WSOP Bahamas is causing controversy by taking money from the prize pool for buffets and hotel stays. [Image: WSOP.com]

An unpopular and over-priced hotel

Last week, I shamelessly got other people to write the bulk of my article on the upcoming mêlée-à-trois between the World Poker Tour (WPT) Wynn, European Poker Tour (EPT) Prague and World Series of Poker (WSOP) Bahamas. From a sample size of 21 notable players from Europe and North America, it culminated in plenty of compliments for EPT Prague, but a resounding endorsement of the WPT World Championships. It was noteworthy how only two people had anything nice to say and most were extremely negative about the WSOP at the Atlantis. 

In the few paragraphs that I actually contributed myself, I echoed those feelings, wondering if GGPoker and WSOP had made a misstep by choosing to go toe to toe to toe with two of the year’s biggest festivals on either side of the pond. In August, they released their 15-event $50m schedule and there was noticeably little furore. The idea of playing poker in an unpopular and over-priced hotel during the off-season in a country where the local population cannot play generated close to zero buzz. Add to that a long history of winning players being hassled at the border and it actually generated a lot of negative comparisons. 

a standout curmudgeonly act that I have never seen before by an operator

This week, GGPoker made the idea of attending the WSOP Bahamas even less enticing as it added online Day 1s and announced that it was deducting money from the guaranteed prize pools to pay for 11-night hotel stays and daily free lunch buffets for each of the qualifiers ($6,500 per player). The online Day 1s will make the fields automatically more sharky while this qualifier hotel and lunch tax is a standout curmudgeonly act that I have never seen before by an operator. 

Taking the players’ lunch money

When the WSOP announced its 12-day festival in the Bahamas, it decided on a $5,300 buy-in $15m-guarantee Main Event with a $10m-guarantee Highroller, a $5m-guarantee Mystery Bounty, a $5m-guarantee Millionaire Maker, and eleven smaller side events. These sounded like big numbers until the WPT World Championship blew WSOP out of the water by promising an eye-watering $40m in its Main Event prize pool. 

WSOP was well aware of the clash it was instigating with the WPT but it presumably put a lot of stock in the allure of the bracelet, tempting players off the Strip and to the Caribbean. The WSOP would also have considered itself as having a big weapon in the form of GGPoker’s massive liquidity. The online site is the location of the only truly global player pool, catering to just about every country, regardless of ring-fenced markets and flouting the UIGEA, the Interactive Gambling Act, and other regulations. 

That confidence seems to be wavering now, however, as GGPoker scrambles to make changes, adding online flights, deducting hotel costs, and taking the player’s lunch money to reduce the effective prizepool. 

More rake is better 

These kinds of sneaky tactics have become par for the course with GGPoker which, having taken over the mantle of industry leader from Pokerstars a couple of years ago, is now adopting a ‘more rake is better’ for its bottom line approach. The rake on the GGPoker cash games is already exorbitant and these changes to the WSOP Bahamas come during a week when we saw GGPoker take heat for increasing its already egregious ‘admin fees’. 

This is the problem when companies hit the front and realize that they can gouge their customers for more short-term profit. Poker players are normally savvier than most when it comes to recognizing these types of money-grabs but it has not yet reached a point where a significant number are voting with their feet. 

Pokerstars learned the hard way in the Amaya era how a breaking point can be reached and consumer confidence can be eroded. There is always a straw that breaks the camel’s back. I believe that the WSOP Bahamas will be a significant litmus test for GGPoker in this regard.