Liquidity Split Verified by iPoker

Company claims that policy change is designed to improve poker environment

Recent launch of the fast-fold product Sprint Poker by Playtech’s iPoker Network has been followed with a rather divisive notification on a policy change aimed at dividing player liquidity by grading operators on their active and new player numbers, whereas certain virtual tables will be available solely to top-tier rooms.

On Thursday, iPoker officially announced its plans for the policy implementation as of 1st July 2012, as a confirmation of the speculations heard over the last few weeks.

In a nutshell, the company will divide players into two separate liquidity pools or tiers by grading network operators on their active and new player statistics, and keeping top tables for top operators.

As per the definition, the top tier consists of skins that keep a minimum base of 6,000 monthly active players and recruit at least 850 new real-money players on monthly basis. The numbers provided by operators will be tested by the network through a scoring process and monthly audits starting from September this year.

The second tier player pool will be available to skins that do not fulfill the minimum requirements, the policy specifies.

According to the estimates, major iPoker operators such as BetFred, William Hill, Titan Poker, Paddy Power Poker and Bet365 will dominate the top tier.

In an effort to clarify its decision, iPoker stated that their idea was to “maximize the end user experience,” and create a better poker environment by extending players$ life time expectancy on the network and the deposit over spend period for players, reducing what it referred to as the “drain volume” amongst iPoker card rooms.

Market experts claim the main reason behind the issuance of the policy is an attempt to attract more recreational players and decrease the number of winning players or “sharks”.