When partypoker launched its Cashback rewards program a couple weeks ago, there was a little line at the bottom of the Cashback rewards page that indicated that some sort of VIP level was coming soon. And soon it did, as less than a week later, the online poker room announced the launch of the Diamond Club, a level of partypoker’s rakeback system that is reserved for only the highest volume players.
One thing that is interesting about Diamond Club is that, unlike the usual tiered loyalty system, nobody gains membership into this VIP level automatically. Players must e-mail partypoker to apply for membership and then, if accepted (one would assume that their account history and past play is reviewed first), they then work their way to official Diamond Club membership.
In order to reach that level, players must earn 100,000 points over a twelve month time period.* One point is earned per dollar of rake contributed in any sort of real money poker game, cash games and tournaments alike. What’s cool is that a player will earn the normal rakeback based on the Cashback rewards table and then, when he hits the 100,000 point mark, he will be given all the additional rakeback to reflect the higher percentage, as well as more VIP rewards.
The top standard Cashback rate is 40 percent, whereas Diamond Club’s rate is 50 percent. Thus, a player would earn $40,000 in rakeback for accumulating 100,000 points normally, but at that point, the Diamond Club requirements are hit, so partypoker will top the player off with an additional $10,000. From there, rakeback would continue at 50 percent.
The man who will oversee the Diamond Club program will be partypoker Ambassador Patrick Leonard, who also plans to work with players to continually improve the system.
“I joined partypoker initially because management promised me that they would have the player’s best interests in mind and invest in the poker community and the Diamond Club will be an important part of this strategy,” he told the partypoker blog.
He continued:
Over recent years, I have unfortunately seen certain online sites punish regular players who start games and encourage predatory regulars to prey on amateur players and weaker players. The Diamond Club will reward regulars who start games and continue games and not reward these predatory regs who jump into a game for a small amount of time when they believe their win rate is sky high and sit out when the weaker player has gone broke. I’ve seen a lot of people who don’t have a background in poker try and come up with ‘revolutionary’ ways to improve loyalty systems and not surprisingly, most of them have failed. Quite simply, those who want to support partypoker and make this their home for playing poker will be rewarded generously. Those who want to use partypoker to only prey on weaker players will not.
That is some hot fire.
*The partypoker blog post says “players must commit to earning 100,000 points,” hence the initial Diamond Club application and subsequent climb to working off the requirements.
