Real Gaming, the third and least frequented online poker site in Nevada, is striving to gain traction in the market or at least make its presence known. This effort is evident in their announcement of their latest promotion, the Real50. It’s worth noting that Real Gaming’s traffic is so low it isn’t even measurable by pokerscout.com.
Based on the rake chase promotion model, the promotion also serves as a tournament leader-board. Real50, a year-long rewards program, also includes a Player of the Year award. The program will distribute monthly prizes to the top 50 players on the site. In addition, it will award a yearly prize to the best of the best – the top 3 players with the highest rake after a year.
Every month, the site will distribute $7,000 among its highest-ranking players, with an annual prize fund of $16,000 for the top players. In total, Real Gaming will give away $100,000 throughout the promotion – an impressive sum considering the site is on the verge of receiving no traffic.
To participate in the promotion, you are required to deposit $50 at Real Gaming and achieve the minimum loyalty scores each month. Apart from these requirements, all you need to do is play at the Real Gaming tables.
Who will get paid during the Real50?
On a monthly basis, the website will distribute $7,000 of giveaway money among its top players. Specifically, the top 100 players will share the prize money, not just the top 50. This is because there will be two separate leader-boards: one for “Small Stakes” and another for “Medium Stakes,” and the monthly prize distribution will be divided accordingly.
- Small Stakes = $2,000
- Medium Stakes = $5,000
The annual distributions for the Player of the Year prize will be:
- Small Stakes = $6,000
- Medium Stakes = $10,000
Small Stakes Leader-Board
Total prize money allocated for small stakes: $2,000
Minimum Loyalty Score: 60
Stakes for which you are eligible: 10c/20c, 20c/40c, 50c/$1.
- 1st – 23%
- 2nd – 12%
- 3rd – 6%
- 4th-10th – 3%
- 11th-20th – 1.6%
- 21st-30th – 1.05%
- 31st-40th – .75%
- 41st-50th – .4%
Medium Stakes Leader-Board
Total prize money allocated for medium stakes: $5,000
Minimum Loyalty Score: 80
Stakes eligible: $1/$2, $2/$4, $5/$10
- 1st – 23%
- 2nd – 12%
- 3rd – 6%
- 4th-10th – 3%
- 11th-20th – 1.6%
- 21st-30th – 1.05%
- 31st-40th – .75%
- 41st-50th – .4%
Yearly Player of the Year leader-board
The annual awards are somewhat different. Only the top three finishers will be eligible for the yearly leaderboard prizes, resulting in significantly large paydays for the winners.
The individual topping each leaderboard will be awarded 50% of the set prize ($10k for Medium Stakes players and $6k for Small Stakes players). The second-place finisher will get 30% and the third-place finisher will get 20% of the prize. The following are the specific cash rewards:
Winner of small stakes – $3,000
Runner-up in small stakes – $1,800
Third place finisher in small stakes – $1,200
Winner of medium stakes – $5,000
Runner-up in medium stakes – $3,000
Third place finisher in medium stakes – $2,000
Will it help?
As stated in the introduction, Real Gaming’s traffic is nearly at zero, barely having enough players to maintain one table. While the promotion might draw players to Real Gaming’s tables, ultimately, only a superior product will resolve their traffic issues.
The present Real Gaming client wouldn’t even have been satisfactory back in 2003, much less in 2014.
The Real Gaming software appears outdated in terms of visuals and capabilities. Additionally, it has several bugs leading to lag and choppiness. There are also some potential exploitable bugs, which I choose not to highlight to avoid attracting unscrupulous players to misuse them on the site. Real Gaming is cognizant of these issues.
Let’s return to the topic of the promotion.
I’m confident that a website where players are virtually assured of ranking in the top 50 each month will experience a boost in traffic. However, like numerous other sites that have attempted to resolve their issues by investing heavily, what occurs when the promotional period concludes?
In conclusion, if Real Gaming manages to launch a 2.0 version of their software in the initial months of the Real50 promotion, it might be exactly what the site needs to attract players.
Essentially, if Real50 is the solution, it won’t be effective. However, if Real50 is used as a marketing tool to bring attention to the actual solution (improved software), it might just be successful.
