PartTimePoker hosts one of the industry’s leading staking sites. It matches low-stakes and high-stakes poker players with some of the industry’s top backers. Coming off a highly-successful 2008 World Series of Poker showing, the founder of PartTimePoker, Chris Grove, spoke with Poker News Daily about the challenges of running a staking site in today’s online poker world.
Poker News Daily: What is PartTimePoker?
Grove: I started PartTimePoker about five years ago. I had been playing online for a few months and was frustrated by the lack of useful information out there for intermediate and beginning players. Back then, there were a lot more affiliate-driven websites. Those exist alongside community sites like TwoPlusTwo and PocketFives today. I decided to make a website that I would want to use. PartTimePoker started as a strategy and review site for players who played part-time. The site has since morphed into offering propping and rakeback. It’s more content-driven as well. We acquired NeverBeg, a major staking site, in February of 2007.
PND: Explain the allure of staking. Why do players do it and what effect does it have on their games?
Grove: The allure has changed. When we first started offering staking, PartTimePoker was a much smaller site than it is now. It was more about forging a community. It’s fun to have a rooting interest in other people and we provided a way to do it.
From a player’s perspective, one of the reasons it was called NeverBeg was that it was a place for people who were broke and needed money to find funding. Now, the allure is a lot more straight-forward. For players looking to reduce variance, they can do so on the site. For the backers who visit PartTimePoker, we have an impressive lineup of players. If you invest wisely, you can get a good return on your money.
PND: How does the staking process work on PartTimePoker?
Grove: Overall, we have two outlets. One is called “staking.” The other is called “buy a piece.” Staking is backer-initiated. A backer will say that he has a certain amount of money and is looking for someone to use it. Players will reply in a thread and then the backer selects who they want. In buy a piece, players post a part of their action that they’re looking to sell and set a share price. Backers can purchase however many shares they want to.
PND: Talk about the accolades of some of your players who have been staked.
Grove: We had a very good showing at the 2008 World Series of Poker. It was a breakout year for us. We had three players who were staked make final tables. One was in the Razz event and two players final tabled separate $1,500 buy-in Hold’em events. Those three cashes were worth around $500,000 total. The site had over a quarter of a million dollars in backing for the WSOP. It’s a pretty good amount of money for an online backing site and provided a good return for our investors.
PND: How do you find backers? What’s he allure for them of staking, especially when they assume risk?
Grove: If you’re a good player, you’re giving up a potential payout by accepting backing. I’m a winning player and so to give up any action is sacrificing some of my would-be winnings. Variance has driven the relationship. Anyone who has knowledge of poker knows that there’s variance involved. From the player’s perspective, it’s about smoothing out variance.
PND: How has the recent poker boom changed the staking industry? What do you see as its future?
Grove: Backing definitely has a fairly permanent place in poker. It has had a very long history and I don’t see it going anyway anytime soon. People are naturally risk averse. They’re willing to give up a part of their earnings if it gets them some peace of mind.
PND: What measures are there to protect against bad business?
Grove: Online poker gives backers a really unique opportunity to track the play of people that they’re backing. Before, if you gave someone a couple hundred dollars, you were going out on a flier because you couldn’t review exactly how they were going to play. Now, you can track results. Whenever you have more information at your fingertips, you’re going to have more confidence and interest in investing.
It’s certainly a leap of faith to transfer money over the internet to someone and then expect them to follow through. We’re limited in what we can do. I can’t go over to the police department and ask them to arrest someone. A lot of what we do is predicated on blocking access to the site. We’re in contact with other staking sites. We’re in regular contact with online poker rooms like PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. We keep a lot of information on our players and use it if there are any problems in order to prohibit them from doing it the future. The best deterrent is to make PartTimePoker a place where the benefit of being able to pocket a few hundred dollars isn’t worth it.
Hello,
I am a big time grinder at live tables all over the world and USA and this is my story about PTP!!!
This site is the most childless and unproffesional site i have came across. I have been play cash tables and live tournys all over the world and the talk at a lot of tables was staking people that are new to the poker world to become the next bracelet winner. So I open the search engine up and look for staking sites and go to PTP because it is the most popular and when i check out a site that im going to invest thousands and thousands of dollars to players that want there shot the first place i go to is the forums to see what kind of business that they conduct off of the tables.
