table Texas Hold ‘em freeroll. As “freeroll” implies, there was no entry fee to this tournament. Okay, you say, so what? Online freerolls are abundant – many are a lot bigger than a $10,000 prize pool.
What made this tournament different is that the players never had to make a single real-money wager to gain entry. The buy-in did not require loyalty points earned while playing for real money. In fact, no player ever made a deposit of any kind.
The players earned the right to play simply by playing poker, for fun, at a sponsor-supported site, PrizeWagon.com. PrizeWagon makes its money from advertising and, in turn, gives a piece of that revenue to the players in the form of tournament prizes.
There are three components in virtually every legal definition of gambling – consideration, chance, and reward, also referred to as payment, luck, and prize. For a service to be considered a gambling service, all three must be present. A service with any one of these components absent is not considered gambling.
There has been much discussion with regard to the “chance” vs. “skill” aspect of poker. If found to be strictly a skill game, and “chance” is eliminated from the equation, then poker is not a gambling service. However, ask anyone at your local branch of the Justice Department and he will tell you with firm conviction that chance is a component of poker. In light of the recent antifunding legislation, real money poker players in the US are beginning to wonder if they will have a place to play in the future.
The PrizeWagon model is interesting because they have completely eliminated the consideration component of gambling. Since one never makes a deposit or puts anything of value at risk, they believe their service is completely legal in the United States and, in fact, their home office is located in a suburb of Atlanta.
Will poker players accept this model? “This isn’t for every poker player,” says Jim Kitchen, VP of Business Development at PrizeWagon. “If you are a money player who thrives on the immediate rush of winning real money, this service is probably not for you. There are, however, plenty of players who enjoy the game primarily for fun. Throw in a chance to win a decent prize, and we think our product is pretty compelling.”
How compelling could it be? PrizeWagon won’t discuss raw player numbers, but will say they have far exceeded their original projections for player growth.
PrizeWagon also pitches the concept that, since there are prizes involved, the poker action is much more realistic. We spent a little time playing at PrizeWagon and found that there are some hoops you have to jump through to gain entry into the prize tournaments. And although the poker play in the early rounds of these hoops is pretty unrealistic, we did find that as we moved up into later rounds the quality of play did, indeed, become much stronger.
So, is this a viable model for a poker service in the US? Early signs seem to indicate that this model fills a niche. Is this the future of online poker in the US? Only time will tell.
|
