War on the Bonus Whores?

The Absolute Poker gravy train slowed down last month with new bonus terms, and will come to a complete halt Feb 1st if they go through with bonuses deducted from rakeback and a tighter contributed rakeback method. Too bad there aren't any other real gravy trains out there for US players. (Rooms that combine a good population, good bonus, fat rakeback with no deductions).

There does seem to be an effort on the part of the online poker rooms to slow down the bonus whoring movement. Makes sense. There was a time when every poker room for the most part had “party poker“ bonuses. The idea wasn't to make money off the player while they cleared bonus, but to draw them there with the bonus and make money later after the bonus was cleared. However, with the immense popularity of bonus whoring, you had players who just cleared bonuses, moved on, and only visited again when there was another bonus. The poker rooms were not making a dime off these players.

If a player is giving a net monthly loss to the casino (clearing more bonus than they generate in rake), why would the casino care if that player leaves? In the brick and mortar world, if a player is continuously making money off a casino, they get blacklisted and booted out of Vegas.

I've seen so many players venting their anger, pulling up stakes to move to another poker room, emailing Absolute to let them know they've just lost a customer, etc etc., when a closer analogy would be finally kicking that freeloading relative off your couch.

I'm not trying to be condescending to the bonus whoring population. We've even got a How To: Bonus Whoring formula on PSORG. I'm just trying my best to put all of this into perspective. I think bonus whores should expect the following in 2007:

1. Tougher bonus clearing terms across the board that allows the poker room to make money even as the bonus whore is clearing bonuses.
2. If bonus whoring is what keeps your bankroll afloat, expect to go broke.
3. Players who were satisfied with bonus and rakeback income at micro levels, to a point that they did not desire to move up and get better, will find that if they want poker to continue to be a nice side income, they'll need to take a shot at $2/$4, $3/$6, $4/$8 and on up.

I think #3 is good for players whose original intent was to become good at poker, not to become good at clearing bonuses. In fact, I've come to a firm conclusion over the past year and a half that bonus whoring has seriously retarded the development of potentially excellent poker players.

An old saying that I just made up says once you're happy with where you are, there's no need to keep looking at the roadmap. Time to break out those dusty roadmaps (poker books, critical thinking skills) and start charting a course for bigger returns.