I came across a thread that was new rule changes in the shooting off forum and i started to read but couldnt keep up with all of the members mad cause they couldnt swear in the shooting off or be able to slam another member by calling them names? WHAT KIND OF SITE IS THIS?? Do i want to invest lots of money for members that are more worried about be able to swear then being able to be civial to one another member? Today there was another thread that was titled No more swearing? What can we say? (must be over 18) So in courisity i opend it up and right from the get go its nothing but derogatory, filth, disgusting words and on top of it all other members were chimming in.
To all the proffesional players that i meet or come across at the tables and WSOP tables from USA, Canada, and around the world where I play i will be sure to let them know that PTP is nothing but a unproffesional site for players that have big money to invest in Unless they can show me otherwise and clean up there ways especially bickering about why they cant swear,
Whats the big deal?? one member asked? simple words i can understand but come on this site should not be PTP PartimePoker more like CPP Children Play Poker. I will be sure as I said to let all my fellow members of the live world of playing poker to not invest in this little Kindergarden site. Maybe thats why they dont have major investors that are members like pocketfive or a few others.
I am very disappointed and am going to invest my money in other sites that have more controll over there members especially new members I cant tell you how many times I read a post by a new member in there to have another member tell him to shut up or your dumb for making a post you should just die (thats what i read from some member cause he didnt like what the new member posted) WOW!!!!
Another post had people are so fuc**ing stupid. No my friend you are cause you just costs your site a big time player willing to stake big money with lots of players to be able to push the online poker into the big scene of live play (kinda like minor leagues) to be able to play with the big boys so people arent fuc**ing stupid I believe you may be with your mouth!!
thanks and please feel free to contact me for any questions or comments. Im sure you will hear about how big players will not stake on PTP cause of lack of being proffesional. They have to remember Poker is a game of life and earnings not a game of hide and go seek and hopscotch. Grow Up PTP before you lose all crediability!!!
Mr Craig Johnson
so how broke are you craig?
don’t listen to this guy. PTP already has millions of dollars flowing through the site and is definitely the best place to go for not only backing, but also relaxing and enjoying shooting the sh*t with other good poker players.
I have been a member of parttimepoker for over two years and I can honestly say that the leaps and bounds the site has grown by is only surpassed by the dedication of the administrators willingness to improve the morale and the overall advancement of the community.
You can equate a few people getting under your skin and negatively affecting your approach to staking to a “bad beat” at the poker table. And to continue with this analogy, PTP is the equivalent to aces vs A6o.
Mr Craig Johnson sir, you sound like a disgruntled former member who is no longer allowed to access the tremendous tools any online poker poker player can access with membership (which is 100% free).
The comment you have posted is rather childish itself and should be viewed upon as so.
Good day.
thanks Mr. Johnson for not joining the site. Youll be sorely missed. lol
I have been a member of PTP for over 2 years. I’m a very active member both in the staking and playing side of the site, and I will say that the constant improvement and overall value of the site is huge. I’m very happy to be a member and will happily remain that way. The site staff work hard to protect stakers money, and that in and of itself has a ton of value. There has been over 10 million staked on the site, and its continuing to grow more and more every single day.
I am a current member with money invested and Have open BAP’s and I totally agree with this craig johnson guy. The treatment of new players is bad and their is generally a lack of respect to the smaller players and investors.
PTP is a great site, The SO (shooting off) forum is a place where you can unwind and talk about what ever you want its no surprise you look in there and find some “Un-Professional” post, even if you dont want to do that there are a lot of people on that site that keep there heads out of SO and keep just stay in the staking forums. There is alot of joking in the SO forum and I think you might be reading too much into it. Also sometimes people I would say mainly new people to the site will start to flames people, this is just life no one gets on with everyone and people let it out in different ways some people let it out, some people keep there fingers off the key board so to speak. Obviously this site has rules and if someone crosses these rules you will be given infractions or even a temporarily or permernant ban.
If you come out of the SO forum you might find the staking and strategy forum where everything is all serious there.
If your a poker player or even just a mutual investor you would be dumb not to see how profitable you can be with this site.
The negative comments here make me laugh. I don’t know any professional (in any profession) that does not incorporate fun and relaxation into their lives. This is what SO if for. And they don’t treat new players bad, they ignore bad players. I invest on the site, but I suck at poker. At least I have enough common sense not to ask for money when my stats clearly show that I suck. I have invested in new players numerous times because their stats can back them up.
If you are serious about poker, yet like to have fun while not investing or playing, and your stats show that you are a profitable player, you would definitely be a great addition to PTP.
I have been a member of PTP for just over a year now. I understand where Craig is coming from but I think he is missing something. He is missing the fact that the Admin at PTP is making steps to create a “better” environment at PTP by instituting these new rules in Shooting off.
Unfortunately Craig landed there right in the midst of it and got to view some of the inevitable ugly stuff while the site is in it’s time of transition.
I find it rather narrow minded to form an opinion on a site based on the one area where zero business is conducted. There are countless members at the site who conduct their business there and never step foot in SO. The rules are different in SO than in other areas of the site, there is zero tolerance for bad behaviour in the business areas.
Judging the site negatively on what you saw on a specific day when major changes have JUST been made in a specific area to avoid the specific reaction that you had seems rather odd to me.
There are many very talented players at PTP, lots of up and coming players, lots of grinders who are happy to BAP out their action and consistently make you money. There are tons of new players who use PTP as a learning tool as well as a place to get staked. We have players from Pros to brand new.
There are tons of stakers at PTP from the new player who contributes back to the site in small amounts to huge stakers (we currently have a count down on who will reach $1,000,000 staked out first) There is currently an insane amount of PTP member money at the WSOP. If PTP was such an awful place this certainly wouldn’t be the case.
The admin recognizes that PTP has evolved just as any successful internet site does and is working to keep up with that evolution by instituting changes in the non business areas of the site. I think they should be commended instead of penalized for this!
One thing the article failed to mention is how much money their staff (admins/mods) have up and run with tens of thousands of dollars of their members money (probably upto hundreds of thousands now). The people who run it are a joke with no business sense – all they are doing trying to generate $$$ without properly managing or running the back end of a business. This is evident in how they ban people who try and suggest better ways of running things, but will keep people who had rolled for hundreds or thousands of dollars – especially if they are a good player?? because theres the hope theyll win and pay back so they can still have access (not to mention probably roll again) PTP isn’t really legal either but the pokersites are ok with it because its a way of hooking young/underage players into it (kinda like how big tobacco had people smoking back in the heydey). I kind of think of pokersites as amusement parks, and PTP is the shady carnival within it.. run by carnies. They may not be bigger, but there are alot of better staking sites out there and definitely better poker community sites.
sorry craig you are dead wrong about PTP. PTP has always been professional and done their best to keep the trash and scum out, and the good players and stakers in. You are posting in here about a forum called “shooting off”. Its called shooting off so you can blow off steam and say wtf you want to say about your day, or someone, or anything in general. If you go to any other part of the site it is professional. If you go into Buy a piece, its strictly about business and no joking around is tolerated at all. If you go into make a deal, its strictly business and if anyone tries to goof off in there and make a dumb thread they are instantly in report abse section and taken care of. In your post you are only telling about the “shooting off” portion of the site which is meant to be there to tell jokes and blow steam. You fail to point out any other part of the site, maybe its because you didnt take the time to look? Also there is a strat section where any “serious player” can get tips and strat from top notch online players. There is even a videos section where top players post videos FOR FREE, for all beginners to view to try and helpout there game. So next time your gonna say the site is a “playground” at least include other things about the site. You chose to only take the road of the “negative” side of the site. (which in your opinion its negative). A lot of people dont even go into the shooting off forum, they stay to the business side of things. To be honest, You are losing an oppurtunity to invest and make lots of moneys off of great players by taking this road. I wish you luck investing in other sites, but no other site have I seen a attn donks thread every single night plastered in shooting off of horses crushing games. Good luck to you in the future, and we at PTP will crush!!!!
i would like to clear some things up if you look at the posts by some guy and Ervinsm clearly shows how childish this site is. I state my opinon of what i observed and then i get the kids to comment stupid things. Just like what they do in shooting off.
Look im not saying the site is a bad site nor am i saying that its not improving and I will consider the fact that it is in transition and improving. My main point I think is overlooked is and I dont think that im getting it across is, that granted there are players that seem to do well there and there are players that seem to do bad regardless of either or any site, job, occupation, ANY WHERE casino ect……. Would not tolerate nor approve of such as people have stated having fun flaming people (one person mentiond) and use such posts titles SANDY VAGINA come on people are you serious you really think that is appropriate for any kind of site or place (comment) I don’t know any professional (in any profession) that does not incorporate fun and relaxation into their lives. This is what SO if for. And they don’t treat new players bad, they ignore bad players yeah well i can mention about half a thousand that would not let you talk like that regardless of the situation. so your mood point about that is totally unjust.
I agree with a lot of points about not talking about the good things so here is what i saw
BAP seemed to be a good place if you want to invest in somone to play for you as long as your not new.
Stratagy MTT and sit and go kinda is like lets make fun of the person that played that hand. There are posts in there when i guy posts a hand i have read ( your dumb to make that call, well what did you expect calling with shit like that, thats why you have negative ROI for making calls like that ect ect ect……) so another area that is very unproffesional as well there are some good comments in there as well with actually members that give advice but it dosent weigh out the negative comments that players leave for somone that made a questionable call with a hand.
tips section is helpful to the new person as well as the videos
but all in all as another person pointed out in here unless you are a member for a long standing time you are treated with a lack of respect criticizim and childish behaviors and this is for anyone that access your site to observe just read the posts i recomend people to read the posts in shooting off and judge for themselves
another point i would like to address no i have never been a member nor a banned member of your site. I was looking into the aspect of taking internet staking sites to a new degree as i mentioned like a minor league system sort of speaking me and a handful investors were willing to bank some players. So rest assure that i am not one of your disgruntled ex member
Keep in mind when you are with a site that treats people with lack of respect and allows members to treat new mebers and others with lack of respect that they are going to hurt themselves and the sites respect. I will also keep in mind that i had came into a scene where things it seems were in a turn about way in making a site a more proffesional way but as of now i recomend to all potential stakers to avoid a site that needs some growing up to do certian members (and seems to be the ones that have been there awhile that should no better and welcome the new people not insult them or make stupid vulgar threads about nothing, and may i say sexist and totally inapproprite threads about women.
But you are all right that is just a small portion of what this site is about however that small portion can seem a way to break down the walls of another staking site to step in your place.
I went back in and noticed the post about this response and had to laugh honestly on some of the comments left by some members there, and was impressed by one of your moderators i assumed Joker and a few other members that seem to thrive for a better place which was very impressive in my opinon. No that is not me that somone has a profile for I dont play online poker nor have i ever I play live cash and tournys like my fellow investors. So you can be assured that is not me well you can make your own judgment on that. Btw and i can only assume that you all realize that craig johnson is not my real name as if i would leave my real name I would be spammed by people wanting to talk with me.
i also had to laugh on another members comment about my lack of spelling and wording yeah you are correct i normaly dont type out responses but have someone else do that for me but it was 2am and i felt like i needed to as some of you would say vent
As i mentioned before and another member mentioned in that post PTP has the potential to become the corner market for online staking but first you need to clean up the middle school/high school talk and treating the new people with more respect and then and only then will it be a thriving site for backers like me and my fellow members.
good luck to all of you members and continue of success and I hope maybe we will come back and see what progress has happened in reconsidering this site as our test to bigger and better goals for everyone and good luck at the tables .
I am a member of PTP and have never been to the SO forum because it does not make money.
If you look for trouble you will usually find it. I mean no disrespect by this, but you are a fool Mr. Johnson.
PTP have that buddy system where the mods protect their buddies even if they make stupid mistakes.
One suggestion to Mr Johnson is to just keep his mouth shut and look for good baps. That’s what I’ve done ever since I got unjustly IG geared.
There is definitely heavy favoritism going on but that does not bother me because I am there to make money off of good players.